sola fide

"Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see."  - Hebrews 11

To have faith means to believe. It means to place your trust, your confidence, and your hope in someone or something greater than yourself.

But faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed. If we put our faith in earthly people or things, sooner or later we are going to be let down. We live in a fallen world, full of sinful people and broken things, and in the end they are unable to deliver the goods, to give us what we are all looking for, something to believe in.

So don't put your faith in earthly people or things - and for that matter don't even put your faith in your own faith!

There is only One in whom we can fully trust to have faith in and believe. There is only One Who always keeps His promises and in Whom we can place our hope. There is only One Who is worthy of all of our worship, honor, and praise. There is only One in whom there is forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation for all believe. There is only one way to heaven, and it is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the World.

Believe in Him, have faith in Him, put your trust in Him, and you will be saved.

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sola gratia

By ourselves we are nothing. But by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we are something and have everything.

That’s because salvation is only by God's grace, a free gift from God through faith in Christ Jesus to all who believe. God does it all - we're just along for the ride. We can't do any of it on our own. If you think about it, our only real role in God raising us from the dead is ... being dead! (which really isn’t much of an accomplishment at all.)

Being saved by grace through faith means believing in Jesus as your Savior, trusting in His death and resurrection, and receiving His forgiveness and salvation through belief and baptism. It's as easy as that.

But that's a little too easy for some. For them the grace of God is unimaginable, because it's hard to believe that you can get something for nothing in this life. But God's Grace is different than what the world offers. It's getting what you don't deserve. It's God's riches at Christ's expense. It's your filthy rags in exchange for Christ's robe of righteousness. It's like Christmas - Jesus has the birthday, but we get all the gifts!

Sound too good to be true? Yes it does. But in fact, it is the greatest truth the world has ever known.

"By grace you are saved, through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, so no one can boast." (Romans 2:8)

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it's a series of tubes ...

Marshall Fields employee - Chicago - 1950's

cassini

saturn south pole taken from cassini

ht - internet monk

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hurricane help

https://www.lcms.org/givenow/hurricane

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how it ought to be

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and the sun was darkened ...

ht - respublica

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