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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The love of God is creative, always giving, always reviving.
In Scripture, laments are raw expressions of grief, but they always point to hope. What if our culture’s obsession with holiday lights is an unconscious way of crying out, “We need good news, and we need it now”?
No amount of ritual, sacrifice, devotion, or money could ever do what Jesus of Nazareth was sent to accomplish.
Let your soul grieve, yes, but don’t let it be eaten alive by worry.
Nature ends in stinging judgment from its Creator.
As both law and gospel are proclaimed, judgment and deliverance are miraculously pronounced over the hearer.
It is Jesus himself who is the ladder by which sinners get to God, not by them climbing up but by God climbing down.
It is your privilege—we may even say “right”—to call upon this Father and to call him Father.
Dispel some of that darkness bottled up inside you, with the grace first shared to us by Christ that is now ours to share with those around us.
We can do nothing to warrant entry into the kingdom of God nor are we getting in if we think a seat at God’s table is something to which we are entitled.
Instead of a death sentence, those brothers hear the words of deliverance.
I have to believe that grace - God’s grace - will be waiting on the other side.