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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Jesus satisfies, fills, and saves because he is the Son of God, who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns forever.
This is the third installment in our Lenten series, Through the Tombs of the Kings, where Steve Kruschel explores God’s faithfulness to Judah’s kings—and to us—through life, death, and the burial of his Son.
The great lie of addiction is that suffering must be fled, must be numbed, must be drowned out by any means necessary.
To be happy is to be the object of God’s love in Christ and to love God and others with the love of Christ.
God is a judge, but unlike you, God is just!
The wrong god means love remains frail, fickle, or a fiction. The right God means love is the most reliable thing in all the world.
I realized that no matter where I call "home," I won't be able to shake the feeling of homesickness.
Wisdom lurks in the outer places. Rich gratitude sprouts from the impoverished and forgotten.
In Simeon's hands and Anna's gaze, we are reminded of God's promise—not distant, not fading, but alive.
It is impossible to live our lives in a way that would convince God of our value because he already knows our value. He is the one who gave it to us.
The love of God is creative, always giving, always reviving.
The Lord did for Hannah what he loves to do: he shifted everything into reverse, making the bottom the top and the top the bottom.