GraceNotes Podcast

GIFTED AND GRACED (September 15, 2023)

“Lucky you!” we mumble when our rival’s putt drops in the cup from 50 feet away.

“Wish I was you,” we grumble when our colleague lands the big promotion and the corner office with a view.

“It must be nice,” we mutter when the car we can’t afford is parked across the street each night.

But who is actually more fortunate—the one who wins a round of golf or office ladder-climbing—or the person who receives God’s offered gift of happiness forever? Add up the scorecard—tally all the perks—and there’s nothing that comes close in value to the new life we are given as believers.

“Since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us to this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand” (Rom 5:1-2).

It’s love, not luck, that makes us rich in grace. “To all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

Receive the gift that’s offered you.

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

BETTER THAN WE DREAMED (September 08, 2023)

Any faith worth putting at the center of your life must do at least three things.

1. It must accurately describe the dark reality of our brokenness and pain.
2. It must fully tell how we are rescued from our anger, pride and violence.
3. It must show us a future we would want to live in.

And so the gospel of Jesus Christ declares, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins.”

That’s why the Father acted to rescue us from the rebellion we had chosen: “God is so rich in mercy, and He loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead.”

And finally, the Father offers us a future better than we ever imagined—or deserved: “For He raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms” (Eph 2:1; 2:4-5; 2:6).

Jesus says, “I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:3).

Grace is God’s kindness fitted to the story of our lives. And this story never ends.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

FREELY RECEIVED AND GLADLY GIVEN (September 01.2023)

Until we grasp how much we’ve been forgiven, it will always seem unwise and difficult to forgive those who sin against us. 

When we forgive another person, we abandon our leverage over them; release the debt they owe us; throw open prison doors. This is a graciousness we can’t summon from within: until we’ve received God’s grace, we have none to give to others. You can’t wring kindness from a stone, or from a stony, unforgiven heart. 

But “the grace of God has appeared to all” (Titus 2:11), making possible our own redemption, and then the healing of our friendships, marriages, and communities. 

Grace truly received always becomes grace given. 

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

NEW AND BETTER STORIES (August 25, 2023)

Imagine—only for a moment—your life without the grace of God.  Every foolish act of adolescence; every spiteful, angry word you’ve said; every broken relationship would trail after you like dragging cannonballs uphill. 

There could be no forgiveness, but only possibly forgetfulness.  All things wounded would never heal.  The sun would never rise on faith or hope or possibilities. 

But we rejoice that grace has come to us in Jesus—that our stories are forever changed for better.  So grace always opens into gratitude.  We celebrate a rescue we could never accomplish because of what Christ accomplished for us. 

And He ever lives—it is His joy—to intercede for us, to turn our painful histories into stories that will bless and lift the world. 

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

WHEN THERE’S NO FIX (August 18, 2023)

A husband slipping in the door with a bouquet of red roses trailing behind him.

A six year-old artfully arranging the remaining cookies in the jar to make it seem none have been taken.

A believer creeping quietly to church to sit in the back row and promise years of future faithfulness.

In our core, we hope to somehow appease those we have offended. We bring gifts; we rearrange the facts to diminish our responsibility; we promise to be better in the future. We assume that we won’t be welcome as we are.

But when we meet the God whose rightful expectations we have most offended, He is nothing like the angry deity we expected. “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. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him” (John 3:16-17).

This is the mystery of grace—that God doesn’t act on impulse or through vengeance, but plans to actively restore those whom sin and pride have separated from Him.  “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 3:24).

We are amazed: we do not understand.  It’s not what we would have done to those who offended us. But then, God says of Himself: “For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isa 55:9).

Grace restores what we can’t fix, and renews our lifeline to the God who deeply loves us.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

NOTHING TO OFFER (August 11, 2023)

Taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Giving money to a homeless man at the corner. Choosing fruit instead of ice cream for dessert.  

All good things—but none will change your standing with God. 

Rising at 4:00 a.m. to pray and meditate. Attending weekly worship services. Contributing 10 percent of your income to the work of ministry. 

All good things—but none will change your standing with God.  

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Rom 2:8).  

The good things grace inspires us to do are not the things that save us. Our forever destiny is assured only by trusting in what Jesus has done for us by laying down His life to pay the penalty for our sins.  “But God proves His love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.  Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by His blood, will we be saved through Him from the wrath of God” (Rom 5:8-9).

So what good thing may we do to ensure our happiness both now and forever? “Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent’” (John 6:29).

Grace calls us to receive the gift we cannot earn. Our acts of love are simply tokens of our praise. 

So stay in grace -Bill knott

WORDWISE (August 04, 2023)

Hot words, cold words. 

Red words, blue words. 

My words, your words.  

