GraceNotes Podcast

THE LEDGER OF YOUR LIFE (June 17, 2022)

On our worst days, we desperately imagine God is but a stern accountant, tallying our sins with unerring accuracy. Because we can’t forget our sins, we assume that an all-knowing God can’t forget them either. “Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?” ( Psa 130:3).

“But the love of God is broader than the measure of man’s mind.

And the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.”

Hear what a loving Father actually says to those who put their trust in Jesus: “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more” (Heb 8:12). The joyous promise of the gospel is the Father’s pledge to both forgive and forget our sins when we trust Jesus as our Saviour. Because of Jesus, heaven’s ledger reads “Paid in Full.”

“This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins” (1 John 4:10). God’s love for us is always greater, wider, fuller, deeper than we know.

Receive that always-amazing love. And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

A HYMN TO GRACE (June 10, 2022)

It’s tough to sing of liberating grace when all we know are dirges about effort. We chorus qualities designed to keep us climbing (ever upward!)—songs of courage, risk, and faith—but then discover that we’re badly, sadly lacking in all three.

Our promises are “ropes of sand.” Our self-talk leads to critical self-doubt. Unyielding guilt dries up our tongues.

But there’s an anthem tuned to hope, and yes, it’s all about the Lord: “We have heard a joyful sound—Jesus saves, Jesus saves!”

The finest songs begin with Him, and end with Him, and He’s in every note between.

We sing of His success, not ours; of His compassion, not our plans.

“Shout salvation full and free

Highest hills and deepest caves,

This our song of victory,

Jesus saves, Jesus saves.”

Stay in grace. -Bill Knott

IN QUIETNESS AND GRACE (June 03, 2022)

When was the last time you were content?

We fight the question, as though it shouldn’t be asked. Who could be content as prices soar, as violence erupts in homes, in neighborhoods, in nations? When could our hearts be tranquil—in the long commute, the office politics, the deep exhaustion brought on by a dozen undone tasks? “We’re muddling through,” we say through pained half-smiles.

But Jesus offers what we’ll get no other way. To those who take His offered grace, Jesus says: “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life” (John 10:10). As He pledged His return, He offered something priceless: “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give” (John 14:27). The apostle Paul confirmed he had received that gift: “True godliness with contentment is itself great wealth” (1 Tim 6:6).

Being right with God is the heart of all happiness. That gift awaits you today: accept it now.

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

FEELING GUILTY, LEARNING GRACE (May 27, 2022)

“If God has truly forgiven my sins, why do I still feel guilty?”

It may be the oldest question of the life of faith—the dissonance between our feelings and the promises of God.

The lies we told; the cutting words; the heartache that we caused someone in haste or greed—all these we have confessed as wrong, and asked for promised pardon. But still we feel the unrelenting weight, as though our prayers were never heard.

“Let God be true though every man be false” (Rom 3:4). The promise of forgiveness is underwritten by His vow: “If we confess our sins, He who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:9). “By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before Him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything” (1 Jn 3:19-20).

God’s Word about us is always more trustworthy than our words about us. Believe the grace that makes you right with heaven. And stay in it.

-Bill Knott

WHY GRACE ENDURES (May 20, 2022)

If it were up to us, grace would have vanished long ago.

Humans are hard-wired for anger, pettiness, and spite. Just look around: we keep a “righteous” score. We don’t forgive. We even plot revenge on those who injure or insult us. Our code is built on protecting ourselves from a world of people just like us. We do by nature anything that pushes us ahead, above, and to the top.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. ‘And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine’” (Isaiah 55:8). “God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him” (John 3:17). “This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in Him at all” (1 John 1:5).

Grace flourishes because God rules above our broken world. Everything that’s good and kind and healing comes from otherworldly love that will not let us go.

Believe in love. And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

BETTER THAN WE KNOW (May 13, 2022)

“Does God still love me?”

When we’re alone and lonely, or in a crowd and overwhelmed; when the catalogue of condemnation keeps past mistakes before our eyes—no question ever seemed more urgent. Can God—will God—forgive our foolishness and pride? Is God, in fact, much kinder than we imagine Him?

An old hymn sings the truth:

“For the love of God is broader

than the measures of the mind,

and the heart of the Eternal

is most wonderfully kind.”

The apostle Paul confirms the point: “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32). “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).

The last thing we need right now is . . . trust—trust that God is as gracious as He says He is.

“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,

like the wideness of the sea. . . “

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

GRACE AND CHANGE (May 06, 2022)

We get our guidance from the news—from trending headlines; self-help tips; from what we guess our peers are doing. “Be sharp,” we learn. “Dress well: stay fit.” “Be confident about yourself.” “Keep aiming for a higher star.”

And almost no one says, “Be kind. Be gentle. Walk softly with each other. Lift up the weak. Embrace the ones who never can reward you.”

Except Jesus. For in His grace, He plants in us a whole new way of living. Our deep absorption with ourselves becomes, with time, new seeing and new caring. “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Col 3:13). “He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves” (2 Cor 5:15).

Grace builds a whole new life for us—a focused life that matters for the here and the hereafter. Christ’s gift continues giving in our lives.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

GRACE AND LIGHT (April 29, 2022)

The friend who quietly forgives my sin; the colleague who affirms when she could justly criticize—they make God’s grace more real than half a hundred sermons.

Grace is not just a distant, theological abstraction—a ledger cancellation in some far-off reckoning of sins. Heaven knew we’d never “get it” until grace became a human being whose words and arms and uncondemning love quick-bridged the chasm of our shame.

Give me one grace-filled Christian—holding, speaking, loving as did Jesus—and the future of the world begins to shift.

Night is swallowed up in morning. Fear evaporates beneath the blaze of grace. On such warm love the sun will never set.

And we shall all be changed.

So stay in grace.

THE FOLLOWING WEEK (April 22, 2022)

One week ago, we sang as though we never could forget: “Christ the Lord is risen today!”

But Tuesday turned out rainy, in the skies and in our eyes. By Wednesday, all the grievances—both small and great—began their dread, familiar march: the pushy colleague who thinks only of himself; the rising price for food and gas; the memories of broken things that fill our thoughts when sleep won’t come. Whatever Easter meant has drifted to the margins of our days. The flowers fade. The bright, white light has dimmed.

And so we must remind each other of the power of good news: “You were once dead because of your failures and sins” (Eph 2:1). “But God forgave your sins and gave you new life through Christ” (Col 2:13). “By grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Cor 5:17).

Headlines rage and prices soar. Worries come and thunder roars. But one clear fact remains: Christ is alive, and walks a road near you.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

CONSIDERING THE LILIES (April 15, 2022)

He breathes again.

The lungs collapsed by suffocating sorrow

Fill again with fragrant air.

The eyes still shut by Friday’s tears

Now flicker as the retinas

Anticipate the brilliant light that once was His.

And somewhere deep within,

This Man of Sorrows fully smiles

With hope delayed, now irrepressible.

All things are finished.

All things have just begun.

For one delicious moment,

Creation’s sovereign pauses, lingers,

Savoring the joy now rising in His mind.

Uncounted millions will awake

Some warm, spring resurrection morn—

Convinced of love, inhaling light—

And stepping out to life unbound.

He who prophesied

That we will rise

Now gathers lilies of His labor.

And He is satisfied.

Christ breathes again.

And so do we.

And so will we.

-Bill Knott

GROWING WEALTH (April 08, 2022)

 

In every life, a moment breaks when we confront our poverty. We’ve spent our last ideas: we’ve used up all goodwill. We found that hope was stolen by the accidents of time and chance.

 

And so we turn to self-help books, to watermelon diets, to exercise extremes that promise to renew our bodies and our minds. We chase the grand illusion that we can mend what’s broken in us by learning business confidence, or losing 30 pounds in 30 days, or watching soothing videos before we sleep at night. Somewhere—out there—must be a fix for all that’s draining us.

 

And we are then both wrong and right. There is no secret skill in us that will revive our hope—not wealth, or sleek physique, or social capital. But there is Someone who has pledged to give us His abundant life—where shame and doubting are no more. Jesus says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).

 

“You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that by His poverty He could make you rich” (2 Cor 8:9).

 

Receive the grace that gifts you Christ’s abundant joy.

 

And stay in it. -Bill Knott

HERO TO THE RESCUE (April 01, 2022)

Above the brightest stars of sport; beyond the galaxy of those whose notoriety is redder than their carpets; through all the rags-to-riches tales of newly-minted billionaires, we honor those who give themselves for others.

They run toward fires, not away. They reach the helpless, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. They risk the worst diseases to care for those most ill.

Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

And He did more than run through fire or speak inspiring words. The Hero of all ages laid down His life for each of us—became the sacrifice we couldn’t make—to save anyone who might become His friend. “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Grace is the love that rescues us. It was intentional: it still is free. Now let the greatest hero carry you to joy.

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott