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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How intentional will we be about utilizing gospel spaces that already inescapably communicate?
Jesus satisfies, fills, and saves because he is the Son of God, who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns forever.
We are called to believe in the church even when we don’t believe in the church.
You cannot sever the saint from the sinner. Christians remain both simultaneously.
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.
There is no one — not now, not ever — who cannot be included in the family of God through the efficacy of Christ’s saving power.
There is a “re” involved with baptism, but unlike the Anabaptists, it’s not a “re-do,” but a “re-turn" or a “re-member.”
The gospel is best understood in terms of those two most important words: for you.
It's a new year, and you are still the same you: a sinner who is simultaneously perfect in every way because Christ declares it to be so.
The name of Jesus holds us fast.
The world rushes forward, lighting up screens and decking out storefronts in a mad sprint toward the next thing, but Advent pulls us back.
We love hearing about Jesus, but we also love hearing about how much effort we need to exert to truly pull off this whole “Christian life” thing.