The Learning Curve

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 wonder if such kindness is just rich, warm-hearted myth. The one we thought an enemy who doesn’t reach for his revenge; the friend who quietly forgives our rudeness or our thoughtlessness; the colleague who works overnight to make up for our lack—each gives us just a glimpse of that unbounded and eternal grace that always seeks our flourishing. God sifts His goodness into every day through those who love has changed.

We learn grace from gracious people. In unsung, unexpected ways, they live the kindness in the heart of God.

Live warmly, joyfully yourself. You’ll be the grace some other seeker needs.

And stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Unforced Love

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 everlasting love,” He says. “I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jer 31:3). 

This grace confounds the wisdom of the world:
no ledgers; no accounts; 
no keeping track of charities;
no earning credit with a boss; 
no bank of kindnesses to set against our debts and deficits. 

We fall back in amazed relief: “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love” (Rom 8:38).

Grace leads us, in the end, to praise—the joy we were created for. 

Now stay in it.

—Bill Knott

The Love that Holds Us Always

“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 among us. For them, it’s not a classic story of regret: there’s no self-loathing, guilt, or fear. What they would change is a misperception built on what the culture tells us about God instead of what the Scriptures say: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19).

They only wish they could have known the Father’s love more deeply, for a longer time. How much the world of everyday would have been colored differently if they had known all along that “underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deut 33:27). 

Give me more joy. Let me be always washed in grace. Give me more years of knowing what is really true: “God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him” (John 3:17).

Now stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Restoring Balance

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 our anxiousness or lack of peace. God is always on the side of what gives life, builds hope, and moves us even one small step toward balance.

His grace is meant to keep us breathing, as well as for our saving.  The day that Jesus wants to bring us healing is the day that we are living, not only when our destinies are weighed.  “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

His grace is for today and always.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Dailiness of Grace

“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 connection and reconciliation with the gods through sacrifice, through costly gifts, through candles lit and pilgrimages made. With fear and trembling, we have offered up our best to appease the anger we assumed was gathering in heaven.

But the good news brought in Christ and wrought by Christ declares a new paradigm: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9).

The gospel contradicts—and counteracts—the wisdom of the ages. Yes, we can be made right with God—because He loves; because He gave; because Jesus made a pilgrimage from heaven to earth; because He sacrificed His life to bridge the chasm chiseled by our pride.

Don’t apologize for your weak, inconsistent memory. Every human shares it. Surround yourself with what is true—with words of grace.

And stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Redeeming the Past

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?” (Rom 7:24).

When there’s no one left to dazzle or impress, we cringe in the half-light of our memories. We’re stalked by all the things we’ve done, and increasingly, by the good we’ve left undone. What could we have been thinking?

But the grace of God shines as bright as the Son: “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn 2:2). In kindness the Father offered us in Jesus the living, breathing, open-hearted embodiment of grace. Because He willingly embraced the weight of our mistakes while making none Himself, our lives can rise above the shadows and despair. He made His mission unmistakably clear: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).

Embrace that rich, abundant life.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Finding Confidence and Strength

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-speed as if to make up for the months—the years—when we ourselves were unresponsive to the gospel.

But what we need—and what our friends and enemies much need—is that we answer the first call of grace: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10). Our rush to vow new righteous duties, work new holy deeds, and tell what we have only started to experience is often just another act of foolish self-atonement.

Heaven wisely urges us to quiet. “This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘Only in returning to Me and resting in Me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength’ (Isa 30:15-16).

Grace received always grows into grace well-lived. But beware of pledging your good deeds until you’ve more fully learned all that the Lord has kindly done for you.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

What Only Grace Can Do

“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 hours built on grit and weary bodies. Then we cycle back again, preparing for the round that starts with that insistent first alarm. What, in all of this, is not of our own doing?

And yet the Scripture is insistent: none of this, for all its stress and sometime glory, can make us right with God—even if our work is feeding homeless people or lighting candles in a church.

But the phrase that cuts against the grain begins with something only God can do: “By grace you have been saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8). In undeserved mercy, each of us is offered hope and light and daily joy if we will trust Christ’s hand to make us whole. Even the alarm sounds kinder; the labor of the day becomes our gift of gratitude.

“Salvation belongs to the Lord” (Ps. 3:8). Only He can turn grit into grace, our work dirge to a song, our inability into witness.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

All the Time

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 us dancing in the rain, and loving every growing thing, and finding hope in much-loved songs. It is His joy to know our joy: He made us for receiving love and sharing it with others. 

And when we chide the gleeful child, or calculate the price of flowers, or brush away the tenderness we knew, we turn our backs on His warm grace to find cold comfort in self-righteousness.

Only God is always right, and only God is always gracious. Jesus said of His Father, “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt 5:45). 

Receive His gift. Enjoy His grace.

And stay in it.

—Bill Knott

The Long Arc of Grace

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 miles long, requiring six days of travel. Grace had been working every mile to soften the heart of the angry man who would become its chief apostle.

So grace also walks with the prodigal as he leaves home; in his disturbing revelries; when he finally “comes to himself”; and when he ultimately is encircled by the father’s arms, and once again wears ring and robe. “For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Grace is the long arc of the Father’s kind intentions—and it may take months or years before that seeking love brings us to clarity and gratitude.

You have always been loved. You have always been sought. And your faith is an equally long arc of learning just how deeply Jesus values you.

Now stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Grace Watching Over Me

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 to the lyrics of an old hymn than to a hundred bright and restless tunes?

Because we bear reminding—every day—that the God who flung the stars in their courses still sees us; still chooses to see us—in all our tired, ordinary uniqueness. In heaven’s chosen language, there is no “same as that” or “same as them.” Even our unvoiced whispers are heard, fully understood, gently answered.

This is the grace that watches over us, that’s never weary, never indifferent. Jesus made it very clear: “Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to Him than they are?” (Matt 6:26). 

Grace sees our tears, knows our stress, and comforts our distresses. And grace gives us a song that carries us through every hour to come.

Hope is your sign of grace.

So stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Freedom to Be Healed

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 weaves itself into our core; how grief and bitterness pulse with dark, compelling energy. So He lingers before He heals, honoring the sacred freedom He gave to every soul: “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:6). “Do you want to live beyond your pain? Do you want to live without rehearsing narratives of those who injured you, or why your bitterness is justified?”

It was not an easy question then; it never is an easy question now. Yet Jesus asks again, for His grace is neither hurried nor forced. Will we be remade, renewed, restored? Or will we settle again onto familiar broken ground, grimly content to recount the ancient wounds that now define us?

Grace passes by your mat today. The question stirs your waiting place, echoing around your pool.

Take the hand that reaches for you. Respond with faith—yes, even trembling faith—and grace will lift you to your feet.

Then stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Help My Unbelief

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 moment’s doubt—who always sing the sun up in the morning and bless the coolness of the night. We invent such myths in hope that we might yet grow into them, more righteous than our peers.

But real life has real tests—when our money, strength, or patience come up short; when secretly we envy the ultra-rich, the ultra-smooth; the carefree media influencer. With the psalmist we complain: “Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence” (Psa 73:13).

The same gracious Word that voices our human frustration also gives us words to say to our Creator when faith is thin or weak: “Yet I still belong to You; You hold my right hand. You guide me with Your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny” (Psa 73:23-24). Grace plucked us from our foolishness: “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6).

Trust the Lord who called you on to life eternal. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

A Melody for the Unchained

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 combust to make us cringe again, again? Does grace reach down below the intellect, the wonderful idea, and heal those wounds we so much never want to show the world?

At its heart—and in our hearts—grace offers us what no one else is giving. Redemption is for real—for all those moments and those years we’ve blown it big and ruined all our future. “All we like sheep have gone astray. We’ve turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on Him”—on Jesus, the only righteous one who ever lived—"the iniquity of us all” (Isa 53:6).

It seems too good—too kind; too merciful—to be true. And so we linger in the half-light of our fears, humming a tune we dream might yet be ours.

The hymn has outlived every copyright. God’s grace is clearly in the public domain.

Make this song yours. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Morning Doubts Disappear

“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 seal?”

But the doubts that rang in their hollow souls had begun to lose their grip. This Man had life—gave life—gives life. No sword, or spear, or stone, or seal could keep the dawn from rising.

What if the night is over? What if He won’t stay dead? What if the dying Lamb of God becomes our living Head?

When we begin to doubt our doubts, the life of faith begins. We pull the morning toward us, certain only of one thing: we’ve had enough of night and fear and death and loss. There’s joy beyond the cross.

Resurrection—His and ours—begins to change the world. So pick some lilies. Sing His song. Plant some kindness. Practice risen life each day.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Journey of a Week

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, the Saviour said: “The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death . . . They will mock Him, and spit upon Him, and flog Him, and kill Him” (Mk 10:32-33).  

But never miss the finish of His prophecy: the future of the world hangs on it, or actually, on Him. “And after three days He will rise again” (vs 33).

There is no darkness, long or dull, that Light can never penetrate. It’s not a story that must end with grief on Friday afternoon. “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him” (Rom 6.8).

Keep walking through His Passion, then, for it will end as you will end—with hope, with light, with joy, with life. The morning dawns, and so will you.

Now stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Nothing in My Hand I Bring

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, and money given to the homeless. We want connection, but without the cross.

As satisfying as it can feel to deliberately make the life of faith more painful and intense, the gospel shines with clarifying grace: “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:24).

The self-denial for which Christ calls isn’t made of beets or gruel or things we naturally dislike. It’s the denying of our own efforts, of the value of our “good deeds,” and yes, of our own homemade theology to which the Saviour calls us. “Christ made us right with God; He made us pure and holy, and He freed us from sin. Therefore, as the Scriptures say, ‘If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord’” (1 Cor 1:30-31).

“Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent’” (John 6:29).

Now stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

A World Without Hate

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 invested to sustain this pernicious illusion, for much money can be made by channeling hatred and distrust. 

So it is that grace, which teaches us that “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5)—grace will always seem so strange and otherworldly to people who believe that they have been fated to hate those different from themselves. The gospel declares of Jesus, “For He is our peace; in His flesh He has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Eph 2:14).

Grace is the promise that we can learn to love without divisions, without malice, without hate.

And when it comes to you, you’ll stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

A Light That Never Fails

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 with Christ in God” (Col 3:3).

They do not take themselves too seriously, for they are quick to tell that all they have and all they are is given them in mercy.

You watch them pour themselves into the broken, fear-filled lives of those around them, for grace never was for them alone. Their peace shines like a steady and unblinking light in all the aching darkness.

Mark them well, for this is who you want to be—who you can be—by saying “Yes” to grace.

“Since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us” (Rom 5:1).

And when your life is also glad and free, you’ll stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Too Good to Be False

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 uncertainty when you despair of ever being right with God?” 

There’s just one answer for such fears, and it originated in the mind of God: “God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God” (Eph 2:8).

Only the Word that comes from God can overcome the human pride that needs its efforts recognized. The apostle Paul, filled with the truth that rests in God, emphatically declared: “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law” (Rom 3:28).

Those who truly grasp God’s grace are never slow to live His love. The life of holiness begins when we receive what we can never earn. 

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott