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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As every nail that Jesus hammered was a delight to his Father, so every email you send, every purchase you ring up, every table you wipe down, is a delight to the Father.
There was a TV show back in the ‘90s called “Dinosaurs” that I used to sneak into the living room at night to watch.
True preaching arises when the Holy Spirit steeps the proclaimer in its own cycle of judgment and mercy.
The only obedient son is shunned so that the disobedient one may return. Why? Because God loves sinners. He doesn’t leave them alone.
I can pretend for a little bit, but as soon as the phone is put away and it’s just me and my sin, I am fearful about what my walk says about me. I know what I should do, but I can’t quite seem to do it.
When those who are serving joyfully and willingly are instead encouraged to complain that they are carrying the load for the rest of the body, all hope is lost.
The Gospel is simple to confess. That is, we are justified by faith alone, through Christ alone, without the works of the Law.
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 which side, it’s easy for all of us to build Bible verses into grenades aimed at obliterating the political other.
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.
The following is an excerpt from Martin Luther’s Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1535), translated by Haroldo Camacho (1517 Publishing, 2018).
When we imagine we’re living an evil-shunning, virtue-practicing, morally superior Christian life, the problem is not that our halos are too small, but that our heads are too big.