I took your post in 860 to mean that you believed faith to be a gift. You highlighted the following:
For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)
By highlighting through faith and not of works" you imply that faith is not a work. But the not refers back to it is the gift of God as well. So proper interpretation of the sentence of what you have highlighted would be through faith, it is the gift of God, not of works
Another interpretation as to what the gift of God is would be:
For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)
This, of course gives a completely different meaning. Paul contrast the gift of God against what is not a work. So the question becomes what is the gift of God?
The exegetical flimsiness of using this passage [Eph. 2:8-9] in this way should be common knowledge. Apparently it is not. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Calvin, Calovius, Olshausen, Meyer, Chandler, Adam Clarke, Ellicot, Alford, Salmond in EGT, Eadie, Vincent, A. T. Robertson, Wuest, F. F. Bruce (an impenitent Augustinian and Calvinist), and even extreme Calvinist Homer Hoeksema are among the host who reject such isogesis since they recognized that the relative pronoun touto (this) is neuter and pistis (faith) is feminine and cannot serve as its antecedent. Although Calvin doesnt explain the grammar, he is very explicit about this error:So we're back to where we were before: Faith, trusting God, is neither a work, nor is it a gift from God, but rather a response to God offering the gift of salvation.And here we must advert to a very common error in the interpretation of this passage. Many persons restrict the word gift to faith alone. But Paul is only repeating in other words the former sentiment. His meaning is, not that faith is the gift of God, but that salvation is given to us by God, or, that we obtain it by the gift of God. (emphasis Olsens)(Olsen, Gordon C., Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism: An Inductive Mediate Theology of Salvation, p. 221)