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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Christ presents to us such liberty, so that we as Christians according to our faith may tolerate no other master, but only hold that we are baptized and called unto Christ, and through him have become justified and sanctified.
In our attempts to conform the Gospel of Jesus Christ to material, therapeutic, and mystical standards of religion and spirituality we've arrested, inhibited, distorted, and handicapped God's Word and gifts of salvation.
In the quiet of your own uptown, where your own sins bear down on you and create a troubled conscience before the world, before others, and before God, your Lord reaches across the chasm of brokenness to take your hand.
The good news of Jesus Christ guides us into godly worship, not self-worship.
God not only unites us to himself by the death and resurrection of his Son; he unites us, the church, together and to himself under Christ as his children.
We must not submit ourselves to false gods and godless men. Instead, we may hold fast to Christ, because He’s holding fast to us.
We have seen a vision better than an angel. We have seen God on the cross. A God who is willing to suffer for us.
That is the good news that ifies all hand wringing and wipes away every tear from every eye.
The disciplines of history and archaeology have assisted in demonstrating the integrity and accuracy of the Bible.
Love is to be the interpreter of law. Where there is no love, these things are meaningless, and law begins to do harm.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is also a declaration. It is a declaration of something that has already happened, “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day."
Ever since the tragedy of the Garden, God’s plan of redemption has been in motion. His movement upon this world has never ceased, and it never will.