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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A confessing church is a church more worried about souls than appearances, family lines, or institutional bottom-lines.
Just when we think we had it all under control, Christ breaks into the midst of our futile efforts to save ourselves.
The idea is that Jesus has called His church to make disciples, and since the church doesn’t look much like the One they are following, the people need to be changed.
Ultimately, however, we find in the Heidelberg Disputation the root and core of Luther’s theology, which he would build and expound upon throughout his life.
What do we do when Christians are more focused on their doing for God than God's doing for them?
How did you become a Christian? This question is frequently asked in many Christian circles. Ask it and you will get one of a thousand different answers, but each will probably start with the same pronoun.
For every child in a mother’s womb, the whole host of heaven and earth, indeed God himself, intercedes.
One of the biggest challenges to the Christian faith is sorting through our question of “Where is God in the trials of our lives?”
Those clinging to God in Christ can be assured that it’s all clean.
Renowned Scottish philosopher, writer, and historian Thomas Carlyle once quipped, “The History of the World [is] the Biography of Great Men.”
Yet, just as the Jews had two choices, true God or no God, the Christian has the same, true Jesus or no Jesus.
One of my favorite things to do in the summer is read out under the shade of my backyard tree. There, I have a reclining chair and small little side table.