GraceNotes Podcast
Gracenotes is a weekly audio podcast from Bill Knott, Editor of Adventist Review.
Episodes
GRACE AND CHANGE (July 24, 2026)
“If God is good and grace is real, why do I still feel badly about my mistakes?”
A popular illusion of new Christians is that the rescue wrought for them by Jesus is supposed to save them from any sorrow about their past. In the shallow mythology we clutch, everything about our new life as believers ought to be “peace, light, and joy.”
Yet God’s Word poignantly asks, “Do you not know that God’s ki
UNFORGIVEN? (July 17, 2026)
“Because he’s never said he’s sorry”. . . “She kept the ring my grandma wanted me to have” . . . “He laughed at how I cringed at his cheap insult.”
All these—and more—as reasons that we can’t—or won’t—forgive. We acidly rehearse the story of our injury, deepening divides and festering in feuds. Soon we come to like the bitter taste of bile, for anger feels powerful, and power is what we want.
But
THE LEARNING CURVE (July 10, 2026)
The old proverb reminds us, “Some things must be seen to be believed.”
And so it often is with grace: we can’t believe in something so miraculous—so unexpected, undeserved—even though God’s Word repeatedly declares it: “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2;8).
Until we see grace in the flesh—in someone near enough to care—we wond
UNFORCED LOVE (July 03, 2026)
What makes us valuable to God—all stubborn, broken, wayward as we are?
It’s not the sometime good we do—
forgiving unrepentant foes;
feeding hungry kids afar;
warming pews and saying prayers;
performing unpaid mission work.
Not one of these, nor all of them, can make us dearer to the One who chooses from His unforced, unrequired love to cherish every soul He made. “I have loved you with an everlas
THE LOVE THAT HOLDS US ALWAYS JUne 26, 2026)
“If you could go back in time to change one thing about your life, what would it be?”
The answers range from comic to cautionary: “I’d be better-looking.” “I’d have a smaller nose.” “I’d make a lot of money.” “I’d marry a different person.” For each of us, there’s one thing we would change to give ourselves a better story.
“I’d understand God’s love much sooner in my life,” say the truly wise amon
SUSTAINABILITY (JUne 19, 2026)
Breathe deeply now, and let your heart grow quiet as you turn from sins forgiven.
“By this we shall know that we are of the truth,
and reassure our hearts before Him whenever our hearts condemn us;
for God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything” (1 John 3:19-20).
It’s not the voice of God that drives you on to fear, or rush, or labor past your strength.
We dare not make the Spirit own
THE DAILINESS OF GRACE (June 12, 2026)
“We must hear the gospel every day because we forget the gospel every day.”
Attributed to many pens, the proverb is profoundly true, regardless of who wrote it. Even though it undermines our vanity of recall, it underlines that we frequently ignore the most important things. Our default thinking is unarguably a fault: we trust ourselves to do what is impossible.
For millennia, humans have sought
REDEEMING THE PAST (June 05, 2026)
What stops our progress, pulls us backward, paralyzing us with shame?
The past—our past—the foolish, broken history that trails each of us. None can escape its power: all feel its painful weight. Even those the world calls saints are men and women who know their brokenness most fully. The great apostle Paul famously moaned, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Ro
FINDING CONFIDENCE AND STRENGTH (May 29, 2026)
Sit quietly with grace, and let it work its slow, substantial change.
Nothing is more common for those whose hearts have been divinely warmed than to pledge themselves to new, exacting duties. We’ll read our Bibles for an hour each day; pray for all our friends and even for some enemies; tell “unconverted” colleagues, neighbors—even strangers—of their task to do as we have done. We move at hyper-s
WHAT ONLY GRACE CAN DO (May 22, 2026)
“This is not your own doing” (Eph. 2:8).
One author calls it “the most contrary line in human history”—six words that run against our culture, schooling, and experience.
