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.
When standing in line, or when the commercial comes on, or when a moment of boredom comes, fast and pray instead of reaching for the screen. Be reminded that the world is not an oyster to be shucked, but a place where the gifts of redemption are already open.

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Amazing things. That’s what happens when the Triune God shows up in Jesus Christ.
We prefer this to be switched around. We want something to happen in us before anything happens outside of us.
It has been three years since Allyson and I honeymooned in New Orleans. We had a great time eating our way through the French Quarter, learning to drive in a city of only ways, and forgetting that real life existed for only a few days.
The only obedient son is shunned so that the disobedient one may return. Why? Because God loves sinners. He doesn’t leave them alone.
In the tiny Bible-belt town where I grew up, tragedy brought people together.
Writer’s Block, however, entertains no such fantasies. It goes straight for my ego’s jugular and pounds home the fact that I’m not good enough.
The force of our love is violent. It is love acted out as, “I will love you in a way that’s best for me, and you’ll like it, and celebrate it, and reward me for it.
No matter how loving we are, we don’t get bonus points with the Almighty for imitating Jesus. We love each other because we recognize that “this is one for whom Jesus died.
When we think God is doing something for us here or there or everywhere, we are simply fixing labels and putting value on what we imagine God is doing for us.
Led by God’s Word we can grasp why this gap exists, grows, and threatens us. Simply put, we don’t take sin seriously. We don’t take the effects of our sinful rebellion on all of creation seriously.
And your life, weary and broken as it is, is hidden by God in Christ—tucked away in God’s enduring and eternally given Word, in Jesus.
I have found that if I want to get people talking (especially guys), all I have to do is ask them about their father.