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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The grass withered for them too, but they held on to God’s Word. They knew that was eternal, so they lived in it. They lived in his forgiveness.
The Second Edition of “The Christian Life: Cross or Glory?” by Steven Hein is now available from 1517 Publishing.
Let us move beyond the milk and onto solid food — the meat of biblical, creedal, confessional theology in our preaching.
Jesus does not remain at a distance from our suffering. He fully enters it and bears its burden.
The night has passed and the day broken. In response to the morning dawn, birds sing, beasts arouse themselves and all humanity arises.
For all mankind, the answer is terrifically simple and remains the same: God wants to turn us towards the cross and then turn us back to our neighbors.
It turns out that when Elijah battled depression, God sent someone to just be with him. To comfort him.
Calvary is our mountain of pardon. It is the place which reveals most definitively God’s plan to redeem and reconcile sinners to himself.
Our enemy is both external AND internal. Outside of us AND inside of us. It is the old evil foe who prowls around us AND the old Adam who wreaks havoc inside each of us.
As the body positivity movement has gained traction, we must also be aware of some of its pitfalls
What God created, God will grow. We don’t add a few stitches onto his creation.
The grace of God does not save us at the beginning only in order to keep ourselves in his good graces by our good enough readiness.