The Song That Must Be Sung

“Be safe,” uncounted angels urged, and watched with apprehension as the One who made them want to sing stepped down through light years and past planets to a home in Mary’s silent womb. It was the first time they had ever been without His joy. How would His strange descent to live among the broken, tragic, helpless race of humans—letting Himself be born as one of them—affect the ceaseless happiness of heaven?

And so they practiced for nine months, suggesting harmonies so rich and descants they had never tried, to craft a song—the perfect song—for that first night He would appear, an infant wrapped in birthing bands. They found from months of searching just the audience they wanted—sleepy shepherds in the fields—who never had heard music of that quality or kind.

And when the birth had happened, when months of pent-up chorusing became unstoppably joyous, they burst forth on the hills near Bethlehem: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” (Luke 2:14) 

Grace was always heaven’s plan: peace and goodwill are what our God has always offered us. Jesus, “the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev 13:8), was first chorused to a flock of shepherds. And the joy of those who sang—and the joy of those who heard—has set our world in motion with the rhythms of His grace.

Be listening for the music as you celebrate His birth. And stay in grace.

–Bill Knott

Simple Gifts

If everything is owed to us; if every stream should flow toward us; if we imagine we must regularly be served—there will be nothing to be thankful for. And we will go our careless way to dominate, control, abuse.

But if our lives are really gifts; if every breath is one more grace, then we are not what we achieve, but actually, the sum of all that’s given us.

And we grow grateful for things great and small—for vast, majestic sunsets and for sweet warblers singing in the yard. We see the gift in toddlers’ smiles, and relish simple, joyful laughter. We savor food, remembering the many hands who served and toiled to bring this gift to us. We turn to colleagues and to friends with words that warm them, fill their hearts: “Thank you for the gift you are. I am so blessed to walk with you.”

And if we live in faith, we turn to God and say from what is deepest in our lives—"Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise You” (Psa 51:15). “Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things He does for me” (Psa 103:2).

All gratitude is born in grace, and sees the world through grace-filled eyes. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”

Embrace what has been given you. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

A Present Help

Where is God when it hurts?

The question is painfully familiar. In every moment when we suffer, we raise our tearful eyes to heaven and ask what all this pain accomplishes.

Will warring nations come to peace because the children starve? Not likely. Will all the daily indignities of living without water and without wealth adjust the fairness of the planet? Not on any planet we know. Will sleepless nights and searing pain ensure some future happiness? There are no guarantees.

And does God know how much we hurt when bodies ache and hopes fall flat? “Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could He die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil, who had the power of death” (Heb 2:14).

Jesus is God’s answer to the riddle of our pain. The One who made the universe came down to walk our roads and eat our food and feel our loss and cry our tears. He stands beside us; with us; on our side. Grace is God’s presence in our loneliness. 

“Whoever has the Son has life” (I John 5:12). Meaning will yet rise from all this broken ground.

So stay in grace.

Looking for Safe

Safe.

Perhaps you mean a metal-banded box, a vault—a walk-in, high-tech cave where wealth is stored.

Perhaps you mean a spot on earth where threats are temporarily gone, where you can stretch out on the grass, fearing neither man nor beast.

Perhaps you mean a chosen friend, a spouse—a person who will hear your deepest hurts and never leave you by yourself.

You surely mean the covenanted God who is far bigger than our brokenness, our sin—who gathers up and fathers out to all who choose His open arms. “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. The Lord is like a father to His children, tender and compassionate to those who fear Him” (Psa 103: 12-13). 

For all His untamed love and unchecked power, our God is deeply and forever safe. “He never changes or casts a shifting shadow” (James 1:17).

Come home to safe. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Trustworthy News

Beyond the screaming headlines; beneath the pundits’ withering analysis; above the daily outrage of our inhumanity to each other, there is a ceaseless broadcast of good news that outlasts every news cycle.

“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).

Unlike so much we count as “news,” there’s nothing fake about it. No inflated facts or twisted meanings here:  this is the calm, eternal truth about a God who won’t stop loving us, even when we’re most unlovable.

And on that day when this amazing news grabs your attention like headlines set in four-inch type, it will bring meaning, warmth, clear light and color like no blog or newsfeed ever has.

You are loved, and not just when your hair is combed and you’ve been living in between the lines. You are cherished by the God who welcomes prodigals back home, who goes in search of wayward sheep, whose “steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 118:1).

Grace is the news we cannot live without.  Write it somewhere on your walls today.

And stay in grace.

The Measure of Forgiveness

The first time we forgive a galling wound, we seem all noble, elevated, full of moral worth. Given how superior we feel, forgiveness seems its own reward.

The second, third, and fourth occasions remind us that forgiveness doesn’t always change the one who angers or offends us. The callous and insensitive may continue just as they were.

About the seventh time, we feel like fools—like 12-year-olds who discover Santa Claus was never real. Why should we keep forgiving when wounding doesn’t stop? Isn’t there a cut-off point when injuries continue? “‘No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!’” (Matt 18:22).

Forgiveness isn’t asked of us so we may feel wise and worthy. Forgiveness is cross-bearing, following Jesus deep into the world’s pain because this is the way God loves, even for the stony and hard-hearted. How many of us would be in grace if Heaven had drawn the line at seven, and left us to our fate thereafter?

The apostle Paul, who was so much forgiven and thus called to forgive so much, once wrote: “Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you” (Eph 4:32).

Keep praying for the grace to keep forgiving. And stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Grace and Truth

“This is my faith,” we proudly say, and point to doctrines, dogma, sacred books. “These I believe,” we chorus as we sit in church, surrounded by the arsenal of arguments built up to counter unbelief.

But what is faith at 3:00 a.m. when worries gather in the dark like spiders on the ceiling?  What is our trust when feverish loved ones groan and fret, and we feel helpless to relieve their pain?

The heart of faith is trusting in God’s unrelenting love, much more than lining up beliefs or getting answers to our prayers. To be assured of His affection—to know His hand on us, His salve for all our wounds, His quiet but all-kindly grace—this is the bond that makes faith powerful and real. “Be sure of this,” Jesus says. “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). Christ is never absent.

The truths we teach are, at their best, descriptions of our trust in grace.  The love we never earned and don’t deserve is lavished on us just because God’s heart is love. 

When we trust deeply, we speak well of God:  we tell God’s truth.  So stay in grace.

–Bill Knott

Grace and Silence

You know the moment—that instant when your heart hurts terribly from loss or grief. The air seems heavy, hard to breathe. Your mind crawls backward in the dark.

And blessedly, you may also know that moment when a wise friend, often without words, reaches out to hold you, fold you while you grieve.

That grip is grace, made real because the love and reassurance are real. It doesn’t yield in fine-tuned explanations or hang on eloquence. Sometimes the kindest comfort is the silence shared with one who will not let you go.

At its most basic level, the grace of God does not rely on words. The psalmist sang: “You have no equal. If I tried to recite all Your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them” (Ps 40:5). The fact of Jesus, sent to us before He learned to speak a word, is proof enough that grace is first companionship—the knowledge that we’re never left alone, abandoned, or unloved. The wordless Word of God gave witness of the Father’s love before He ever preached or taught or healed our wounds

“He Himself was before all things. And He holds all things together” (Col 1:17)—including us.

 Stay where you’re loved. And stay in grace.

–Bill Knott

Persistent Grace

We measure almost everything in life by big moments: “The day I got married.” “The week I started the new job.” “That instant on my first skydive when I jumped from the plane.”

Memorable as they are, big moments aren’t the real substance of our lives. It’s years of staying married that add value; the honest work that yields satisfaction month by month; the friends who walk with us across the years—who share the “ordinary” days.

The life of faith is like that too. It’s the dailiness of prayer that builds our joy and stamina—the hours of deep openness when “the love of God is spread abroad in our hearts” (Rom 5:5). Trust is built by time and distance shared. A thousand miles of undramatic journeys with Jesus are worth far more than brilliant, blazing moments.

“I have fought the good fight,” the apostle Paul told us. “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7).   Paul knew that there is grace at every marker, every signpost, every crossroad.

Keep running—or walking—with Jesus today. And stay in grace.

–Bill Knott

Unstoppable

“God is always disappointed with me.”

It’s the mumbled sentiment of many who aspire to a higher, wiser life. We know our failings far too well: we tell half-truths or flat-out lies; we use our power to dominate the weak; we abuse our bodies, as if they really were our own.

And we assume that God is always studying the gap between His law and our performance. Even on our best days, we don’t reach our own half-hearted expectations, never mind His call to holy living. And so we think our failings keep Him at long distance—continually frustrated with us.

But the gospel says God loves us differently. “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:19). Even when we lapse into our habits of shame and self-loathing, His attitude toward us remains unchanged:  “God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him” (John 3:17).

 “By grace”—by God’s unyielding affection for you—“you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8).

 You cannot earn the Father’s love. You cannot lose the Father’s love.

So stay in grace.

–Bill Knott

Always on My Mind

Sometimes we have to choose to remember the good things.

So much of daily life is, as we say, “taken for granted.” We assume when we go to bed that our eyes will open in the morning. We don’t worry whether the car will start in the morning. We live our seasons believing there will be enough sun and rain to grow the grass and water the trees. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

But the Word of God urges us to actively remember that none of these things is guaranteed: each is the Father’s loving gift. When our happiness increases, His joy overflows. “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” the psalmist reminds himself, “and do not forget all His benefits—who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy” (Psalm 103 2-4).

It’s easy to take even amazing things for granted—like forgiveness, and healing, and grace. And while He is no less God whether we remember Him or forget His goodness, the choice to celebrate His consistent kindness opens the door to abundant living.

God is both very great and very good. His power—His rulership—is matched with tenderness and vast affection for us. Take what He has granted. Choose gratitude.

And stay in grace.

–Bill Knott

Regifting Grace

“Love your enemies.”

It’s one of Jesus’ best-known statements—and one of the most misunderstood. The mere mention of those who hurt us, slandered us, or victimized us uncovers all our buried helplessness and anger. Our memories work too well: we can’t summon the will to overlook the painful past. The thought of one day loving those who wounded us seems just another of faith’s impossibilities.

And so we need a power greater than ourselves—which is just what we have received: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). Only the gift of supernatural grace—the kind the Father has shown to us “while we were still sinners” (Rom 5:8)—can ever move us to reimagine our enemies as friends: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are” (1 John 3:1).

Our enemies are just as fully loved by God as we are. When we receive His gift of love, we learn, in time, to gift it on to them. Grace is this angry world’s best hope for healing.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Origin of Forgiveness

It’s the fiercest rule of our culture:  the greater the injury—the deeper the wound—the less likely that forgiveness will ever—ever—be offered.

When a friend forgets a lunch appointment or a colleague fails to meet a crucial deadline, we find a grudging grace to overlook the infraction. But if the angry words are public; if the damage done is measured in broken buildings or broken bones, our interest in forgiveness disappears.

We are so fortunate that God’s ways aren’t like ours.  According to the Scriptures, we’re all complicit in the greatest injury to God the world has ever devised—the crucifixion of His Son.  It was our sins—large and small, deliberate and impulsive—that whipped and beat Him, drove the nails, and pushed that thorny crown on Him.  We mocked and taunted Him as He hung dying.

And yet, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19).  Amazingly, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:17).

Forgiveness flows from God’s amazing grace.  We first receive it; then practice it; then glory in it, for we are saved by it.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Hope of Change

When we add up all our failings; when we see how frequently we fall, it seems we’ll never find the exit to this sad amusement ride. Our angers still routinely flare; our pride leaps higher day by day; our self-absorption is a carousel of serving just ourselves. The happiness we thought we’d find—in being kinder, wiser, gentler, free—feels always, always out of reach. We circle ‘round and ‘round: there is no merry to this ride.

We need an end to what we’ve been. With the apostle Paul we cry, “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” (Rom 7:24). 

To all who hope for better things, the gospel speaks with clarity: “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in His grace, freely makes us right in His sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins” (Rom 3:23-24).

Our past need not predict our future: grace abounds at every turn. “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for He faced all of the same testings we do, yet He did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive His mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (Heb 4:15-16).

Your life can change. Your hope will grow.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Unfailing Love

At the heart of why we struggle to understand the “otherness” of God is our assumption that He must be, in some sense, just a grander and more powerful version of us.

If we’re preoccupied with tomorrow, God must think of nothing else, for He controls tomorrow. If we’re sorrowful or angry when people disappoint us, God’s indignation must be multiples of ours. Because we find it hard to forgive, we think that He forgives reluctantly, and only when petitioned.

But God loves differently. “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord” (Isa 55:8). In the heart of God there’s an unquenchable affection for us, even when we’re anxious, even when we’re angry, even when we stumble at forgiving—or believing we’ve been forgiven. “Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:4-5).

We know no one who loves like God—who will not be distracted and cannot be dissuaded from loving us, embracing us. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

We’ll never comprehend such grace. But we can welcome it; rejoice in it; be warmed by it. 

And stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Sweet Song of Grace

Ask any skilled musician, and they’ll tell you everything begins with practice.

