What Israel’s story makes painfully obvious is that following the Lord is a lifelong lesson in “I believe, but help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).
Faith holds on to the truth of who Jesus is revealed to be, despite our sometimes incongruent experience with God.
This is an excerpt from the first chapter of A Reasoned Defense of the Faith by Adam Francisco (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 1-3.

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How do the words “The righteous shall live by his faith” go from a context of hope in hopelessness to the cornerstone declaration of the chief doctrine of the Christian faith?
Despite how deep Habakkuk sank into doubt and despair, his faith was not entirely lost. He was merely taking his doubts where they belonged: to the Lord.
They were still praying, trusting, and hoping. Why? Because they knew who was with them and who was for them: the risen Christ.
“The fear of the Lord” is our heart’s awakening to and recognition of God’s outrageous goodness.
Do it again, God,” rings the psalmist’s appeal.
No matter how stringent one's "regulations" — "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch" (Col. 2:21) — the sinful nature that resides in everyone's heart is untamable by self-effort alone.
Devoid of the gospel of Jesus’s death and resurrection, sufferers are left to frantically run the halls of self-salvation, turning this way and that but never getting anywhere.
Apart from the confession that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God who suffered and died for the forgiveness of sins and rose again to justify the ungodly, there is no Christian faith.
Despite the mathematical incongruity, the church confesses that Christ is one hundred percent human and one hundred percent divine.
In the upside-down wisdom of God, the place of the cross becomes the place of life, absolution, and triumph.
There is no one — not now, not ever — who cannot be included in the family of God through the efficacy of Christ’s saving power.
The gospel is best understood in terms of those two most important words: for you.