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 Psalm now is this: as Christ suffered and then was exalted, so we are also in him.
How intentional will we be about utilizing gospel spaces that already inescapably communicate?
Lent isn't simply a season. It's the Christian life in microcosm.
Apart from the confession that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God who suffered and died for the forgiveness of sins and rose again to justify the ungodly, there is no Christian faith.
We are called to believe in the church even when we don’t believe in the church.
The cross traced in ashes isn’t a badge of honor or a mark of our works. It’s a reminder of Christ’s work.
You cannot sever the saint from the sinner. Christians remain both simultaneously.
God is a judge, but unlike you, God is just!
Despite the mathematical incongruity, the church confesses that Christ is one hundred percent human and one hundred percent divine.
In the upside-down wisdom of God, the place of the cross becomes the place of life, absolution, and triumph.
Christians don’t need a bucket list. We’ve got the whole bucket: the Word fulfilled, life fulfilled, and life in full.
The addict’s condition speaks a hard truth: that we are all beggars before God, every one of us bent toward the grave.