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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For sinners who cannot seem to get out of their own way, Dane brings to bear the gospel of Christ’s heart, which aerates one’s spiritual lungs with undiluted grace.
Baptism is always valid because no unrighteousness or faithlessness on our part could ify God’s faithfulness.
Jesus, the Son of God from all eternity, the agent of creation, the Savior of all people, promises to abide IN His people.
The reason the mind is endlessly troubled about God predestining everything is the vague generalization. Generalizations are cold as ice, without the warm Christ.
Jesus promises more than a disembodied “spiritual” existence after death. He has promised to raise our perishable, mortal bodies to immortality.
We are not saved by the success of our refining process. We are saved precisely because our impurities, no matter what the percentage, ruin the whole thing.
In His grace, Jesus promises that all who come to Him in faith will live abundantly and eternally.
When the One who created the world comes to you, there is reason for courage and never reason to fear.
But Jesus didn’t see it that way. He saw his arrest not as the kingdom’s program being thwarted but as it being “fulfilled.”
The acquisition of salvation, the giving of salvation, and the keeping of salvation are entirely dependent upon the Savior himself.
Because Jesus turns desolate, dying places into holy landscapes of life.
What Luther is doing in his Catechism is teaching how the gospel is an action of the whole Trinity, not just one of the persons.