Adventist World Podcasts

“Papa, please tell me a story.”  That’s Cain, or maybe Abel, asked Adam to tell them a story, a story that will make the past more clear so they can face the future with greater certainty, courage, and hope.  It’s a question every Father and Mother has been asked by the “inquiring minds” who sit beside them in the light of a cooling evening. 

 

Each month I imagine that you have just invited me to “tell you a story,” a true tale of The Creator’s love that will help you understand the past and so face the future with more certainty, courage, and hope. I breath deeply for a long minute, and then pour my heart out to you through my computer. www.adventistworld.org

“Papa, please tell me a story.”  That’s Cain, or maybe Abel, asked Adam to tell them a story, a story that will make the past more clear so they can face the future with greater certainty, courage, and hope.  It’s a question every Father and Mother has been asked by the “inquiring minds” who sit beside them in the light of a cooling evening. 

 

Each month I imagine that you have just invited me to “tell you a story,” a true tale of The Creator’s love that will help you understand the past and so face the future with more certainty, courage, and hope. I breath deeply for a long minute, and then pour my heart out to you through my computer. www.adventistworld.org

“Papa, please tell me a story.”  That’s Cain, or maybe Abel, asked Adam to tell them a story, a story that will make the past more clear so they can face the future with greater certainty, courage, and hope.  It’s a question every Father and Mother has been asked by the “inquiring minds” who sit beside them in the light of a cooling evening. 

 

Each month I imagine that you have just invited me to “tell you a story,” a true tale of The Creator’s love that will help you understand the past and so face the future with more certainty, courage, and hope. I breath deeply for a long minute, and then pour my heart out to you through my computer. www.adventistworld.org

“Papa, please tell me a story.”  That’s Cain, or maybe Abel, asked Adam to tell them a story, a story that will make the past more clear so they can face the future with greater certainty, courage, and hope.  It’s a question every Father and Mother has been asked by the “inquiring minds” who sit beside them in the light of a cooling evening. 

 

Each month I imagine that you have just invited me to “tell you a story,” a true tale of The Creator’s love that will help you understand the past and so face the future with more certainty, courage, and hope. I breath deeply for a long minute, and then pour my heart out to you through my computer. www.adventistworld.org

“Papa, please tell me a story.”  That’s Cain, or maybe Abel, asked Adam to tell them a story, a story that will make the past more clear so they can face the future with greater certainty, courage, and hope.  It’s a question every Father and Mother has been asked by the “inquiring minds” who sit beside them in the light of a cooling evening. 

 

Each month I imagine that you have just invited me to “tell you a story,” a true tale of The Creator’s love that will help you understand the past and so face the future with more certainty, courage, and hope. I breath deeply for a long minute, and then pour my heart out to you through my computer. www.adventistworld.org

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

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

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

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

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