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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Love continues to gently but endlessly pursue the narrator, despite his persistence in pulling away in the opposite direction.
In this context where death looms large, Jesus reveals a kingdom where life looms even larger.
The tragedy of this parable is not the failure to serve. It is the failure to truly know your Savior.
The parable is harsh. It judges. If you do not believe, you will not be saved. But let us pause for a moment and think about why Jesus is telling the parable.
Jesus breaks through our barriers in His beatitudes. He shatters our conceptions of the blessed life and opens the Kingdom of God to all people.
Jesus will strengthen and encourage us because he is true life, and life has defeated death.
Satan and the old Adam don't want Jesus to bear our crosses for us because that means we can't claim that we've done anything to merit God's mercy and salvation.
The Gospel is gift, pure and simple. It is backwards. It is upside down. It is foolish. And as long as people are sinners, it is as relevant as ever.
Christ crucified is at the heart of both our freedom from sin and death and our freedom to serve and love our neighbor.
The command to love those nearby is as challenging as it is simple. Jesus took the initiative to come near to us in loving sacrifice.
In God's way of doing salvation, we see Jesus crucified and risen from death. We see in Jesus God's great mercy and the depths of our selfish sinfulness.
The Gospel is a precious and comforting word. It comforts and refreshes the sad heart. It wrestles it out of the jaws of death and hell and transports it to the certain hope of eternal life, through faith in Christ.