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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Being a Christian is hard because it’s easy.
Why was Jesus crucified? Not to save victims, but to save sinners.
I am not one of those people who can put together a jigsaw puzzle without using the picture on the box.
Jesus takes that burden away in the “I forgive you and them” and gives us His “light” burden.
We all began by hearing the truth, and then speaking the truth and believing the truth. That truth came to us on the lips of another.
Like any language, the liturgy has syntax—a structure that provides order and intelligibly communicates meaning through all that is said.
A crisis of faith always occurs when we begin to believe that God has betrayed us.
Take away the water, words, bread and wine. Can you be a Christian without water, words, bread and wine?
I'm in the middle of a series on Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
At our churches must remain focused on the deep kick, the real deal, the thing itself. I’m not the first on this site to remind us that this is Christ himself.
He has wandered away into the darkness of his doubting, got lost in his grief, confused by the pains he’s suffered. It happens. Shepherds sometimes become lost sheep as well.
The chief verb of the liturgy is the gift of God’s forgiveness for the sake of Jesus Christ.