Keep on Singing

Electric icicles are draped from eaves that never have seen snow. Inflatables, some 10 feet tall, loom high above synthetic reindeer, grazing on front lawns. Mythical figures never known in Bethlehem crowd close to dash away whatever pain may linger in the story. Back-lit Nativity scenes help us believe that everything that night was just as festive, clean, and comfortable as all the stuff by which we annually remember it.

But it was painful to be Joseph—much harder still to be Mary—when none were welcoming and no inn had a room. The irony was palpable and blunt: “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him,” the Gospel says (Jn 1:11). Royal lineage did not protect Him. Creatorship gave Him no sweet advantages. The wealthy and the powerful were threatened, not elated, by His birth. All that the principalities and powers could do was summoned to make His entry random, painful, and forgettable.

But heaven had—and heaven has—a beautiful and gracious plan. For every time we sing a carol, or read the story, or tell a child, we push the darkness back a bit. “I am the light of the world,” Jesus says. “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness” (Jn 8:12). The grace He gives, the life He beckons us to live, “is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day” (Prov 4:18).

Keep singing now: the light will grow. Decide to tell the story.

Saving Our Stories

The story brims with contrasts and disparities, and yet we tell it year by year.

We meet an emperor, and then, at last, a baby.  We hear of wealth, taxation, and deep poverty.  We marvel at the gap between an iron power and abject, fragile weakness. 

The One who roamed the far-flung galaxies created by His word lies helpless in a trough from which farm animals are fed.

Brilliant, iridescent angels terrify poor shepherds, who abandon pregnant ewes to gather ‘round the only Lamb who could deliver them.  

Unlearned and voiceless laborers at the bottom of the ladder are tasked with sharing the first good news the world had heard in centuries.

And for all this, the story is ever new and never finished.  We know this story—we tell this story—because it is, somehow, the tale of our lives.  We know the clash of expectations and realities; of hopes held high and lives lived low; of failures, weakness, joy and pain.

And so this birth is like every other birth, and like none that ever has occurred. “What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (Jn 1:4).

Grace came to live with us—to change the ending of our stories. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (Jn 1:5).

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Grace on the Ground

The soloist soars high above the massive, harmonizing choir: “O holy night, the stars are brightly shining.”  But on that night,  no soul on earth expected anything but normal.

We drape the story of His birth with yards of gauze and billowy bright angels.  We estimate a gentleness His weary parents never knew.

We decorate the landscape of our Christmas with smiling sheep and camels trudging from the East.  And we forget how hard it is to live beside—among—farm animals in fields or in stables.

We ring a halo ‘round a birth that felt—that hurt—like any other birth, for there was nothing to relieve His mother’s pain except, perhaps, the wise words of a midwife and the prayers of worried Joseph.

Truth is, the grace of God, the Word made Flesh, took pains to enter all our commonness, our struggle and our dirt, so all who live below the line would see Him as their Saviour, too.

Grace never was afraid of dirt—not then, not now, not ever—whether in a musty stable or in a haggard heart.  Our pain, our sin, our guilt, our shame—these are the things He gladly wore as surely as those swaddling clothes.  He was, He is, Immanuel—God with us; God one of us; God for us.

So come, let us adore Him.

And stay in grace.

Full of Grace and Truth

“If you would tell me, tell me true,” a wise old man once said. “There isn’t time enough for lies.”

And when we’ve polished all our trophies, and sung again our victory songs, we come at last to stories too painful to be false. Each honest story unwraps our wounds, our hurts—as well as those we’ve given.

We grieve the loved ones whom we’ve lost—a spouse; a friend; a much-loved child—though some of them still live and breathe. We mourn the loss of innocence; we’ve soaked up toxic sums of greed. We laugh at violence and war; we cheer for “heroes” who display our poorest human qualities. We feel the sadness for what’s never fixed or mended or repaired.

And so it’s not an accident that we know more of Jesus as a healer than any other role. He stepped into the broken story of our world with grace that made the lepers dance and unlocked tongues that never spoke. He gave the parents back lost children; He cast out evil spirits and refashioned sin-sick attitudes. He told us of a Father who kindly waits for us to finish playing prodigal.

