Adventist Review Podcasts

Yes, we remember all too well.

The teacher whose volcanic mood made one day bright and hopeful while the next we hardly dared to draw a breath . . . The parent who turned what should have been our safest space into a house of vigilance, where anger flashed erratically . . . The colleague whom we tiptoed past, just praying we didn’t trouble him . . .

From all such stories, we deduced that God was just as changeable—a deity who one day welcomed us to Him and next day chased us far away.

The truth—at last—is healing to our bodies and safety for our souls: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isa 55:8-9).

The Father doesn’t ask us in only to suddenly reject us, nor does He act toward us with cold, unfeeling judgment: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:19).

Grace is God’s vigilance to bring us safely to Himself where we will thrive and find His deep, persistent joy.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

If grace was as fragile as many believe it to be, we could never be truly confident that our lives have been fully redeemed and deeply restored.

We would always be unsure of what God wants us to be most certain of: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far He removes our transgressions from us” (Psa 103:11-12).  

Our fears and doubts about the durability of grace don’t begin to change the ways God loves us. Our anxieties that the great Lover of our souls will be as fickle and unsteady as we are merely deprive us more time in His grip, more joy in His presence, and more certainty in His promise: “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:17).

Trust the arms that grip us at our worst, and the Love that will not let us go.

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

Imagine publishing a book at twelve years old—one that started with nothing more than nature walks and a mother's simple question: "Where do you see God in that tree?" In this piece, a teenager shares how she's read the entire Bible four times, why one word in the story of Daniel changed how she makes decisions, and what she's learned about choosing right when convenient is so much easier. She's honest that she still stumbles. But she's found something steadier than her own intuition. What does it take to "purpose in your heart" before the hard choice ever comes? Listen.

Why do you believe what you believe? Because your parents told you? Because you grew up in church? The author says that kind of faith can crumble when life gets hard—and he's after something sturdier. He loves true stories: prison escapes, wartime survival, missionaries in danger. What makes them powerful, he says, is that they can be checked. So can faith. He points to a prophecy Isaac Newton called the foundation stone of Christianity, and to a teenage girl who once held an 18-pound Bible overhead for thirty minutes. God didn't just give us religion, he argues—He gave us evidence. Listen.

If you are truly saved through faith, then you are daily praying grace down into the cracks and crevices of life, into the dim and unlit corners where fear and fate and faithlessness more often hold the keys.

Understanding—really understanding—grace rarely happens through a flash of intellectual enlightenment: Paul’s own Damascus Road was just the first of many miles spent learning grace.

Each week we find how weak and meager is our faith, how little we actually trust the great bold verities announced by Jesus and His gospel, how much we fear that what He promises to give is too good to be true.

“Increase our faith” is the most honest prayer we ever murmur—and the one He most delights to answer.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

It started with a nervous breakfast: a Seventh-day Adventist pastor across the table from an ordained Buddhist minister, both unsure what to expect. Then she explained what she does before eating—a silent thanks to everyone who made the meal possible, from the farmers to the bacteria in the soil—and the awkwardness melted away. There are 500 million Buddhists in the world. How much do we really know about them? This piece walks through what Buddhists believe, the surprising values they share with Adventists, and how one Buddhist landlady slowly came to faith—not through argument, but experience. What builds a real bridge between two faiths? Listen.

“If God is good and grace is real, why do I still feel badly about my mistakes?”

A popular illusion of new Christians is that the rescue wrought for them by Jesus is supposed to save them from any sorrow about their past. In the shallow mythology we clutch, everything about our new life as believers ought to be “peace, light, and joy.”

Yet God’s Word poignantly asks, “Do you not know that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?” (Rom 2:4). Assured at last of God’s continuing affection for us, we look more honestly at how often we ignored His love, mistreated others, and damaged our own happiness. That new-found honesty naturally disturbs us, for we see clearly what we previously refused to see.

A heart made clean and new by God will also experience real sorrow for the past. As the psalmist tearfully admitted, “Against you—you above all—I have sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight” (Psalmist 51:4).

The grace that saves us also changes us, for real love would never leave us where we were. Embrace the new and better life to which God’s kindness has now led you, even through some honest tears.

Now stay in grace. -Bill Knott

Picture a World Cup final with no referee — both teams disqualifying each other's players, every goal disputed, chaos taking over. Someone has to make the final call. But who decides the meaning of Scripture? It's a question that cuts to the heart of one of Protestantism's oldest principles: sola scriptura. And the objections are sharper than you might expect. If Scripture never actually says "Scripture alone," doesn't the whole idea collapse on itself? And didn't the church decide which books made the Bible — meaning the church came first? This article takes those challenges seriously. Listen in for some surprising answers.

“Because he’s never said he’s sorry”. . . “She kept the ring my grandma wanted me to have” . . . “He laughed at how I cringed at his cheap insult.”

All these—and more—as reasons that we can’t—or won’t—forgive. We acidly rehearse the story of our injury, deepening divides and festering in feuds. Soon we come to like the bitter taste of bile, for anger feels powerful, and power is what we want.

But Jesus offers us another way—a path of grace that doesn’t measure wounds and grievances. “Love your enemies,“ He urges. “Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you” (Luke 6:27-28).

Such kindness seems impossible until—unless—we grasp how greatly we have been forgiven. Our graciousness is still the greatest sign that we have understood our real state, for “a person who is forgiven little shows only little love” (Luke 7:47).

If you never need forgiveness, then stay as hot and angry as you dare. But if your story calls for grace, accept the Father’s timely gift.

And stay in it. -Bill Knott

The old proverb reminds us, “Some things must be seen to be believed.”

And so it often is with grace: we can’t believe in something so miraculous—so unexpected, undeserved—even though God’s Word repeatedly declares it: “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2;8).

Until we see grace in the flesh—in someone near enough to care—we wonder if such kindness is just rich, warm-hearted myth. The one we thought an enemy who doesn’t reach for his revenge; the friend who quietly forgives our rudeness or our thoughtlessness; the colleague who works overnight to make up for our lack—each gives us just a glimpse of that unbounded and eternal grace that always seeks our flourishing. God sifts His goodness into every day through those who love has changed.

We learn grace from gracious people. In unsung, unexpected ways, they live the kindness in the heart of God.

Live warmly, joyfully yourself. You’ll be the grace some other seeker needs.

And stay in it. -Bill Knott