This is an excerpt from the third chapter of By Water and the Word: God’s Gift of Baptism for You by Brian Thomas (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 52-60.
Even when the bitter places sink down deep into our bones, the Restorer never relinquishes his grip on you.
To Live Well is therefore not a general advice book, but a message suffused with the gospel.

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May we, as preachers, rise and proclaim that Jesus Christ is sufficient for all our spiritual hunger.
Christ’s saving work is finished, but his love is not locked away in the past.
Pride builds identities that leave no room for grace.
For many years, I held piety as my god.
If the church is going to speak to people weary of religion, it will not be by offering better techniques or louder certainty, but by daring to say what Paul so plainly said: Christ is enough.
When we despair of ourselves, we repent of these self-justifying schemes and allow ourselves to be shaped by God, covered in Christ’s righteousness, and reborn with a new heart.
We believe in a Savior who raises the dead: this is why the church is the one place on earth that can speak plainly about abortion without collapsing into despair.
American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.
The crisis is not merely that people are leaving. The crisis is that we have relinquished what is uniquely Lutheran and deeply needed.
The story of your life stretches beyond the dash on the tombstone.
Merry Christmas, Christ has spoken, and his verdict stands.
This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us was just as unlikely and unexpected.