And when He died to heal us of our greatest hurt, He took our pain and made it His. “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the punishment that made us whole, and by His bruises we are healed” (Isa 53:5-6).

The good news is that grace still heals. It closes wounds; it soothes our scars. And someday soon, it leads us home.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Choice to Love

“She was very gracious in accepting my apology,” we say with heartfelt admiration.

“He gave a very gracious speech in light of the circumstances,” we add, aware he could have done differently.

Our common references to grace reveal we most always link it to “something that didn’t have to be done that way,” or someone who made a noble choice to rise above the normal human lust for power, wealth, or influence. Grace is always a choice, even in difficult, vexing moments.

And there we find a useful definition of God’s gracious acts toward us: they are always somethings He was never obligated to do. It was—it is—a choice, a principled, character-driven, even painful decision to offer us His love and His forgiveness. Even when we spat on His Son, and beat Him badly, and laughed at His extremity, and mocked Him as He died.

If God were not gracious, all who have ever lived would be doomed. “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). 

But grace is real; forgiveness happens, and broken lives are made brand-new. In every hour—on every day—the Father offers the mercy we will neither merit nor deserve. And all for the deep satisfaction He receives of seeing us embraced and welcomed into the kingdom of His Son.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Great Unlearning

We crouch behind our walls and fences, readying ourselves for what we’ve learned to fear. We lock all doors, secure the bars. We mentally rehearse our steps, our routes.

We twitch at unfamiliar sounds, lie wide awake when branches scrape the roof, and wait for light and morning.

Whoever is not us is “other”—a nameless, faceless “stranger” we assume means only harm. “They” are the people unlike us—of different race, perhaps; or language, habits, customs, faiths. We crave the time machine that takes us back to comfort as we knew it.

But grace is so remarkably persistent that even locks and fears cannot deter how it reshapes our thinking.

When you discover—at long last—that you were “other” to the Lord—that you were threatening to His kingdom, a rebel to His law and rule, and damaging the world with your hostility and hate. And still He loved—still welcomed you into His house, and gave you keys to all the property. He trusted you before you knew you could be trusted; offered you forgiveness—yes—for sins not yet repented of.

We were embraced before we even tried to love. “God proves His love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:18).

So grace remakes our way of seeing those we used to fear—takes down our walls brick after brick—until we learn that difference is a source of joy, that “other” can be “brother,” “sister” “neighbor,” “friend.”

The great unlearning has begun. Now stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Beyond the Galaxy

If there’s a mountain anywhere to climb, we scale it.

If there’s a chasm some say can’t be spanned, we find a way to bridge it.

When we demand a new frontier, we harness all the ingenuity we have to launch deep probes of planets, moons and suns.

But there’s one goal we’ll never rise to conquer—how to reconcile a sinner to the Father.

Nothing in our repertoire responds to this persistent challenge. Effort will not make it happen; wisdom won’t achieve the goal. Diligence and ritual won’t bring the heavens closer.

Only from the heart of God could answers come that heal the world, atone for our disaster and disgrace, and offer us a future far beyond the galaxy. Only He who came from God to walk with us, and feel our pain, and mend our brokenness can do the hardest thing that ever was.  “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).

Grace came down, and grace abides. And only grace will lead us home.

Rejoice in love’s magnificent reality. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Best Kind of Graffiti

“John 3:16,” the hand-lettered poster reads, and we imagine some sharp zealot who bought a stadium endzone seat to get his message out to millions on TV.

“John 3:16,” the spattered license plate declares, as we idle in traffic and ponder why some driver would request those letters and those numbers for his car.

“John 3:16,” the understated business card asserts, as we turn over all the notes and papers of our day.

These characters—four letters and two numbers—spell out the code of grace. They stand for truths so grand and baffling that we need everyday reminders: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

God loves us unimaginably. God gave us Jesus unhesitatingly. God welcomes us unendingly.

Grace is the boldest, most audacious thing this broken world has ever heard—so startling we are stark amazed that it could possibly be true. It’s not the fate that we expected. It’s not the verdict we deserved.