We push ourselves from bed to answer the alarm we set just hours before. We wash and eat and ready clothes for work, conscious that one slip in our performance may unravel all the day. We move ourselves to work to push through hou
ALL THE TIME (May 14, 2026)
What makes your eyes light up with glee, or stirs you to an unforced smile?
Is it the 4-year old who stomps through puddles—without boots? Is it the lily blooming on some sun-drenched bank, so hidden no one else can find it? Is it the ballad from your youth that fills your thoughts with gentle love?
So grace delights us when we learn that it is God’s first way of seeing us—that He is glad to see
THE LONG ARC OF GRACE (May 08, 2026)
If you can’t recall the day or the hour you came to faith, you’re in good company.
Millions of believers candidly describe both deep faith in Jesus as their Saviour and an inability to recall just when it happened—a “sunrise experience” as one author calls it.
This is the way that grace unfolds, for “Damascus Road” conversions are far fewer than we claim. That road, it should be noted, was 150 mil
GRACE WATCHING OVER ME (May 01, 2026)
I sing because I'm happy; I sing because I'm free;
For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.
The soprano’s voice soars above the swell of the orchestra, her eyes caught up to heaven. Every heart in the concert hall leans forward, drawn by an ache, a longing.
Why do such moments move us so deeply—in seasons of faith, or in our midnight struggles? Why does our hope cling more tightly
FREEDOM TO BE HEALED (April 24, 2026)
It seems, at first, a profoundly foolish question: “Do you want to be healed?”
Jesus once asked it of a paralyzed man who for 38 years had lingered beside a legendary pool.
The answer feels self-evident: who wouldn’t instantly reach out for healing, for wholeness, for a mended body and the restoration of fractured relationships?
But Jesus knows how tenderly we caress our wounds; how suffering weav
HELP MY UNBELIEF (April 17, 2026)
So you don’t have perfect faith. There are moments—even hours or days—when trusting God’s continued goodness seems beyond your reach. You wonder if the effort of this life of trust is wise—or yields anything.
Join the crowd—the great, blood-washed crowd of those who say they follow Jesus. Unlike the spiritually intimidating stories we often tell each other, there are no sturdy souls who never know
A MELODY FOR THE UNCHAINED (April 10, 2026)
Is grace, at heart, believable?
‘Of course,’ you say. Why not believe? It’s the noun that always follows “Amazing,” the tune the bagpipers skirl at dawn; the soaring hymn a tenor lifts into a vast cathedral.
For some, it may be what the sermon is about, or what we learned in Bible class.
But is grace believable at the baseline of our fears—in those tough places in the soul where shame and memory c
THE MORNING DOUBTS DISAPPEAR (April 03, 2026)
“What if?” the soldiers wondered, as they watched His body sag. “A miracle man with a brazen claim—could He really rise again?”
“What if?” the wise ones wondered, with a nagging, dull unease. “Could disciples come in the dead of night and spirit His body away?”
“What if?” the governor worried, as he doubled the guarding troops. “Is there truly a power in heaven or hell that would dare to break my
THE JOURNEY OF A WEEK (March 27, 2026)
We walk the Passion story slowly, knowing it will seem to end as far too many stories end—with pain, with shame, with lonely death.
The palm fronds we waved wildly on Sunday were woven into simple brooms that swept up 30 tarnished silver pieces; in ropes that tied Messiah to the blood-stained lashing post on Friday. All things trudge slowly toward His end, as if no other fate could be.
Of Himself,
NOTHING IN MY HAND I BRING (March 20, 2026)
Ever long for the bad old days when you could at least depend upon yourself?
We tire of grace when we’re tempted by the easy arrogance of effort. “If I just say another prayer; read another Bible verse; light another candle—then I can pull the love of God toward me and close up any distance.” We think to work our way back toward His will with scrupulous self-discipline—with vegetables, and fasting
A WORLD WITHOUT HATE (March 13, 2026)
The great illusion of our age is that the world must be divisible into clans and races and nations who inevitably hate each other. The histories of some countries—and entire political careers—have been built on this dangerous idea.
