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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Even when the bitter places sink down deep into our bones, the Restorer never relinquishes his grip on you.
Jesus didn’t enter the water because he was sinful; he entered the water because John was sinful, as are we all.
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).
Job needs a savior, and he knows it. And in Jesus, he gets one.
On Maundy Thursday, Christ explicitly gave his disciples the new command from which the day takes its name, for the Latin words novum mandatum are the Vulgate’s translation of “new command.”
Spy Wednesday asks us to look inward. It's the day the liturgical calendar acknowledges what we already know: we are not the best version of ourselves.
“Save us!” or “Deliver us!” That’s what “Hosanna” means. And that is exactly what Jesus did in the ER that dark Thanksgiving Day and every day for me.
Lent exists because we are forgetful creatures. We forget how hungry we really are.
The Pharisee valued fasting and giving tithes, but could not find value in his fellow sinner.
We can willingly admit the fact that we're just like tax collectors and thieves.
Worship never existed as escape from the world, but preparation for life within it.
For many years, I held piety as my god.