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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David shows us what happens to a man when his resurrection begins.
Faith holds on to the truth of who Jesus is revealed to be, despite our sometimes incongruent experience with God.
The Church’s unity is not uniformity in every matter of her well-being. It is faithfulness in what constitutes her being.
A rightly-oriented heart and a rightly-oriented love will consistently do what is best for God and best for our neighbor, which is why St. Augustine speaks of sin as a disordered love.
While we often talk about our growth, our progress, and what we are doing for the kingdom of God, the reality is that any goodness in a Christian does not originate in us.
Christmas is not only about a cradle in Bethlehem, it’s also about a cross outside Jerusalem where salvation was won for us.
For the Christian, the iron gate of death was opened by the blood of Christ and the empty tomb.
He doesn’t consume us, even though that is what we deserve. Instead, Jesus comes down to us and consumes all our sin by taking it on himself.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s new book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 311 and 335
The Antichrist offers another continual presence. It is every whisper that tempts us toward autonomy, that tells us to carry it alone, that insists suffering is meaningless.
To confess Christ crucified and risen as the only hope in a world that has lost its mind to wickedness and rage.
You’re permitted to call on “Our Father, who art in heaven” at all hours of the day and night with whatever you like.