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 the story unfolds we see Luther’s Heidelberg theses on display, even before the Fellowship leaves Rivendell.
At our churches must remain focused on the deep kick, the real deal, the thing itself. I’m not the first on this site to remind us that this is Christ himself.
You cannot fudge Glory in this life. You get there only on the Better Day that is coming and not one day before.
To the Pastors and Preachers whose only word for me and others seem to be, "make sure you’re right with God!"
“We humans are an evil, untrustworthy bunch.” I said to a friend recently, by way of explanation/cold comfort, after he had been cut to the core by fellow Christians who were uncomfortable with his vulnerability.
Over the next few months, I invite you to join me in looking at what the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions have to say about the subject of worship through the lens of language.
Burdened within and without, we cross the threshold into church. We don't leave behind our earthiness, our tragedies, our white-knuckled grip on the last vestige of dignity in our sad lives.
This story is all-too-common, and illustrates a key dynamic driving the youth out of church.
Years ago a young woman approached her pastor with a request. It wasn’t a strange request. She simply asked if he would perform her wedding ceremony.
Before you ever know what happened, Satan has taught us to doubt the promise of the crucified and risen Christ.
If you’ve been in church long enough, you might have seen the worst of someone’s unrepentant sin get them kicked out, cast out, excommunicated or “handed over to Satan so their flesh might die and their soul might live.”
The first person who attempted to stop people from talking about Jesus was not a tyrant, a secular government, or a bully religious mob.