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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In divorce God married me to the cross. I didn’t want it; indeed, I hated it. But upon my shoulders God laid it. The ring of nails. The veil of darkness. The kiss of death. When we are stripped of all the good we think we are and have, we come face to face with the evil within. We fight and wrestle and gasp and die and become nothing.
I don’t mean simply that I “loved the darkness rather than the light because my deeds were evil,” as Jesus says (John 3:19). While that is true, there was deeper magic at work. I loved the darkness because I feared all the good things in the light.
There are several reasons why I nerd out when it comes to AMC’s The Walking Dead.
King has some kind of belief in God, but was probably under no inner compulsion to do anything we would term evangelism.
Being thrown in the pit was but one of the many smoking guns that the prosecutor could bring forth as evidence.
Every year, when this day rolls around, I turn over the stones of remembrance that litter my mind, to see what lurks beneath.
There is hope and healing for you in Jesus Christ, the God who immersed Himself so deeply in our sufferings that He, too, wept over the death of a dear friend.
“Now, a certain man was sick...” Rick was kind. He knew my name before I knew his. The few times we talked, I felt like I should get to know this guy. I had actually planned to strike up a conversation the next time I saw him at church.
How will they reach this magical moment, this milestone on the journey of life? Perhaps by chasing their dreams, pursuing their passions with a heart wholly devoted to the attainment of whatever goals they set for themselves in life?
I was angry at heaven, at earth, and everything in between, for my life and my love and my hopes had all gone wrong, terribly, irreversibly, wrong.
If you haven't seen this video clip yet (and even if you have), it's worth watching (again) regardless of your taste for Colbert's style of humor. In it, he trounces the typically smug fundamentalist-turned-liberal Bible scholar Bart Ehrman, who is so used to being fawned over by members of the media that Colbert's defiance leaves him at a near loss for words.
In Sunday morning Bible study, our class is reading 1st Peter. This week was chapter 3 and I’ve always had a challenge with the imagery there. I’m talking about the way Peter brings Noah into the picture and connects it to Christian suffering.