The Reformers did not return to the sources because they believed the old was better than the new, nor because antiquity possesses authority simply by virtue of its age. They returned to the sources to recover the language and words that were actually written and spoken, especially those by great teachers and, most importantly, God Himself.
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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Assurance of salvation may be the single greatest struggle people have confessed to me. It isn't surprising.
There were pictures of her bathed in the sun of South Padre, sand between her toes, arm-in-arm with beautiful friends
The miracle of Pentecost is not obvious; it is the miracle of faith created through the preaching of the word of the cross.
This Jesus healed the blind and the lame and the mute and the barren and raised the dead.
Our Father works through us to meet the needs of others and to meet our need for Savior Jesus.
There in that moment, the waters of baptism reached down deep into the forsaken path of the grave with a man whose body and mind could no longer hold onto any reality otherwise.
I don’t know about you, but I am perpetually of the mind that God is disappointed in me.
An introduction to Bo Giertz's, Romans: A Devotional Commentary
Some lie and tell us that to sin is to be ourselves. But it is not. Sin is not natural to humanity.
Following him will also mean keeping our eyes locked on him so unswervingly that we don’t have the time or energy to be standing on tiptoes, peeping over fences into other people’s troubles and struggles.
Whatever we call “god,” how we act out our “religion,” what we call “living,” if its name isn’t Jesus, it’s a sham.
The veil was not torn to let us in but to let God out.