But it’s the gift that God’s deep heart of love still offers us—on any day, in any place.

So paint it somewhere on the walls of your life. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Gift that Keeps On Giving

There’s nothing quite as satisfying—or as dangerous—as the certainty that we are right and someone else is wrong. We relish those rare moments of rightness because they wrap us in an unaccustomed virtue, as though we suddenly were several inches taller.

Should we be sharp in underlining their mistake, or should we play it cool—and let embarrassment be the bitter aftertaste for those who got it wrong? We toy with power as cats abuse their mice.

But there’s another, better way to be both right and righteous. “Above all, love each other deeply,” the Bible says, “because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). The grace that blotted out our sins—that made us whole—is grace available to give when others fail. In fact, we show our gratitude for grace by offering it to those who have no place to hide, who wither in the judgment of their peers.

Grace isn’t fully part of us until it is re-given. We learn much more of mercy when we’re merciful to those—like us—who don’t deserve forgiveness. “Freely you have received; freely give,” Jesus says (Matt 10:8). And in the giving, we discover our true size as sinners wrapped in grace.

Regift the grace that’s given you. And stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Winning Together

When we were kids, each walk became a race; each math assignment launched a competition; every recital was a place to prove our mastery. Half of us, on any day, were losers of some kind—in the race to the mailbox; in the quest to get the better grade; in the hope to have one shining moment when we were proclaimed the best.

And so we arrive at mid-life with a shelf half-full of trophies and an aching sense that we have lost more than some rounds of golf and afternoons of tennis.  We spend the first half of our lives turning friends into competitors, and spend the last half trying to reverse that process.  Winning may be everything, but everything on many days can feel remarkably like nothing.           

Grace offers us a different way—a way to run with others, not against them; a way to play for joy and not for triumph.  There are no losers in this race, except for those who will not enter.

The apostle Paul, as tough a man as ever walked the planet, reminded us how all may share the final victory:  “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.”

Grace crowds the finish line with millions of co-winners.  And the Lord, who judges everyone, is delighted with the outcome.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

When Gripped by Guilt

Someone has said, “Guilt is the great equalizer of the world.”  Whether we are leaders in society or live quietly out of sight, we know the deep and inescapable voice of conscience, calling us to account for things everybody knows, and things nobody knows.  Beneath our calm exteriors, we struggle with ourselves for missing the mark, breaking the law, violating the expectations God has of us, and we have of ourselves.

Unless we bring our guilt to God, it leads to countless dangerous behaviors.  We multiply offenses, hoping to somehow numb our sense of being misaligned.  We turn our guilt to anger—at others, at situations, at ourselves.  We try to find hard ways to work our way back into favor by doing deeds of charity, reciting familiar prayers, and demanding tough discipline of ourselves.

But there’s only one way back to God, and it’s open, free, available on any day—for any fault. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:9).  In grace, the Father teaches us to trust the only one who never wavered in His faith, never felt a pang of conscience, never needed atonement for Himself.  “God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:19).

Guilt never was a match for grace, and never, ever will be.  “To all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12).

Trade all your guilt for matchless grace.  And stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Beyond Debate

When all the sermons have been heard; when all the books have been re-shelved; when every scholarly debate about who He was has faded into dry obscurity, we still have stories that persuade us Jesus understands our inconsistent, bungled lives.

He ate with people just like us—from Pharisees to prostitutes. He lavished time on fishermen and mothers. He played with little kids, insisting they should be protected. He welcomed wealthy men to poverty, and told the poor that they were honored in His kingdom. He brought new hope—and life—to grieving families, and held the very ones His culture had rejected. He fed great crowds, and ministered His grace in deeply private moments.

We love these stories in those times when what we call our faith seems distant or uncertain. We are the lepers being touched; the wounded ones who reach for healing; the lonely who would gladly spend an hour with Him. When storms break on our boat, we need a Captain, not a theorist. We need that Voice that still speaks peace to waves of worry, and brings us back to terra firma—safe and sound, and saved.

There’s grace in every gospel story, including yours. “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people” (Tit 2:11).

