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.

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Nuance and subtlety have been replaced with scorched-earth contempt. It is us versus them. Compromise is not an option. Jesus, however, would have none of it.
In our text for today, here is the great prophet, Elijah, the same guy who God used in miraculous ways, hiding in a cave, scared to death.
The question is, how are you going to live out your life as someone who has taken up the Robe of Freedom?
Ethics begins not with our doing, but with the Triune God’s giving.
God has a plan for this world that he put into place from eternity, a plan that is carried out in Jesus Christ and promises unimaginably great blessings for believers.
The LORD God is seeking after those who have not sought Him! He calls out to those who have not been called by His name.
Jesus comes to people and changes everything. “Before” is long gone. “After” is a whole new world.
Paul wants us to know the radical identity shift that takes place when you put on Christ. You are free.
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.
These are not exclusive words for Israel, but for all the people of the Lord God’s creation.
As astounding as co-eternity and co-equality with the Father in majesty and glory is, this is not the most significant answer Jesus gave in this Gospel reading, not for us at least.
Our daily remembrance of baptism, our daily dying and rising, is a daily joining to Jesus and His death and resurrection for us.