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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We usually understand vocation in a very narrow sense; it’s your job, your “calling.” Vocation, however, is not so much what you do for a living but what Christ does through you for the living. It’s a 24/7 calling, not a 9 to 5 occupation.
Ultimately, however, I fell in love with traditions—and specifically, traditional worship—for a single, overarching reason: its components, to varying degrees, are all in the service of the Gospel.
The pastor put a hand over my mouth, another between my shoulder blades, and backward I fell into the dark waters, buried beneath Noah's flood, the Red Sea, Jordan's stream, all the way down into a borrowed tomb outside Jerusalem where a crucified man lay waiting for me.
Yet as we mourn, but unlike those who have no hope, so also we repent, but unlike those who have no absolution. For we though we weep, there is a hand that dries all tears.
The son asked, ''What else does God count?'' The father said, ''When we get sad, or hurt, and we cry, God counts our tears.'' ''Every tear?'' the son asked. ''Yes, every tear,'' the father answered.
O little flock, fear not the foe, for at your head is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for you.
We may seem destitute of hope, but the hope of Christ is stronger than our weakness.
Dead men don’t get taught. Dead men don’t get un-lost. Dead men don’t heal.
Your primary purpose in life is having something done to you. God created you in order that He might have someone to give to, to bless, to love, to nurture, to save, to give Himself to.
From creator to priest, our God now moves, from forming animals to slaying them, all so that His Adam and His Eve might remain truly His.
A little bit of vulnerability amongst Christians would go a long way toward giving a witness to the world about what the church is really here for.
Wouldn’t it be great if there were something that could de-shame us?