Find your story; find your place. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Best Selfie of All

Some pundits claim the future will be owned by clothiers and cosmeticians, for they know what it takes to make us feel momentarily good about ourselves. In a world mad-obsessed with self-presentation, humans take 35 billion selfies a year, choosing only ones that get the eyebrows tweezed, the lighting kind, the stubble on the beard just right. Ten thousand clothing companies regale us with images designed to help us hide our flaws and showcase youthfulness, our grasp of trends, and mimic what our cultural idols are wearing.

But the hardest picture we will take is the candid selfie of our souls—the one we never show to others. Beneath the liners and the layers, behind the tints and overstated plaids, we know the real picture—the place where there are wrinkles on the heart; where tears erase what we have carefully composed. Will I be loved? Is there a purpose to my life? Will someone walk with me through illness, grief, and setbacks on the job?

The grace of God sees deeper than our posing—and chooses us just as we are. The Bible says, “The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). Our flaws, our sins, our brokenness do not deter Him: He knows we are “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev 3:17)—and yet Christ holds us with an everlasting love that won’t give up, that won’t let go.

Share all the outtakes of your life with Him. And stay in grace.

The Road Much Traveled

We always celebrate first moments, and gladly so—the day that we were born (and every year thereafter!); first day of school; first day at a new job; the day we gave our brokenness to Jesus. These launching points are how we start our stories: everything unfolds from how it all began.

But only one day in 365 can be a birthday, and starting school was just the easy part. We learn, in time, the difference between the starting and staying—between beginning and becoming. Thousands of uncelebrated days make up each life, including lives of faith.

Remember just as clearly as you can the day you gave your life to Jesus—the day when you responded to His grace and felt the liberating power of sins forgiven, pasts redeemed, and hopes relit. But then go on to see how staying with the Saviour changes all the ordinary hours when nothing glamorous is happening. Does Christ sit with you in the tedium of work, or pace the hallways of your house when little ones need comfort? Does Jesus walk the twisting roads where school and job and money intersect—beside you, near you, even when you’re anxious?

The grace once given is still given—day by day, hour by hour, for Jesus is more focused on the journey than on how it all began. “My grace is sufficient for you,” He says, “for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:19). It’s in the low points of the road, where darkness reigns and doubts are raining that we learn to trust the promise He still makes: “I am with you always, even to the end of the world” (Matt 28:20).

Trust the traveling with Jesus. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Re-Telling Grace

A favorite story never grows old. Years later, we still savor words we loved before we even learned to read.

The lullaby that someone sang to us is what we sing to fretful children needing sleep.

A fragment of a childish prayer stays with us—yes, stays in us—and we whisper it in moments when we’re short on comfort, certainty, or strength.

The best things always bear repeating: we never really understand them till they rise in all those “times within the times”—those empty moments when our hearts seek healing, grace, companionship.

And so we need to hear the gospel day by day—not only once when God announced our rescue, or on the weekend when we hear a preacher tell us why it’s true. We can’t ever get enough of knowing that we’re loved beyond all measure; held within the Father’s arms; rescued from our past and shame; and pointed to a future filled with joy. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

So speak of grace until the story is your own—so much a part of who you are that you can’t be distinguished from it—until you know, beneath all else, that “nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:39).

Re-tell what love has done for you. And stay in grace.

Grace Kneels

There’s nothing harder than humility, and nothing we need more. 

But “Jesus poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around Him” (Jn 13:5).

It’s still the virtue we want least, for pride—our pride—both subtle and overt, insists on ranking us to others, and even to believers.

One loudly says, “I know Him better. Learn from me.” Another says, “I worship Him more truly. Listen when I sing.” A third says, “I love the world better than you do. Do what I do.”

And so the basin sits unfilled, the towel dry. We lecture, chide, and condescend because we will not kneel; we will not yield. We miss the keenest lesson of our lives when we insist on privilege and power, disguised as gifts and skills. We’re never more like Jesus—or with Jesus—than when we bow to all who bear His name—and to all who could, by grace, one day be His.

