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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Today, people often bemoan the loss of children in the church.
It's difficult enough for us to bear anothers' burdens, but carry another person's sin for him? Why would we do that?
Their love story was a long time in coming. He was 82 and she 74. And this was the first, and the last, marriage for both.
But when God's Word of Law and Gospel are tuned up, when they're properly distinguished, then Jesus' words rain down on us like thunderbolts.
Life is too short to dream big dreams. They tend to devour everything that gets in their way, including family.
A Christian is justified—saved from sin, death, and hell—by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
But one key theme that kept surfacing again and again was love: Jesus loved people, the Church showed me genuine love, and above all, God’s love in Christianity is unconditional.
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Yes, how good it is for you to have enemies, for without them, when would you ever have the opportunity to fulfill, joyfully and willingly, the law of Christian love?
Last year, a friend I follow tweeted, “Calling yourself a sinner is spitting on all the work that Jesus did to make you a saint.”
When it comes to faith, God runs all the verbs. God's Spirit calls us by the Gospel. He enlightens us with His gifts.
The story did not end with Jesus' death and resurrection, or even with the Acts of the Apostles.