The certainty of faith is utter assurance because it depends upon nothing of your own. It is entirely trusting that God is a propitious, pardoning God—the God who justifies sinners by forgiving them.
Sinners get faith as a gift when Christ takes their captivity captive.

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Looking at our dining room table most days, you might think we were running a cartoon factory out of our house. Drawings. Everywhere.
We’ve been desperate—and it is a gift of God when we are, when we realize our lost condition!
One of my favorite shows in recent memory is the American law enforcement drama Law & Order.
In other words, they had too much religion and not enough Yahweh. Or, to put it in New Testament terms, they worked so hard at being religious that they put Jesus out of work.
Though they have never left the church, they have been lost all the while.
When I first began to hear that the Bible’s good news was a whole lot less about me and a whole lot more about Christ, I just didn’t get it.
But that’s the way he rolls, isn't it? By misquoting, manipulating, and ripping God’s word out of context, the devil wields it as a weapon to drive us to doubt and pride.
One of the common things I see my congregants struggle with is the concept of forgiveness. Contrary to what I had assumed would be the case, I find congregants don’t struggle so much with giving forgiveness as they do living with forgiveness.
On a recurring basis, Christians spot news headlines that signal yet one more moral collapse in society, the growing paganization of the cultures in which we live, the spread of antipathy toward the faith.
When God sends them to hell, it is indeed punishment, but he’s only giving them what they asked for.
The more I heard the song, the more I heard the heart of the Gospel in the song.
Who should we baptize and when? How old does the person have to be? What if we get it wrong? Will something terrible happen to us?