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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We do not have to endure the pain and suffering of this fallen existence forever, just for a little while.
The rainbow is a sign of the covenant God is making with “all flesh which is on the earth” and to the coming generations.
Prayers for the faith of the Church—prayed in love from a place of suffering—not only define much of Paul’s ministry, but are formed by the Christ they imitate.
When the One who created the world comes to you, there is reason for courage and never reason to fear.
When we read about Noah, we are reading backward to Adam and forward to Jesus.
Blessed are we, for we are filled by the cornucopia of Christ’s righteousness.
But Jesus didn’t see it that way. He saw his arrest not as the kingdom’s program being thwarted but as it being “fulfilled.”
The acquisition of salvation, the giving of salvation, and the keeping of salvation are entirely dependent upon the Savior himself.
The LORD promises He Himself will gather up the remnants and they will prosper under His shepherding.
No matter how divided Jew and Gentile were, they were united in their sin. Christ alone is the answer to this.
Because Jesus turns desolate, dying places into holy landscapes of life.
What Luther is doing in his Catechism is teaching how the gospel is an action of the whole Trinity, not just one of the persons.