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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The only churches that live are churches that have died. That still die. And that rise to newness of life in Christ’s life alone.
One thing that makes John different than the other three Gospels is the absence of the Lord’s Supper.
For every child in a mother’s womb, the whole host of heaven and earth, indeed God himself, intercedes.
In Christ we are already dead to sin and the eternal consequences of sin. “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,” writes Paul (Romans 8:1).
As long as we hold tight to a life that was never ours to possess in the first place, so long as we refuse to lay down our life so others can live, Jesus can't do a thing for us.
Heaven is not our ultimate hope. Our promise is not to live forever riding on rainbows and soaring in the clouds.
The only recourse we have is to die before we die. To give up on a fake-life. To acknowledge that this stupid, selfish game we’re playing with our immortality projects has zero success.
The fact is no one dies with dignity.
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.
The story of Christ crucified has a happy ending. Jesus has conquered the grave. He beat the death rap.
Like her Lord, the Church has dirt under her nails, the smell of coffin wood on her clothes, and a hunger in her belly.
I’m still laughing now as hard as I laughed back then. And the salve that he gave me in that moment still works some strange magic on me to this day.