Left versus right; rich opposed to poor; theists against atheists; the educated despising the illiterate. Trillions of dollars, euros, yen and rubles have been invest
A LIGHT THAT NEVER FAILS (March 06, 2026)
If you should meet a person happy with his life, or joyful in her story, you’ve likely met someone experiencing the deep security of living in the grace of God.
He can look upon the rubble of his past with clarity but without shame—for he has found the liberating power of forgiveness. She can candidly assess the threats and stress the future may portend without the customary fear: her “life is hid
TOO GOOD TO BE FALSE (February 27, 2026)
It’s the critic’s counterclaim, the “faithful doubter’s” last redoubt:
“Say less about the grace of God, and more of human duty.”
Afraid that others may secure by gift what they haven’t won by long, intensive effort, persistent voices challenge those who speak and preach of grace.
“You make it all too easy,” they complain. “Where’s the struggle, pain, and sacrifice? Where are the nights of deep u
GRACE GIVEN, AND NOT LENT (February 20, 2026)
Grace seems to fail a million times an hour. In every place where mercy isn’t honored and accepted, grace appears an unwise use of heaven’s kindness and forgiveness.
Hard hearts chill with chosen hate. Clenched hands will not open to the gift. Death and dryness multiply.
But grace is never limited by how it is received. Like some deep-hidden spring whose source cannot be found, grace flows to si
WHEN POLITICS MISLEADS US (February 13, 2026,)
How does God’s grace invade our daily conversations?
Certainly not by retreating to our separate corners and hurling brickbats at each other. Of all the “stuff” we absorb from our angry culture, the habits of accusing and deriding are undoubtedly the worst.
But as grace finds a home in us, we grow more willing to admit that we might be mistaken. Receiving grace requires we confess we are wrong,
PRACTICING GRACE (February 06, 2026)
And so you’ve got him “dead to rights,” as old books used to say. You’ve caught him in the lie, the theft, with poison pills he slipped into the office water cooler. There’s no way he can wriggle free from how he injured you and hurt your reputation. Now all your moral juices seethe because—for once—you have the power.
This is the crucible where what we understand of grace is seen and fully known.
EARLY GRATITUDE (January 30, 2026)
Eyelids flutter, and we sense—more than we see—how differently light looks than when we fell exhausted into bed. Awareness jabs at everything—the too-hard pillow; the blanket thin against the chill; the shoulder sore from hours of unmoving. Awake—too soon; too late; too urgently. The undone stuff of yesterday grabs our first thoughts. Oh no! Not that! How much? How soon?
And in those fitful moment
ENVIRONMENTAL TRUTHS (January 23, 2026)
Below our deepest hurt and darkest shame, there is the grace of God—forgiving us, rebuilding us, repairing all that’s broken.
Above our highest joy and most euphoric moments, there is the sheer delight of God—applauding us, encouraging, enlarging celebration.
Through every stage of every journey—in trust, in fear; in faith, in doubt; in youth, in gray maturity—we’re never left alone or told to mak
ONE HERO ONLY (January 16, 2026)
One hundred years ago, the world knew all about ticker-tape parades.
Returning war heroes, major politicians, and sometimes even aviators and athletes would be honored by a slow-motion ride in an open-topped limousine through the canyons of New York City’s financial district, showered by literally millions of paper fragments from stock ticker machines. It was the ultimate symbol of popular success
COUNTER-INTUITIVE GRACE (January 09, 2026)
We celebrate achievement in every arena of our daily lives, and rightly so.
Parents rejoiced when we first slept through the night; the first time we rolled over in the crib; when we finally tolerated the puréed squash; when we took our first tottering steps.
We were congratulated for learning our numbers; mastering the alphabet; riding a bicycle; reading a sentence. People cheered when we scored
FORGETTING WHAT LIES BEHIND (January 02, 2026)
A famous journalist once wrote, “The true secret of editing is to know what to place in the wastebasket.”