Old words, new words.   

Every day we arrange the 25,000 words we know in unique and highly personalized combinations. With words, we express deep sorrow and loss, as well as shining hope and love. We describe the past with words that show how different it was from our day, and we even invent new words to imagine futures for which no current words will do. 

Words are the building blocks of thought; the scribbled bits of genius on a page; the last, despairing expressions of those who have lost hope.  

And so, among the many figures in the mind of God, He entered human experience through the very language we employ: “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).  

In Jesus are united the two great words we find impossible to keep together—“grace” and “truth.” In God’s unbounded vocabulary, we can be both fully known and fully loved.  And He always has the last word. 

So we stay in “grace and truth.” -Bill Knott

BELOW THE SURFACE (July 28, 2023)

When we add all our compliments to all the things we wish were true, there’s still so much we’re glad the world doesn’t know. 

Deep within, we know the truth about the real lives we live—the tempers that we can’t control; the people we’ve tried to control; the passions that seem far beyond control.  Our hearts are heavy with indictments. We break our vows; we hurt our friends; we fail to do the good we could. 

“There is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” (Rom 7:23-24).  

And from the vast abundance of His grace, the Father speaks to our distress. “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart” (Eze 36:26).  

The promise of new life—within—brings all God’s goodness to us.  We cannot save ourselves, and Jesus loves to save us. We cannot fix ourselves, so He rebuilds what pride and lust have broken.  

Grace meets the fears we cannot speak, the brokenness we sought to hide, the self-accusing words we use to motivate ourselves. God’s heart of love will heal us yet. 

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

BEYOND SELF-HELP (July 21, 2023)

When we reduce our belief in God to moral tasks we should accomplish, we merely add another tedious volume to our unread self-help library.  

Praying for the sick; giving to the poor; exercising patience with exasperating colleagues; forgiving those who badly use us—these are all lovely behaviors—and of no lasting value without grace.   

The gospel isn’t an invitation to set our moral house in order, but a declaration that Jesus left His eternal home to live with us, die for us, rise for us, and—one day soon—return for us. “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).  

Before we lift a broken finger, or give a soiled bill, or try to move beyond our hatred for those who have abused us, we must hear the gospel’s kind yet thundering announcement:  “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9). 

Grace is what God has done. Gracious is what we may yet become—through grace. 

So stay in grace.  -Bill Knott

GRACE AMONG THE HOURS (July 14, 2023)

When hard rain rattles the window panes three hours before unwelcome dawn; when the first thought of the day is no brighter than the last thought hours before; when the staleness of unchangeable routine offers only more of the same, more of the rain—grace renews the mind.

When we dread the icy comments in the cubicles or at the frozen water cooler; when the anger seethes while helplessness makes our haggard hearts grow cold; when the best thought of the day is that it will finally be over—grace renews the mind.  

Redemption isn’t only for those starlit hours when grand and beautiful change starts happening to us. God’s grace accompanies us in hundreds of quite ordinary hours when children fret and spouses quarrel and nothing in our world advances our fond hopes for love or comfort or success.

And so the gospel urges and invites: “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (Rom 12:2).

Grace is for all hours, all challenges, all rainy days. There is no moment when God’s goodness and affection isn’t gladly, fully offered to us, for us, in us. “His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:7).

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

HEALED—AND HEALED AGAIN (July 07, 2023)

So let’s admit it: we are afraid because bad things have happened in our past, and everything in us shudders at ever being hurt again. Life’s all about negotiating risk, we say, and so we bravely sanctify our fears with strategies to hide the dread that we might end unloved and all alone.

But Jesus says, “My grace is enough for you” (2 Cor. 12:9, CEB)—enough for all our hidden wounds and public failures, enough for all the times when we’ve concluded that we can be either well-loved OR well-known, but never both. 

Grace is a healing antidote to fear, repairing and rebuilding whatever sin has poisoned, blighted or corroded.

The worst that can be said of us turns out—amazingly—to be a gorgeous anthem to God’s never-ending, always-reaching love.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

GATHERED BY GRACE (June 30, 2023)

Whenever broken lives start mending; wherever someone is set free; when the barriers get lifted and the desperate hear good news, hope for new community is born.

Frightened people long for holding. Lonely people seek for friends. Those whose story was forgotten want a place they can be heard. Grieving persons pray that someday they may learn to laugh again.

In God’s kindness, mercy moves us toward the others saved by grace. What we need, their stories give us: what they need, our hands can bring.

 “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).

Sin demands our isolation: grace invites us to a circle where we gain and give, and give and gain. Gathered ‘round us are the people who will hold us as God holds us.

Find the circle you were meant for. Find the love that gives you hope.

And you will stay in grace. – Bill Knott