He is Risen!

In the blackness of Sunday morning, the prodigal opened His eyes and murmured softly, “I will arise and go to my Father, and will say to Him, ‘Father, I have borne the sins of every human who has ever lived. I am worthy to be called your Son.’”

And a reunion postponed for 33 years split the midnight of our world. Out of wretchedness came joy. Out of brokenness came healing. Love triumphed over death. Grace reclaimed what sin had stolen. The Liberator came back to life.

Then the voices of a billion angels shook the galaxies and stars: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev 5:12).

That’s why we sing the story of the resurrection every time we can. This is the truth that underlines our certainty: “He was handed over to die because of our sins, and He was raised to life to make us right with God” (Rom 4:25).

This stone-cold planet, rife with death, smothered in pain and gasping for life, is not our destination: “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’”(Jer 29:11).

Your future began with the resurrection of Jesus. Grace declares His victory can be yours.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Never Alone

Left to ourselves, what we know of forgiveness would soon disappear. Left to ourselves, acts of mercy would soon drown in the ocean of self-centeredness. Left to ourselves, what light and warmth still shines in our communities would soon go dark. Why help a neighbor, when he is just one more competitor for dwindling resources?

But the good news is that we are never left to ourselves. Into this dark, unforgiving environment, where greed ran rampant and trust had disappeared, God shared His best—His Son. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

He forgave, and so we slowly learned to forgive. He lifted up broken, wounded people, and in His name, millions of suffering people every day receive care. In the midnight of our anger and self-interest, His grace radiates clarity and power. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

Grace is the counterweight to the mass of ruin we have brought upon ourselves. One life of love outweighs the world. And the story of His sacrifice to save us and restore the light sings louder than the raging headlines of the day. “For 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).

Invite the light of grace into your world.

And stay in it.

–Bill Knott

Grace While We Wait

A gospel song from long ago gathered the hope of millions into a yearning vision of peace:

“Someday, a bright new wave
Will break upon the shore;
And there'll be no sickness
No more sorrow, no more war;
And little children
Never will go hungry any more . . .”

That bright new world hasn’t yet arrived. The headlines rage. The nations totter. Famished children in refugee camps wait for promised bread and water.

But for believers in Jesus, our reality has already begun to change, even as we long for the day when God will make all things new. The greatest shift in history has already happened: “For He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins” (Col 1:13-14).

That bright new world arrives as, one by one, we accept the grace of Jesus, and then pick up His work in this world—healing; comforting; peacemaking; embracing displaced, frightened kids.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day” (2 Cor 4:16).

The greatest change is a change of heart. Yours can begin today.

Then stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Multiplying Grace

It never was a straight-line thing, this love we call the grace of God. It circles and surrounds, embraces and includes, until the throngs that praise God’s name are far too vast to count.

In grace, Jesus forgives me. With gratitude, I offer you forgiveness. Because you have been liberated, you pass that grace to one who has offended you. And he in turn, when I offend him, offers me forgiveness. “Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you” (Eph 4:32).

So grace begins with us as individuals, but never rests until communities are built that flourish with forgiveness. Have you been freed? Then free another. Has God in kindness humbled you? Then serve your neighbors with humility. Have you learned to sing “Amazing Grace”? Then teach it—all four parts for harmony—until a chorus of redemption rises from this broken, fragile world.

Grace isn’t grace if it stops moving, turning, changing lives. When it is blocked; when mercy slows; when forgiveness is extended only to the ones we deem as worthy, the Spirit cannot heal the world, and we sink back into that pinched and parched existence we once knew.

But when we offer what’s been offered us, the river flows; the fields yield; and resurrected life will blossom everywhere.

Keep passing it along.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Beyond the Windows

Those the world calls saints weren’t typically the brittle, stained-glass figures of our pious imagination. The reason their stories are still told is that they trusted God more fully, accepted His freely-offered love, and opened their lives profoundly to His grace.

Their story can be yours as well, for the Bible calls every believer in Christ a “saint.” The apostle Paul interceded for every man or woman who has ever trusted the grace of Jesus: “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:18-19).

Your behavior may be far from perfect. Your faith may waver in the tough moments. Your heart may tell you that God is far away and usually unhappy with you, but “God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything” (1 John 3:20).

The best news is that grace changes everyone who trusts in Jesus into a saint. You are defined, not by how well you love God, but how deeply He loves you. Your value is determined, not by what you give or how heroically you serve, but by the price heaven paid to rescue you, and make you a saint.

So stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

By Grace Through Faith

We can’t make ourselves more loveable to God by years of good behavior. And yet, because of grace, we seek to do what pleases Him.

We can’t earn even half an hour in heaven by acts of sympathy or kindness. And yet, because of grace, we spend unnumbered hours caring for the least of all His little ones.

Those shining moments when we sometimes rise to our potential don’t make us even one bit more beloved by God. His love for us cannot be amplified, expanded, or improved.

Grace cancels everything we think we’ve earned, and makes us utterly rely on everything God gives us. It is the end of all our goodness, and the place where faith begins.

Abandon hope in all you’ve done, but deeply trust what God has done.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Grace So Amazing

No one can grasp the grace of God unless God teaches him, embraces him, and holds him in an unexpected kindness.

There’s no intellect so vast; there’s not a mystic so devout that he can plumb the depth of love by private contemplation.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine” (Isa 55:8).

Only the mind of God could Father-forth the grace of God. Only the Son who fully knows God’s mind could satisfy His justice and still manifest His love. Only the Spirit, moving softly in our hearts, could teach us of the height, the depth, the breadth—the strength—of love that will not let us go.

The cleverest among us must learn: the genius must be taught. The keenest mind will still confess, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!”(Psa 139:6).

That’s why we linger on our knees. We bow before the mystery that always chooses to invite us, to correct us, to forgive us, and redeem us.

We marvel that God loves us when we’re broken—that He still seeks us when we run away. Like toddlers playing hide-and-seek, we are discovered in plain sight. There is no depth from which He cannot lift us, and no place He will not go.

We are amazed by grace we never fully understand.

But we receive. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Grace and Safety

The gospel is only as good as the God who asks us to believe it.

If He’s the disappointed, vengeful deity we have pictured in our frightened imaginations, then we do well to hide, to stay away: why would we risk ourselves with Him?

But if Christ is, as His Word says, the Lord whose love for us survives even our worst choices and most defiant behaviors, then we may crawl out from beneath the bed and step out from the shadows. When I am loved at my lowest and embraced even at the height of my foolishness, then I can safely trust myself to grace. “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8).

I now believe in Him who has always—unequivocally—believed in me.

So here I’ll stand—and stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Unexpected Gospel

A muscular young athlete, bench-pressing massive iron; stonemasons, deeply-focused, chiseling the capstone for a tall cathedral spire; a driven young executive, burning midnight oil as she assesses market data.

What do these pictures have in common? All celebrate intense, prodigious effort, spent to take the doer to the top in sport, in craftsmanship, in business.

Our world’s awash in images like these: they are the icons of our functional religion. We learn so early to depend on no one else’s effort. Faith, we say, is chiefly what you think about yourself.

And so we are unsettled by the unexpected gospel: “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph 2:8-9).

When there is nothing we can do; when “all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death”; when we at last despair of scaling heaven by our sweat or skill or passion, grace given us in Jesus speaks for us, embraces us, and binds us to the heart of God.

Grace honors only trust, and welcomes only gratitude.

So stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Practicing Grace

It’s not called “practicing” for nothing.

On some great future day, the liberating, life-affirming grace we each receive from Jesus will also be the grace we give as freely to those who wound us, irritate our peace, or call out for our love and care.

Between the “now” and “then” there’s a lot of practicing to do—a daily repetition of kind words, forgiving acts, and chosen, holy silences. Like hours we spent as children with pianos, violins, and flutes, we learn the patterns of the Jesus life—not all at once, but with increasing Spirit-skill.

On many days, we get the fingering all wrong: we point unrighteously at those who really need our grasp and our embrace. But just because the grace that saves us keeps on saving us from us, we build up skills in loving, holding, healing, helping.

Great music—gracious music—is never perfect on day one.

Keep practicing. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Grace Goes On

If you’ve ever been forgiven; if you’ve been held when you were wrong, or bitter, or confused—you know the grace that never can repay the giver. 

So we surrender to the goodness God implants in human hearts. “We know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love” (Rom 5:5). 

We come to understand God’s grace when we are loved extravagantly, without apparent cause, and with no expectation of response. We vow with everything within that we will love as we’ve been loved—without return; without reward; just for the Lord. 

This “common grace” is strikingly uncommon, but always welcome, always valued, and indelibly remembered. “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).

The grace that reached to you now reaches from you to the loveless, the careless, and the thoughtless. Grace never was for you alone. 

Keep giving grace. 

And it will stay with you. 

—Bill Knott

Out of the Depths

“When I’m deep in a hole, lower a rope, not a shovel.”

The last thing we need when we’ve dug ourselves profoundly into pain or confusion or sin is more of the same. Our best efforts got us there: our best efforts won’t deliver us. The pit only gets deeper—and so does our frustration. As Scripture says, “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death” (Prov 14:12). 

Rescue only comes from above—from Someone who both sees our plight and can do something to change it. God’s Word reveals that Jesus fully understands how desperate our condition is—and He—uniquely—can change the ending of our story: “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). 

Common sense can tell us to stop digging. Wisdom urges us to accept the grace that doesn’t leave us where we are. “He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God” (Psa 40:2-3).

Let yourself be lifted. 

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

No January Audit

It’s a scene played out 10 million times in the 30 days since Christmas: “You shouldn’t have . . .” “But I didn’t get you anything. . .” “I didn’t hear we were exchanging gifts . . .”

A stranger from another planet might conclude that our annual Christmas gift-giving is actually an exquisite balancing act—designed to keep each party from feeling awkward for having received an unreciprocated gift. We desperately dislike the sense that accepting kindness creates an obligation we must rapidly erase.

Thus every January we work diligently to restore the “giving equilibrium.” We send overnight parcels, repurposed fruitcakes, and texts that wonder how our long-planned gift was so “delayed” in the delivery system. We were busy; overwhelmed; “things slipped our memory.”

But grace is truly, freely, and persistently a gift—and not a trade we make with God by which He offers us salvation and we offer Him good behavior. The Bible couldn’t be clearer: “So we praise God for the glorious grace He has poured out on us who belong to His dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that He purchased our freedom with the blood of His Son and forgave our sins. He has showered His kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding” (Eph 1:6-8).

If it’s really grace, you will always feel awkward about your inability to give God something comparable. Get used to it.

And stay in grace.

—Mailchimp

Grace Before We Pray

That impulse in our souls to pray—to find our knees; to stammer out the words—grows from an early, dim awareness of just how much we need the grace of God.

We pray because we cannot fix our world or ourselves. We kneel because we’re powerless to heal sick children, pay the bills, or mend unhealthy marriages. We call out as we weep for all the clash between our living and God’s giving.

And even that first impulse is itself a gift of grace: “For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom 8:26).

To pray is to align with grace—to ask for and invite “the Love that will not let us go” to have more sway, more rule, more reach, more play. And so the simplest prayers are always best: “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner” unblocks the flow of saving grace that restores lives and reforms nations.

What we call grace is simply letting God do what has always been His joy to do: love us, hold us; heal us; keep us. We are latecomers to His kindness. Grace precedes our first impulse to seek it.

Now stay in it.

—Bill Knott

Grace Will Lead Us Home

Like all the stories Jesus told, this one comes very close to home.

We justly celebrate the prodigal (Luke 15:11-32). He finds himself among the pigs, then soberly concludes that he should go back home. And we deplore that bitter brother whose body never left the farm, but whose hard heart had left the Father long ago.

Unlike each other as they seem, both shared a common malady. Neither prized the love that gave them birth, that nurtured them 10,000 days, that waited—on the porch and at the table—to see if love would change their lives.

Misunderstanding grace is not related to how far you roam. This story proves that you can miss it, even if you stay at home.

 Of Jesus, Scripture testifies that “He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of His household” (Eph 2:17-19).

Grace offers us a family, even when our stories are miles apart. The waiting Father’s heart of love still calls each of His children home.  

Heed the call to join the feast. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Unresolved

The diet lasts a dozen days. The treadmill hasn’t spun 10 miles. The Bible sits where it was left, unopened and unsavored.  We grieve the effortless unraveling of all the goals we wanted to achieve—to lose the weight; increase the steps; find hope and quiet in God’s Word.  

We are too close to dreams undone, to lofty visions gone awry.

So how does God address our lack of grit and gratitude? 

“I will be faithful to you and make you Mine, and you will finally know Me as the Lord,” God says (Hosea 2:20). “He knows our frame,” the psalmist says. “He remembers we are dust” (Psa 103:14).

And so Christ came, to walk our dust, to know our pain, to understand how irresolute we are.  “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for He faced all of the same testings we do, yet He did not sin” (Heb 4:15).

Grace always moves toward us, redeems our goals, and tells us we are loved.  We fall in step with One who holds us when we stumble.  He is resolved when we are not, and faithful when we wander.

Receive His strength.  And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Love Came Down

This painful year has made us clear on what we want for Christmas. Though Lexus and Mercedes-Benz are sure we want a gleaming ride with giant ribbons on the roof, we have no miles we want to drive. The ads all tease us with dark fantasies on Amazon or Netflix, but we still have our darkness to get through. The tech toys that we bought for sport have only one compelling use this year.

We want each other more than gifts. We want the long and lingering embrace of two-year olds who won’t let go; the bear hug from a distant friend; the real gatherings of real folk around a tree, a table, or a fire. We want the laughter never muted, carols sung by families on nights no longer silent. We want the deep security we find in holding, playing, eating with the ones we love in places we call home.

So Christ came down because He couldn’t bear the breach of space; the distance numbered in light-years; the loving words half-understood. He came to us in helplessness so we might know He needed love—our love, the warmth for which He fashioned us. He laid aside His rulership so that a two-year old could grip Him tight; a mother’s tears could turn to joy, and bitter, broken men could heal. He came to make the lepers dance; to be the face the blind first saw; to hear the deaf sing harmony.

His joy is us: we are the only gift He wants.

Accept the gift of His embrace. And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

What the Angel Really Said

Ten thousand earnest Christmas pageants offer us some cherub child, dressed as an angel, stepping forth to utter words that sound well-nigh impossible.

“Fear not,” he says, “for behold I bring you tidings of great joy.” (Luke 2:10).

“Fear not?” we think, but never say. “Does God not know our real lives?” That declaration echoing through centuries has shaped how many think of God. We think He’s chiding us for being quite normally afraid of that which ought to terrify—a brilliant light; an other-worldly stranger shouting in the night; the loudest, largest choir Earth has ever heard.

Now hear what that sweet angel really said: “You can stop being afraid now.”

For fear quite naturally results when humans meet the otherness of God and those He sends to share good news. The birth of Jesus was the broadcast we have all been waiting for: we need no longer be afraid.

Whatever views we’ve held of God; whatever fears have made us doubt His kindness or His goodness, Jesus is the living proof that there’s no reason to continue in our fear.

This Christmas, thank God for the grace that lights our midnights and will calm each anxious fear. You can stop being afraid now.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

Against All Odds

It isn’t only doubters who bemoan the passing year.

Believers also crouch against the onslaught of the news. Tragic wars that never end; the end of good and gentle folk; the dull monotony of pain that robs our midnight of its sleep.

And one more baby, born into a world where thousands never see one week.  

But here we witness Heaven’s great surprise. In weakness was obscured great strength. That fragile child—He once threw galaxies around, and knows their numbers, range and size. The painful moment of His birth let loose a tide of healing that forever changed the meaning of our pain and how we get through midnights.

He laid His hands upon the broken; He overturned the fortunes of the greedy; and in His name, a thousand tyrants fled into the night. Because He lived—because He lives—our mangled world began, at last, to breathe again, to hope again.

For sake of grace, the dread of God—or many gods—became as Heaven wanted it, a friendship rich with joy and light. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

This Christmas, let the hope once born with Jesus raise your heart and calm your fears. This Child we celebrate is still the Lord—the Master of uncounted years.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott

The Eagerness of Love

An old regulation from the era when most people traveled by train included this puzzling requirement: “When two trains approach a crossing both shall stop, and neither shall go ahead until the other has passed by.”

The long-ago rule is, of course, a prescription for neither movement nor change. But it sounds just like the ways we all behave when we find ourselves in conflict with someone: neither of us will move until the other has moved first.

Nations face off with arsenals of bristling armaments; religious groups invoke mutual condemnations for differing beliefs; spouses live in icy tension, waiting for the other to thaw. 

In His mercy, God didn’t wait for us to move first. “God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Rom 5:8). Before we ever had a righteous thought or even wanted to be reconciled to God, Jesus offered Himself as the initiator, the peacemaker, the One who would move first.

Grace always moves first. God doesn’t wait for our apologies or repentance to step forward with forgiveness and embrace. The love and joy we crave is always moving toward us.

When it reaches you, receive it.

And stay in grace.

—Bill Knott