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.
God has told us everything necessary for faith. However he has not told us everything there is to know.
Although the outcome has been decided by Jesus victory, the devil won’t give up without a fight.
While we often talk about our growth, our progress, and what we are doing for the kingdom of God, the reality is that any goodness in a Christian does not originate in us.
When we consider our own end, it will not bring us into a final wrestling match with the messenger of God, but into the embrace of the Messiah of God.
This is the third in a series meant to let the Christian tradition speak for itself, the way it has carried Christians through long winters, confusion, and joy for centuries.
American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.
Christmas is not only about a cradle in Bethlehem, it’s also about a cross outside Jerusalem where salvation was won for us.
Christ did not merely urge humanity to be kind. He embodied perfect kindness by giving his life for those who neither earned nor expected such a gift.
This ancient “tale of two mothers” concerns far more than theological semantics—it is the difference between a God who sends and a God who comes.
Was Jesus ambitious or unambitious? We have to say that the answer is…yes.
When we fail, our first impulse is the same as that of our spiritual ancestors: to sprint headlong into the bushes.