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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The gospel's message is the scandalous announcement that Yahweh has stooped to our frame, to where we are.
The sign of the cross, according to the earliest centuries of Christians, is “the sign of the Lord,” and every baptized Christian was “marked” with it.
Fullness, truth, reality – all this God gives us as his gift in Christ.
The sermon takes place in the context of a multi-facetted set of relationships experienced through the weeks and months of being together in congregation and community. Those relationships shape the credibility of the preacher in the pulpit. 
As the writer to the Hebrews affirms, what makes the Christian gospel so much better is that we are no longer dealing with “types and shadows."
Maybe, just maybe, our goal for 2023 should not be to live more but to die more.
Despite our best efforts to avoid him, King Jesus remains very much unavoidable.
To trust in the Lord, the Messiah, the Deliverer, is our salvation and our only hope. Yet he does not trust us to have this “trust” on our own or of our own will.
Who would ever want all these screamers and haters? It turns out that Christ does.
Rejoice with Mary as she would rejoice with you. Be blessed, like her, with humility from God, so that you may serve joyfully and willingly wherever and in whatever role God has placed you.
By his first Advent in the flesh, through his second Advent with bread and wine and water and Word, we await his third Advent at the end.
When and how did the church start this season of anticipation?