That’s good counsel for those who seek to live in grace during 2026 as well. The secret of successful living is knowing what to throw away, what to forget, what to discard. In the desk of life from 2025 there are likely many things you’d do better to be without.
Throw away the slights and the
IRRESISTIBLE JOY (December 26, 2025)
So here’s the greatest cause for Christmas joy—not that you deck your house with hundreds of lights or fill your home with dozens of gifts—but that the Lord of heaven and earth entered into the commonness of our lives to be our Saviour from sin and self-absorption.
He’s the reason why at every Christmas a song rises from millions of redeemed men and women to mingle with the anthem of those long-ag
THE UNFORGETTABLE CHILD (December 19, 2025)
Had He arrived with fanfare from some royal balcony, with heralds officiously announcing His nativity to thousands massed to hear the news, He might have changed the politics of one small corner of the world for 40, even 50, years.
Had He been born in some rich villa spilling down the hillside to the sparkling Aegean, we might find passing mention of His name in annals of the empire.
Had He been b
THE POWER OF GRACE (December 12, 2025)
The story that brings joy and hope to billions every Christmas brings dread to those corrupted by power.
The old prophecy—fulfilled in the birth of Jesus—that “unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder” (Isa 9:6)—that prophecy rattles every regime built on force, and shakes the citadels of coercion. All the armies they sent and all the dynasties
DRENCHED BUT DELIGHTED (December 05, 2025)
Come stand with me beneath the waterfall of grace.
There is no waiting line, no jostling for position. There are no elbows, scornful faces, or murmured whispers of contempt. No one here will keep you from receiving what your withered spirit needs.
This is the fellowship of the redeemed. This is the company of those who gladly—daily—open their parched lives to the “washing of rebirth and renewal by
ALL IN A MOMENT (November 28, 2025)
The moments that most change our lives aren’t just the big ones when we say “I do,” or land the great new job, or stand on some breathtaking peak to stare at wondrous landscapes. Quiet moments also have within them the stuff of destiny.
That moment—sometimes in a crowd; more often alone—when we trust ourselves to grace—haltingly, even tentatively—becomes the pivot of our everafter.
Our looming fe
THE DAWN OF TRUST (November 21, 2025)
Is there a greater joy than knowing for even one hour that you are in the center of God’s will—that through some miracle of grace, you are aligned with plans the Father made to win you back and win the hearts of those you love?
Is there a better confidence than the one which every Sabbath reminds you that “the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein”?
BREAKING THE CYCLE OF WORRY (November 14, 2025)
We worry for the best of reasons, or so we tell ourselves.
An unexpected bill arrives. The car won’t start. A three-year old grows feverish. Layoff slips are piling up for even long-time workers.
The brooding circle of our fears goes rounding for an answer. In all those moments “in between,” we just can’t break their vast, erosive power. We want control—ours or anyone’s—to hold at bay dark outcome
THE STRATEGY OF GRACE (November 07, 2025)
Here’s a good word for all those self-help strategies.
The websites and the bookstores are crowded with a million crafted plans for how to lose unwanted weight, get control of personal finances, or marry the person of our dreams. Millions of pounds of body fat have been shed; ten million family budgets have been strengthened and secured—and at least a handful of romances have been kindled by wise
LIVING THE GRACE (October 31, 2025)
You’ve heard the song a thousand times, but have you lived the words?
For more than 250 years, believers have cherished the clear simplicity of “Amazing Grace.” Celebrated recordings 50 years ago by bagpipe bands and pop artists catapulted the old song to international prominence as a kind of “hymn for the world.” Millions resonate with the ache it expresses for freedom, redemption and a future.
GRACE HAS A FACE (October 24, 2025)
It’s natural to think of the story of our lives as a gradually rising line of progress.
