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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This is the night from when all those nights receive their light. For this is the night when Christ, the Life arose from the dead.
Have you ever wondered, of all the adjectives we could use to describe this day why in the world we chose the word “good?” Yeah, me too.
The story of Christ crucified has a happy ending. Jesus has conquered the grave. He beat the death rap.
The creation is one of God’s good gifts and being cut off from nature and wild places, as we often are in the modern world, is probably not so good for us.
Like her Lord, the Church has dirt under her nails, the smell of coffin wood on her clothes, and a hunger in her belly.
If he was not flesh, who was hung on the cross? And if he was not God, who shook the earth from its foundations?
What on God’s green earth does dynamite, a chemical explosive, have to do with the Gospel of Christ?
This had been a lonely year, though. She could keep herself busy for a while with friends and she could distract herself for a few weekends by leaving town, but something was definitely missing.
True faith, saving faith that receives the good news about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is a faith created in us by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel (Eph 2:8-9).
What would be a fitting thing to give up, especially during the season of Lent?
If you don’t believe Jesus Christ—that is, God in the man born of the Virgin Mary—died for the sins of the world, then you can’t evangelize.
In other words, they had too much religion and not enough Yahweh. Or, to put it in New Testament terms, they worked so hard at being religious that they put Jesus out of work.