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 testimony of the apostles is not an escapist message in which Christians are redeemed by leaving bodily life behind.
The story of your life stretches beyond the dash on the tombstone.
It is death that deserves derision, not the disciple who reaches through sorrow for his Lord.
The Christian answer to death is not a disembodied app, but a bodily resurrection.
The ascension is not about Jesus going away. It's about Jesus taking his rightful place so that he might fill the world with his presence and power.
I realized that no matter where I call "home," I won't be able to shake the feeling of homesickness.
Five promises were seemingly all those apostles, staring into the sky, had to go on. Five promises that were more than enough.
God has a hall ready for us, for us and for so many more
We know that death does not have the last word in Christ.
God comes to us through the flesh and blood and spirit of Christ precisely where he promised to be manifest to us and for us.
Only the resurrection of Jesus guarantees and facilitates divine presence and love to us as divine life for us.
If Jesus did not rise, then religion is just religion — a mere anthropological phenomenon.