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.

All Articles

Jesus is the anti-Cain: a giver, not a taker.
Hope is found precisely while we’re dead.
Lord, today we remember...
Walking in the light doesn't entail a spotless moral record but rather an honest appraisal of who we are.
Faith is like a horse with blinders because it only beholds God’s promise. It is obsessed with what God has already said.
Our only hope in life and death is that God loves sinners, who fail and forget constantly, with a love that is just as constant.
If you want something empty, the tomb is the way to go. The point of the manger is that Jesus was in it. The point of the cross is that Jesus was on it.
Your loving Lord is not oblivious to your pain and sadness.
The point Luther made, again and again, was that distance between God and sinners is collapsed when the crucified Christ himself comes to sinners through a preacher.
The promise here is that God is present with us in our troubles, issuing commands to save us before we ask. God does not ignore our suffering and cries.
We cannot love first. Therefore God comes, takes hold of the heart, and says: "Learn to know me."
This is the patient love of God. He is stubborn about the salvation of sinners. He will not be rushed even if his name is mocked, and the trustworthiness of his promises are called into question.