Behind the brilliant concert hall performance or the music video that goes viral lie a hundred—or a thousand—hours of tedious and undramatic practice. Cognitive skill, muscle memory, an adroit sense of timing, and a touch of interpretive expression meld, at last, into a moment that can soothe or challenge, inspire or amaze.

We practice who we want to be, even though on every day, our practice isn’t perfect. If we rehearse our injuries—the snubs we felt; the spite endured; the untrue things that made us weep—we build the tuneless selves that amplify the world’s dirge.

And if, through grace, we practice peace; if we rehearse transparency and love, the song of Moses and the Lamb becomes the music of our lives (Rev 15:3). We sing with those who celebrate; we comfort those who mourn a loss. We pass the trifling goal of sounding good, and actually start doing good. The grace that filled our dark with song now stirs deep hope for those who need a melody.

So practice gentleness and joy. Rehearse how Jesus rescued you—from sin and from yourself. Let kindness be the memory of your voice. Ten thousand ears will bless you.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Against the Tide

My faith is but a sandy castle
Trembling on the beach of time.

Many of us could write that line, or whisper it at least.  We are awash in our mistakes—the hot words said; the things consumed; the foolish deeds that damaged health or wounded those we love.

On good days, we remember grace, and for some hours, the tide recedes.  But then a wave of surging guilt erases faith’s small towers on our beach. Will nothing change this ebb and flow?

So speak aloud the grace you know.  Rehearse to someone good things God has done for you—the reconciliations made; the habits changed from bad to better; the kindness that you practiced until caring seemed like second nature. Through grace, your life is different than it was.  And every difference that you voice will be a brick against the tide.

Faith grows by hearing, even when you listen to yourself. “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart —that is, the word of faith that we are proclaiming” (Rom 10:8).

Your faith is built upon a rock, and Jesus never fails. 

So stay in grace.

Grace and Truth

It’s just a subtle shading of the truth, a slight deflection from the facts, that tempts us to dishonesty, especially with ourselves.

“I’m not so bad,” we say with evident relief when we remember tyrants, madmen, and the vicious from our history books. “My sins are nothing in comparison to theirs.” There are no obvious casualties from our mistakes, no line of grieving people who point to us as causing all their woe. And so we wrap our consciences with layers of white gauze, muffling what dissonance the Spirit stirs within us.

But God is moving in us for a reason: “Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Rom 2:4). Those qualms we feel when we adjust the truth or tell a lie or leave the wrong impression are actually sweet signs of hope. God cares enough about the truth that He will stir us till we let Him realign our reasoning. “You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart” (Psalm 51:6).

In grace, God teaches us to speak the truth—to others, yes, but firstly to ourselves. Discover joy as honesty increases.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Walking with the Gracious

Some wit has cracked that there are just two kinds of people in the world: those you would go walking with, and those with whom you never would.

Simple as it seems, it helps us choose companions for the journey.

There are so many angry souls, exuding ego, spitting spite, who make an office hallway walk a journey of deep angst and fear. They have no patience for us fools; they scorn forgiving others’ sins; they call for justice, not for love. And yes, they always walk alone.

But there are others, touched by grace, who breathe the cleaner air of peace. With them, we’d walk around the world, or at least five times around the block. They listen better than they speak. They’re quick to heal, slow to challenge, offering the safety broken, wounded people crave. And no, they never walk alone.

Grace teaches us with whom to walk, remembering that we were once alone, undone, and far from God. But now “you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19).

We were meant to walk with others. Choose the ones who bring you joy.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Grace at Risk

A host of proverbs in our culture urge the need for wariness: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” “It is better to be a living dog than a dead lion.”

We learn the lesson while we’re young: don’t trust too much; forgive too much; believe too much; endure too much.

But what if God took such an attitude with us? What if heaven’s scorecard righteously declared, “One strike and you’re out”—or even “Three strikes and you’re out”? What if, instead of wounded love, the Father met the prodigal at the door with directions to the nearest halfway house? What if God insulated Himself against the likelihood of our repeated mistakes, our continuing folly, our headstrong rebellions?

The gospel couldn’t be clearer: “Love bears all things, believes all things, love hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:7). “But God proves His love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

Grace always takes unlikely risks, defies the odds, and chooses to believe that hearts can soften, pride may melt, and prodigals should get a full embrace.

Accept the always-reaching love that knows how grace will lead us home.

And stay in it.

—Bill Knott