The grace that saves us helps us find our knees. The entrance prayer to godly life has been the same for 20 centuries: “Be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). 

In brokenness, we serve the broken. In serving, we ourselves are served. In kindness, we recall how kind the Lord has been to us.

So stay in grace.

Beyond Regret

It usually begins with regret, the uncanny ability to recall—and cringe at—taunting words we said on playgrounds 40 years ago. And then, in night’s small hours when the clock is our companion and our jury, the list of sins remembered grows unbearably long. There is no prosecutor so cutting and so close as a human mind turned inward on itself. Cheating on a test or cheating on a spouse; angry words or angry deeds; vengeance taken or vengeance fervently desired—the catalog of all the things for which we’ve asked forgiveness a hundred, hundred times seems endless and unreconciled.

Can God forgive what we remember with such terrible exactness? Is He more kind to us than we are to ourselves?

The gospel couldn’t be clearer: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:9). “As far as the east is from the west, so far He removes our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:12). “And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before Him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything” (1 Jn 3:19-20).

Grace is God’s answer to regret—His way of helping us forget what He has chosen to forget. When we trust His forgiving words more than our own accusing words, we find the quiet that love provides.

Believe His kind, redeeming promise. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Tenacious Grace

The world is fragile—brittle—now, all hard-edged and reactive. One unsubstantiated rumor can send the markets reeling; provoke a hailstorm of hate; advance—or take down—whole careers before the dawn next breaks.

We feel the clutch of ‘things not right’; we mourn the painful fractures to familiar rhythms that brought comfort, meaning, friendships, love. We fear there is no future we may call predictable, as though the world is reinvented every night.

The pundits and the social prophets have retreated to their rooms, for who dares to be wrong when reputations hang on sound-bites?

To our world, as once to his, the Apostle Paul’s great hymn to Jesus speaks meaning, strength, and clarity: “He Himself is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. . . . For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him God was pleased to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross” (Col 1: 17, 19).

The Lord who once created all that is now holds this world with unmatched love and lasting grip. When all things seem to fly apart, He holds. When chaos reigns and peace seems lost, He holds. When hearts are smeared with tears and fears, He holds. Oh yes! the spiritual was right: “He’s got the whole world in His hands.”

Now trust the One who cannot fail. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

When Gratitude is All

And when the final day has come—when fears are past, and tears are dried—when we are gathered, glad and grateful—millions strong—to praise the Lord who died for us, will there be some unknowing soul so self-absorbed that he might say, “So where’s the credit for my deeds?”

“Absurd!” you say, and right you are, for we are either saved by grace or we are never saved at all. The good that love urged us do, the kindness shared from happy hearts, will seem as insignificant as grains of sands beside that sea that looks like glass. Our finest words will trail off to murmured “Hallelujahs.” Our anthems will boast one refrain: “Worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” Our sweat and strain deserves no mention, for Jesus “poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isa 53:12).

The heart that’s filled with gratitude keeps no account of pains endured—or good deeds done. “Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:8). It’s just a privilege to walk with Him, to learn how grace was tailored to our need, to share the vast, abundant joy of breathing deep and feeling free. 

So pray for daily self-forgetfulness. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Love on Trial

There is no prosecutor or court who dares to bring against our souls the charges we know to be true. At worst, they see the grander crimes—the times when carelessly we broke the law or took what never could be ours. But in our hearts, we know a catalogue of faults so dark, so cold, that nothing less than warming grace could ever resurrect our hope.

And so the work of God is always to speak peace to fearful souls. “Come now,” invites the Father of us all, “let us reason together . . . though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isa 1:18). “For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him” (Jn 3:17).

This is the good news—yes, the gospel—that we hardly dare to dream is true. There’s finally an answer to the deadly accurate indictment; the sentence that we’ve earned. Against the record of our sins we see the deep, unblemished holiness of Him who gladly offered He would bear the penalty for all we’ve done, would die the death that should be ours. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with His stripes we are healed” (Isa 53.5).

There’s just one exit from this courtroom—only one. “If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 Jn 2:1).

Embrace the offer grace provides. And stay in it.