We were once toddlers: now we stride—and even race—through professions and relationships. Our minds have grown acute: we’ve mastered subtlety and sarcasm, posturing and self-promotion. We’ve learned the fine art of “faking it until we make it.”
But the growling in the basement grows insistent. We sense—and if w
FORGIVING AND FORGETTING (October 17, 2025)
Ah, the joys of a clear conscience.
Entering a room of jostling colleagues, sure you’ve spoken kindly of each one. Finishing your tax return with certainty you’ve paid each charge the law required. Walking by mouth-watering chocolates for six days straight without even opening the box.
This doesn’t sound like your story? You either?
The inner voice that calls to mind our secret crossings of the li
A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE (October 10, 2025)
It’s natural enough to prize what benefits me most.
Self-interest is the driving force in almost all our culture. Do I like it? Does it taste good? Did it make me laugh? Does it put money in my pocket? We measure almost everything by what we get and gain.
And so it’s natural to think of something as extravagant as God’s unprecedented kindness as a kind of fortunate transaction that wipes away our
DELIGHTED BY THE MUSIC (October 03, 2025)
Have you ever listened to a dull and tired song—only to be stirred and thrilled when it reprised in some new, higher key?
Then you know something of the grace of God, whatever else your story tells.
Grace comes to us as unexpected joy when our performance, short or long—had lifted neither us nor anyone around us. We were muddling through the music, vocalizing rote notes and mangling the lyrics.
A LONG AND GRACIOUS STORY (September 26, 2025)
When most of what we read and see is governed by some soulless algorithm built to anger us or sell us something—it’s hard to know if joy is real, if love is kind, if gentle words are really meant to bless.
And yet joy lingers, gentleness persists, and tens of millions of times a day, someone whispers “I love you” to a child, a spouse, a friend, a former enemy.
This is true for both those who d
ALL OF GRACE, GRACE FOR ALL (September 19, 2025)
“He’s so much better than I am,” we say, proving just how little we know of someone else’s life.
“She’s a saint,” we say admiringly, assuming that the woman we can see is always just as good as we imagine.
We assign a top-notch grade to behaviors we observe, and make assumptions that the life consistency we can’t achieve is somehow available to others.
But grace reminds us of the brokenness we sha
COMING OUT OF THE DARK (September 12, 2025)
Going underground is one of humanity’s oldest responses to fear, war, or pestilence.
Archaeologists have uncovered vast subterranean cities, carved out by those who believed that living in the light made them vulnerable. Victims of persecution, fugitives—even families fleeing natural disasters or climate shifts—all chose to dwell where only torches and flickering lamps could pierce the darkness.
B
WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS (September 05, 2025)
“I just can’t catch a break,” he sighs, watching floodwaters climb five feet up the walls of his ruined home.
“I’ve got plenty of luck,” she weeps over the crumpled fender of her old Toyota. “It’s just all bad.”
The weary chorus of this world is a dirge about how little control we truly have. Medical bills crush us. Friendships we cherish grow distant and cold. The machines on which our lives depe
GRACEFULLY WRONG (August 29, 2025)
Most of us inherited a God no kinder than we were—a deity whose major role seemed meting out tough penalties for willful or impetuous mistakes.
Like primitive believers everywhere, we read His displeasure in thunderstorms, bruised knees, and lost puppies—for was there anything for which we weren’t somehow to blame?
So it is that finding grace is the great unlearning of our past, the sweet and joyf
HIDE AND SEEK (August 22, 2025)
Ever thought of running away from God?
Like naive children in moments of hot shame and brokenness, we imagine there’s some deeply-hidden spot where what we’ve done cannot be seen, where we can huddle with our guilt. Perhaps in some dark mountain cave. Perhaps beneath the blankets of our bed. Perhaps beneath the cellar stairs.
But God—and grace—are inescapable, and our most private hiding spots are
VISIBLE GRACE (August 15, 2025)
Sometimes through the dust and smoke, we trace the features of a friend—someone whose rich, remembered kindness soothes the soul and calms the turbulence. We hold on to such people for good reason: they have held us—gripped us, even—when the world seemed topsy-turvy and every voice was loud.
They were—they are—God’s grace in human form, a bit of heaven lingering to give us hope and get us through.
GROWING FAITH IN GOD (August 08, 2025)
What is the speed of trust?
It’s an odd question, since rapid acceleration and safe, human connection seem antithetical—moving in opposite directions.
And there’s the point—and the reason we don’t attempt lasting friendships while driving Formula 1 cars, in the backstretch of an 800-meter race, or while racing each other to the top of the corporate ladder.
Speed implies competition, a desire to be
THE HERO OF THE STORY (August 01, 2025)
We come naturally by our self-absorption. From our earliest moments, we’re congratulated for taking first steps, trying new foods, mastering new skills, for learning how to navigate the myriad complexities of an ever-widening world. The story is, and has always been, about us—our goals, our striving, our gaining, our getting.
But then one day the world refused to be our private oyster. There was
THE IMMENSITY OF GRACE (July 25, 2025)
Grace isn’t fully knowable inside the monuments we’ve built. Our finest structures merely hint at what the Scriptures call the “breadth and length and height and depth” (Eph 3:18) of love the Father gives us.
Cathedral arches just suggest the soaring kindness of our God. Our well-stocked libraries of knowledge—comprehensively collected; exquisitely curated—tell but a fraction of the story, deeper
THE MEASURE OF SUCCESS (July 18, 2025)
We dream of exploits that ensure our fame—of fortunes gained or mountains climbed or roles where we control the lives of other, lesser mortals. We gather things—disposables—to fill the hole made urgent by our angry greed.
But we would gladly trade them all to be two modest, undramatic things at once: both deeply loved and finally forgiven.
No accolades or billions earned will ever soothe a heart t
PLAYFUL, JOYFUL, WE ADORE THEE (July 11, 20259
It’s every parent’s greatest joy to see a child at play—freely, joyously at play. And children—of whatever age—only play when they understand they’re safe—deeply, seriously safe.
We don’t play on battlefields, in lightning storms, or when we doubt we’ll ever see tomorrow. And so the God of Scripture frequently must wait until we’ve outlived our fears before we grasp the fullness of His affection.
HEALED ON THE WAY (July 04, 2025)
Learning grace is slow and hard the way recovery of any kind is usually slow and hard.
When a bone is broken or a muscle torn, no supply of godly wishing can speed the pace at which the healing happens. This moment’s not for optics, not for show: nothing less than patient, cellular recovery can make us whole again.
And so no project that contemplates the complete overhaul of our personal theology,
GRACE KNEELS (June 27, 2025)
Ah, to be the wounded one—the one who gets to be the powerful forgiver. We covet this rare role because we’re usually more sinning than we’re sinned against. And when it comes our turn to show the grace once given us, we linger with the choice, as if it were a heavy thing to pardon what’s been done.
We can’t, of course, refuse forgiveness outright: Jesus tied our own forgiveness to the habit of
FORGIVENESS IN FULL FLOWER (June 20, 2025)
“Forgive me,” we say flippantly, painting on a shallow smile, when we discover we are misaligned with someone greater or more powerful—someone who might make us hurt.
We view our error lightly—just a minor inconvenience—and we hope the one offended will quickly do the same. Why do the humbling work of owning all that happened and acknowledging its impact?
But true forgiveness is a thoughtful, time
FIRST LIGHT, THEN GRACE (June 13, 2025)
Wherever grace is welcomed and received, joy follows, just as daylight follows dawn.
And so we can read backwards from so many grayed-out, joyless souls to learn how few have heard and loved and lived the gospel. All fearful, anxious following of Jesus—all dim preoccupation with the things we've done or left undone—reveals that we are still in darkness, wrestling with the shadows Jesus rose to van
GOTTA TELL SOMEBODY (June 06, 2025)
In every soul who has ever been healed, conviction rises that they must tell the story of how God’s goodness rebuilt a broken body or a wounded spirit.
