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

Grace Given, and Not Lent

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 sinners and to saints, without regard to worthiness. Some are only temporarily dampened by the flow, but remain defiantly unchanged. Others are made soft and pliable by the same unending grace—new clay from which the Lord will fashion recreated men and women. 

So grace is neither a reward for good behavior nor a prompt to honor good intentions. Grace is the decision of our God—who cannot fail—to offer all of us what we have not deserved, have often not desired, and certainly could never earn. It flows from God’s unending heart of love. 

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift” (Rev 22:17).

Now stay in it. 

—Bill Knott

Learning How to Talk All Over Again

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, and always have been.  We’ve misunderstood the love of God, imagining Him as only angry, always disappointed. We’ve wandered into deeds that brought us shame and guilt.  We’ve argued for ideas that were vanquished at the cross.  “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Is 53:6).

So grace prepares us for a new way of talking with each other, even when we disagree—especially when we disagree.  “You could be right”—"I might be wrong”: these are the tools of reconciliation and renewal.  Look carefully at grace before you look your opponent in the eye.

There is no greater joy than laughing with a former enemy. 

So stay in grace.

 —Bill Knott

Practicing Grace

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 really seen and known. If grace has found a home in us, it pries our fingers off the iron mace of moral superiority, of glorying in punishments we can exact. Grace places us just where our enemy now stands. He has done wrong—just as we do. He has told lies—as we have done. He has betrayed a confidence—and which of us has not?

Grace always has a claim on justice, but chooses not to push that claim. The Bible says, “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). If God, whom we supremely injured, sees us with such rich love that He accepts the death of Christ in place of what we fully earned, grace can be learned—by us, in us, through us, for others.

Grace lets us first unclench our fists so we may offer enemies our open hands.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Early Gratitude

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 moments, the impulse to be grateful for our lives so easily departs—chased out by hot adrenaline. Should we—could we—offer thanks for grumpy children shepherded to school; for spouses facing drama at the office; for traffic ribbons of red taillights?

Yet waking up is still a grace, and drawing breath is still a gift. Everything we count as sameness and routine is proof that life still offers possibilities; that things don’t stay just as they were; that hope—and hopeful people—still endure.

Grace saves more than souls and minds—the planned, deliberate parts of us. Grace floods our zone with oxygen; with joys too small to write them down; with love as wordless as an infant’s fingers curled about our own. And gratitude—perhaps a prayer we’ve memorized; an easy sigh of heavenward contentment—gratitude equips us for the journey of these hours, this life, and on to life eternal.

“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10), Jesus says to all who put their mornings in His care.

Awake to life and love and grace.

And stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Environmental Truths

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 make it on our own.  Despite appearances, the road is never empty.

Around us each are Jesus’ everlasting arms—sustaining us, protecting us, embracing us. His hands are ever on us.

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things” (Rom 11:36).

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Rom 8:39).

We are befriended by the One who rules all time and space. 

Receive the gift. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

One Hero Only

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. 

No wonder so many dreamed of that day when they would ride in the convertible, waving slowly to the thousands lining the way.

But when it comes to how our lives find meaning and renewal, we aren’t the hero in this parade. Though our egos, our music, and so much of our “faith talk” put us in the spotlight, reveling in the shower of ticker-tape, this celebration isn’t about us. This parade is for Jesus, “the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting Him, He endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now He is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne” (Heb 12:2).

Grace isn’t just about making us feel special, celebrated or affirmed: those are fortunate results, not purposes. Grace truly understood is the grateful cheer going up from millions of rescued hearts to the One who made it happen through His sacrifice and love. 

There’s just one hero in this story. And it’s not me—or you.

Now stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Counter-intuitive Grace

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 the soccer goal; sank the jump shot; hit the home run.

Accolades flowed if we exceeded our peers in history, algebra, languages, or physics. Employers nodded appreciatively at résumés crammed with academic and professional excellence.

That’s why we find ourselves so unprepared for the unexpected gift of grace, for which we didn’t work, and which we never earned. It takes us days, months—often years—to quiet our over-trained and striving souls long enough to receive what God says only He can provide.

“God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece” (Eph 2:8-9).

Grace is the story of what Jesus has achieved for us. Accept His gift, and He will take you further than you’ve ever dreamed.

So stay in grace.

 —Bill Knott