What makes us valuable to God—all stubborn, broken, wayward as we are?

It’s not the sometime good we do—

forgiving unrepentant foes;

feeding hungry kids afar;

warming pews and saying prayers;

performing unpaid mission work.

Not one of these, nor all of them, can make us dearer to the One who chooses from His unforced, unrequired love to cherish every soul He made. “I have loved you with an everlasting love,” He says. “I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jer 31:3).

This grace confounds the wisdom of the world:

no ledgers; no accounts;

no keeping track of charities;

no earning credit with a boss;

no bank of kindnesses to set against our debts and deficits.

We fall back in amazed relief: “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love” (Rom 8:38).

Grace leads us, in the end, to praise—the joy we were created for.

Now stay in it. -Bill Knott

“If you could go back in time to change one thing about your life, what would it be?”

The answers range from comic to cautionary: “I’d be better-looking.” “I’d have a smaller nose.” “I’d make a lot of money.” “I’d marry a different person.” For each of us, there’s one thing we would change to give ourselves a better story.

“I’d understand God’s love much sooner in my life,” say the truly wise among us. For them, it’s not a classic story of regret: there’s no self-loathing, guilt, or fear. What they would change is a misperception built on what the culture tells us about God instead of what the Scriptures say: “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).

They only wish they could have known the Father’s love more deeply, for a longer time. How much the world of everyday would have been colored differently if they had known all along that “underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deut 33:27).

Give me more joy. Let me be always washed in grace. Give me more years of knowing what is really true: “God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him” (John 3:17).

Now stay in grace. -Bill Knott

Breathe deeply now, and let your heart grow quiet as you turn from sins forgiven.

“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 John 3:19-20).

It’s not the voice of God that drives you on to fear, or rush, or labor past your strength.

We dare not make the Spirit own our anxiousness or lack of peace.

God is always on the side of what gives life, builds hope,

and moves us even one small step toward balance.

His grace is meant to keep us breathing, as well as for our saving.

The day that Jesus wants to bring us healing is the day that we are living,

not only when our destinies are weighed.

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

His grace is for today and always.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

“We must hear the gospel every day because we forget the gospel every day.”

Attributed to many pens, the proverb is profoundly true, regardless of who wrote it. Even though it undermines our vanity of recall, it underlines that we frequently ignore the most important things. Our default thinking is unarguably a fault: we trust ourselves to do what is impossible.

For millennia, humans have sought connection and reconciliation with the gods through sacrifice, through costly gifts, through candles lit and pilgrimages made. With fear and trembling, we have offered up our best to appease the anger we assumed was gathering in heaven.

But the good news brought in Christ and wrought by Christ declares a new paradigm: “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).

The gospel contradicts—and counteracts—the wisdom of the ages. Yes, we can be made right with God—because He loves; because He gave; because Jesus made a pilgrimage from heaven to earth; because He sacrificed His life to bridge the chasm chiseled by our pride.

Don’t apologize for your weak, inconsistent memory. Every human shares it. Surround yourself with what is true—with words of grace.

And stay in it. -Bill Knott

A Light in the Pearl of the Indian Ocean: The Faith and Courage of Rosie Le Même

One night, a young woman in Mauritius prayed — and her room filled with light. A voice told her to go to Europe. She went. What she found there would change not just her life, but an entire region.

Rosie Le Même never set out to start a movement. She simply wanted to follow God with her whole heart. But her quiet courage sparked a faith that spread from a muddy riverbank baptism to churches across Mauritius, Madagascar, Rodrigues, and the Seychelles.

One woman. One prayer. A legacy that's still growing.

Hidden Wounds: How Sexual Trauma Shapes Intimacy and Faith

She sat alone in a dark church parking lot, desperate to speak but unsure where to begin. Her marriage was loving — so why did she feel frozen, broken, and afraid?

Sexual trauma doesn't stay in the past. It follows survivors into their most intimate moments, distorting the very things God designed to be beautiful. In Hidden Wounds, registered clinical counselor Jasmin Stankovic unpacks the hidden shame, misplaced guilt, and spiritual confusion that so many survivors carry silently.

If you've ever felt damaged, unworthy, or beyond healing — this conversation is for you. There is a path forward.

What stops our progress, pulls us backward, paralyzing us with shame?

The past—our past—the foolish, broken history that trails each of us. None can escape its power: all feel its painful weight. Even those the world calls saints are men and women who know their brokenness most fully. The great apostle Paul famously moaned, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24).

When there’s no one left to dazzle or impress, we cringe in the half-light of our memories. We’re stalked by all the things we’ve done, and increasingly, by the good we’ve left undone. What could we have been thinking?

But the grace of God shines as bright as the Son: “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn 2:2). In kindness the Father offered us in Jesus the living, breathing, open-hearted embodiment of grace. Because He willingly embraced the weight of our mistakes while making none Himself, our lives can rise above the shadows and despair. He made His mission unmistakably clear: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).

Embrace that rich, abundant life.

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

Faith to the Very End: Pastor Jack and His Final Witness

He was diagnosed with a rare cancer at 19. Doctors took the muscles from his leg, and he learned to walk — and live — all over again. But Pastor Jack wasn't done. For years he preached, pastored two congregations, and poured himself out for others. Then the cancer came back.

What happened in that emergency room on the last night of his life is something you won't soon forget. Dick Duerksen tells the story of his brother — a man whose faith didn't flicker, even at the very end.

This one will stay with you.

Selfless Love: How to Infuse Your Marriage With Divinity

Most of us enter marriage hoping to be loved well. But what if the real question isn't what can I get — it's what can I give?

In this thought-provoking article, Keala Thompson explores why so many marriages drift toward selfishness or cold transaction, and what it looks like when a relationship is anchored in something deeper. Drawing on Scripture, he makes a compelling case that the way we understand God's love directly shapes the way we love our spouse.

If your marriage feels more like a negotiation than a gift, this is worth your time.

Sit quietly with grace, and let it work its slow, substantial change.

Nothing is more common for those whose hearts have been divinely warmed than to pledge themselves to new, exacting duties. We’ll read our Bibles for an hour each day; pray for all our friends and even for some enemies; tell “unconverted” colleagues, neighbors—even strangers—of their task to do as we have done. We move at hyper-speed as if to make up for the months—the years—when we ourselves were unresponsive to the gospel.

But what we need—and what our friends and enemies much need—is that we answer the first call of grace: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10). Our rush to vow new righteous duties, work new holy deeds, and tell what we have only started to experience is often just another act of foolish self-atonement.

Heaven wisely urges us to quiet. “This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘Only in returning to Me and resting in Me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength’” (Isa 30:15-16).

Grace received always grows into grace well-lived. But beware of pledging your good deeds until you’ve more fully learned all that the Lord has kindly done for you.

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott