GraceNotes Podcast

AFTER THE FALL (July 15, 2022)

We wince when we see arrogance up close: an air of unreality surrounds the child or adult who thinks the world revolves ‘round him. And secretly, we wish for some unscheduled “life event” to teach the lesson in humility they clearly missed. We mutter favorite proverbs: Pride always goes before a fall.

That’s why the gospel teaches us to see ourselves with candor. Lest we think we are so different from our peers, God’s Word declares, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). Isaiah long ago affirmed, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa 53:6). Even when we cherish our illusions, “There is none righteous: no not one” (Rom 3:10).

Talent, skills, obedience—none can make us right with God. Only grace revealed in Jesus can tell the truth about our muddled, bungled lives—and also bring our healing. “God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Grace humbles us so that we glory in God’s goodness.

Now stay in grace. -Bill Knott

NET WORTH (July 08, 2022)

How much are you worth?

The question seems urgent. Brochures in each week’s mail promote new models to calculate personal wealth. Add your savings, retirement account, the value of your home, and any salable assets—and you have a number that approximates your market worth.

But the gospel fixes your worth to a different metric—the value an infinite God places on you. Whatever the asset sheet suggests, “Do not fear,” the Father says, “for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine” (Isa 43:1). “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” (Ps 103:2-4).

You are worth what a loving God paid to rescue you. Which is to say—everything. “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” (John 3:16).

Believe in the gift of grace. And stay in it. -Bill Knott

GRACE AWAKENINGS (July 01, 2022)

For every “rock the road” conversion on the highway to Damascus, there are a dozen quiet stories where grace gently, slowly lights our lives—like sunrise.

Don’t pine for big-time drama, voices thundering at noon, or temporary blindness. Your grace may simply be ascendant hope because you learn that you are loved: what joy to know that darkness grips your life no more!

As day comes on and shadows flee, we learn by hours how to live free. Christ gives His light uniquely for our moments in the Son: there’s not a standard formula for how He wins our darkened hearts. We travel different roads and learn from many teachers the amazing ways He saves us.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

THE LIFE YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED (June 24, 2022)

Go ahead. Pick any kind of life you want. Survey all faiths, all creeds: examine each philosophy. Take as long as you need to choose the life that’s best for you.

But pick something that brings you peace when all the world’s on fire. Choose a life that’s free of guilt and shame. Select a creed that heals what’s broken in you.

Find something that teaches forgiveness and restoration so you can live in harmony with others. Focus on the kind of life that builds strong marriages and happy children. Identify a faith that gives you hope beyond this earthly life—that promises you an everlasting joy.

And you will choose the gospel—the amazing good news that in Jesus, your life is freed, forgiven, full—forever. Believers for 2000 years are witnesses to the best life human beings can know. Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

Purpose. Meaning. Freedom. Joy. All can be yours when you choose life—and stay in grace. -Bill Knott

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.