Bones got mended; diseases conquered; mobility advanced; relationships renewed. When grace restores what pain has taken, “Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has
SWEET WORD OF GRACE (May 30, 2025)
My pride is stung. My spirit’s wounded. The untrue, unjust thing that someone said, that someone wrote, went viral with unheard-of speed, fanned on by evil angels.
And rising with the bitter righteousness of bile, the fantasy of sweet revenge becomes more urgent every hour. “Strike back!” say Truth and Justice. “Set the twisted record straight. Unmask the gossiper for who he is, for what she wrote
HAPPILY SURRENDERED (May 23, 2025)
If you revisit all the beaches where you built sandcastles in the sun, chances are, you’ll never even find a one.
The constant pull of wash and wave reduces all the outposts where we once asserted sovereignty. Our turrets and our towers, our moats and battlements have long since lost the struggle to insist on what was never really ours.
And so it is as grace subdues the castles of our pride and s
HYMN WE SING (May 16, 2025)
It’s the most famous line ever written about grace by an author not recorded in God’s Word: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”
Every week, around the globe, it’s sung and said uncounted times, bringing joy and certainty to billions of believers. Whole lives are built on this.
But the lived reality of grace requires that we move beyond the first person voice, and gr
FOREVER JOY (May 09, 2025)
Savoring the creamy richness of delectable milk chocolate.
Settling into the plush leather of a luxury car.
Dangling your feet in the stunningly blue water of a South Pacific lagoon.
What do these very different life experiences have in common? Each is richly imaged for us by adroit advertisers who correctly sense how desperately we seek relief from everyday hecticity.
We need something to break t
TO GRACIOUSLY RECEIVE (May 02, 2025)
What is it in our restless hearts that cannot graciously receive a gift?
A friend invites us to a grand, delightful meal, and even before dessert is served, we’re busy evening the score. We fail to taste the kindly moment because we’re painfully obsessed with making certain our account with one we call a friend is “balanced”—even though it is a dinner spread and not a spreadsheet gleaming in the c
WELCOMING DISRUPTION (April 25, 2025)
What makes the light of Easter last long past the hymns and lilies?
The ground beneath our feet has moved. The grim, unshaken certainties of loss and grief and toil and death have finally succumbed—and to such stunningly good news: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor.15.22).
Our muddied tale of violence and pain has yielded in a burst of light that stubbornly
HE IS RISEN! (April 18, 2025)
In the blackness of Sunday morning, the prodigal opened His eyes and murmured softly, “I will arise and go to my Father, and will say to Him, ‘Father, I have borne the sins of every human who has ever lived. I am worthy to be called your Son.’”
And a reunion postponed for 33 years split the midnight of our world. Out of wretchedness came joy. Out of brokenness came healing. Love triumphed over dea
NEVER ALONE (April 11, 2025)
Left to ourselves, what we know of forgiveness would soon disappear. Left to ourselves, acts of mercy would soon drown in the ocean of self-centeredness. Left to ourselves, what light and warmth still shines in our communities would soon go dark. Why help a neighbor, when he is just one more competitor for dwindling resources?
But the good news is that we are never left to ourselves. Into this dar
GRACE WHILE WE WAIT (April 04, 2025)
A gospel song from long ago gathered the hope of millions into a yearning vision of peace:
“Someday, a bright new wave
Will break upon the shore;
And there'll be no sickness
No more sorrow, no more war;
And little children
Never will go hungry any more . . .”
That bright new world hasn’t yet arrived. The headlines rage. The nations totter. Famished children in refugee camps wait for promised bre
MULTIPLYING GRACE (March 28, 2025)
It never was a straight-line thing, this love we call the grace of God. It circles and surrounds, embraces and includes, until the throngs that praise God’s name are far too vast to count.
In grace, Jesus forgives me. With gratitude, I offer you forgiveness. Because you have been liberated, you pass that grace to one who has offended you. And he in turn, when I offend him, offers me forgiveness.
BEYOND THE WINDOWS (March 21, 2025)
Those the world calls saints weren’t typically the brittle, stained-glass figures of our pious imagination. The reason their stories are still told is that they trusted God more fully, accepted His freely-offered love, and opened their lives profoundly to His grace.
Their story can be yours as well, for the Bible calls every believer in Christ a “saint.” The apostle Paul interceded for every man
BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH (March 14, 2025)
We can’t make ourselves more loveable to God by years of good behavior. And yet, because of grace, we seek to do what pleases Him.
We can’t earn even half an hour in heaven by acts of sympathy or kindness. And yet, because of grace, we spend unnumbered hours caring for the least of all His little ones.
Those shining moments when we sometimes rise to our potential don’t make us even one bit more be
GRACE SO AMAZING (March 07, 2025)
No one can grasp the grace of God unless God teaches him, embraces him, and holds him in an unexpected kindness.
There’s no intellect so vast; there’s not a mystic so devout that he can plumb the depth of love by private contemplation.
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine” (Isa 55:8).
Only the mind of God could Father-f
GRACE AND SAFETY (February 28, 2025)
The gospel is only as good as the God who asks us to believe it. If He’s the disappointed, vengeful deity we have pictured in our frightened imaginations, then we do well to hide, to stay away: why would we risk ourselves with Him?
But if Christ is, as His Word says, the Lord whose love for us survives even our worst choices and most defiant behaviors, then we may crawl out from beneath the bed an
THE UNEXPECTED GOSPEL (February 21, 2025)
A muscular young athlete, bench-pressing massive iron; stonemasons, deeply-focused, chiseling the capstone for a tall cathedral spire; a driven young executive, burning midnight oil as she assesses market data.
What do these pictures have in common? All celebrate intense, prodigious effort, spent to take the doer to the top in sport, in craftsmanship, in business.
Our world’s awash in images like
PRACTICING GRACE (February 14, 2025)
It’s not called “practicing” for nothing.
On some great future day, the liberating, life-affirming grace we each receive from Jesus will also be the grace we give as freely to those who wound us, irritate our peace, or call out for our love and care.
Between the “now” and “then” there’s a lot of practicing to do—a daily repetition of kind words, forgiving acts, and chosen, holy silences. Like hour
GRACE GOES ON (February 07, 2025)
If you’ve ever been forgiven; if you’ve been held when you were wrong, or bitter, or confused—you know the grace that never can repay the giver.
So we surrender to the goodness God implants in human hearts. “We know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love” (Rom 5:5).
We come to understand God’s grace when we are loved extravagantly, witho
OUT OF THE DEPTHS (January 31, 2025)
“When I’m deep in a hole, lower a rope, not a shovel.”
The last thing we need when we’ve dug ourselves profoundly into pain or confusion or sin is more of the same. Our best efforts got us there: our best efforts won’t deliver us. The pit only gets deeper—and so does our frustration. As Scripture says, “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death” (Prov 14:12).
Rescue
NO JANUARY AUDIT (January 24, 2025)
It’s a scene played out 10 million times in the 30 days since Christmas: “You shouldn’t have . . .” “But I didn’t get you anything. . .” “I didn’t hear we were exchanging gifts . . .”
A stranger from another planet might conclude that our annual Christmas gift-giving is actually an exquisite balancing act—designed to keep each party from feeling awkward for having received an unreciprocated gift.
GRACE BEFORE WE PRAY (January 17, 2025)
That impulse in our souls to pray—to find our knees; to stammer out the words—grows from an early, dim awareness of just how much we need the grace of God.
We pray because we cannot fix our world or ourselves. We kneel because we’re powerless to heal sick children, pay the bills, or mend unhealthy marriages. We call out as we weep for all the clash between our living and God’s giving.
And even tha
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