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 existence of aliens can not negate the promise given to us by God courtesy of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What I desperately needed was not to preach to myself, but to listen to a preacher—not to take myself in hand, but to be taken in the hands of the Almighty.
Tim wanted everyone to know to the deepest part of their being that they were justified by Christ alone.
Christ's words of exclusive salvation are not just a warning but a sure promise for you.
Only by accurately and honestly reporting the views of those with whom we disagree can we then properly address and refute them. This is the approach Solberg has taken.
If the season of Lent is a journey, Holy Week is the destination.
What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
Some explanations are better than others, but they remain our explanations—except if we had some perspective from outside, above, and behind nature.
This is the message of Lent. We are not called to sacrifice for Jesus in order to earn our salvation. Rather, we are called to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.
When I finished this book, I loved the Bible, and the Bible’s author, even more. And I can’t imagine a better endorsement than that.
God resolves his wrath through the unexpected giving of his Son.
For Christians, Advent is the time when the Church patiently prepares for the coming of the Great King, Jesus the Christ.