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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After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again.
The theme of guardianship permeates Christian observances of Michaelmas, unifying this wide variety of celebrations.
We don’t deserve Jesus' friendship, but he nonetheless embraces us with it, along with his promise that he will never leave us nor forsake us.
What does it mean that holding to Jesus’ teaching will set us free? Which teaching? What will we be set free from?
This is an excerpt from “The Freedom of the Christian” written by Martin Luther and translated and edited by Adam Francisco (1517 Publishing, 2020).
It is impossible to obtain grace and the forgiveness of sins in any other way, manner, or measure than by hearing the Word of God about Christ and by receiving it through faith.
We vote because we are citizens, and it is our duty. We serve our neighbors in love because it is our Christian calling.
As long as our illusions of control over storms and germs persist to govern our thinking, we will never be able to take the saving work of Christ as seriously we ought.
Solomon did not write Ecclesiastes to bum you out. He wrote it to set you free.
Everyone dreads what might happen if political control is captured by the enemy. Paranoia is the characteristic feature of this kind of under-realized eschatology.
This is an excerpt from “The Freedom of the Christian” written by Martin Luther and translated and edited by Adam Francisco (1517 Publishing, 2020).
Maybe for the first time you can begin to receive creation as a gift, a sheer gift from God’s hands. And who knows what might happen in the power of this grace? All possibilities are open.