Faith is a gift that has a beneficial effect upon our disposition. It engenders within us the fear of God, and it is fear of God that teaches us to obey the Commandments and to live virtuously. A virtuous way of life brings us longed-for dispassion, and dispassion in turn brings love, that which unites and is the fullness of all of the Commandments.

Ven. St. Theodore of Edessa

Faith and hope are not simple or accidental spiritual states, for to have faith demands of us spiritual strength, while to have hope demands of us a righteous disposition and a righteous heart. Moreover, without the assistance of grace, how can one readily believe in the invisible? And how can one unwaveringly hope in the invisible and in what is to come, if he has not first acquired some personal experience in the Lord's beneficence, experience which gives him assurance as to the future as well as the present? Thus, both of these virtues demand an effort of our will, and at the same time as well, God's help and assistance, without which all of our efforts are for naught.

Ven. St. Theognost

While still in the body, the soul passes through three ages – youth, maturity, and old age. Likewise, faith passes through three stages – the beginning of faith, success in faith, and perfection. In the first, when the soul begins to believe, it is, in the words of the Gospel, born in Christ. The Apostle John showed us the signs of this new birth, and of the intermediate state and of perfection: "I write unto you, little children…; I write unto you, young men…; I write unto you, fathers… " (I John 2: 12-14). He was writing not to physical friends, but to all the faithful, and was revealing to them the three different states through which those moving forward in the spiritual realm go in order to achieve perfection and to be made worthy of complete grace.

Ven. St. Anthony the Great