Adventist Review Podcasts

FORGIVENESS IN FULL FLOWER (June 20, 2025)

“Forgive me,” we say flippantly, painting on a shallow smile, when we discover we are misaligned with someone greater or more powerful—someone who might make us hurt.

We view our error lightly—just a minor inconvenience—and we hope the one offended will quickly do the same. Why do the humbling work of owning all that happened and acknowledging its impact?

But true forgiveness is a thoughtful, time-intensive mercy—never rushed if genuine; never brushed away if real. Unless we face the injury we’ve caused, we ask for restoration without repentance, a mere smoothing of ruffled surfaces.  If the needed words are “I’m sorry that I hurt you,” or “I can see how I was wrong,” speak truthfully, and find the needed healing. “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal 6:1-2).

And when we are the ones offended and it is our turn to forgive, we plant the seeds of our own future grudges if we pretend a painful hurt is only minor and dismissible. What goes unsaid is usually unforgiven as well. Both grace and truth are called for each time there is an injury.

Only those who know themselves forgiven by the One who was always “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) ever truly forgive another broken soul. Only in the field of grace can reconciliation blossom.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

FIRST LIGHT, THEN GRACE (June 13, 2025)

Wherever grace is welcomed and received, joy follows, just as daylight follows dawn.

And so we can read backwards from so many grayed-out, joyless souls to learn how few have heard and loved and lived the gospel. All fearful, anxious following of Jesus—all dim preoccupation with the things we've done or left undone—reveals that we are still in darkness, wrestling with the shadows Jesus rose to vanquish. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5).

So hear the gospel chorus in the songbirds’ pre-dawn trilling, bringing light to weary souls—like yours:

“Arise, shine; for your light has come,


  and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,


  and thick darkness the peoples;


but the Lord will arise upon you,


  and His glory will be seen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1-2).

The Light of all the world invites you: be done with anxious, midnight brooding. The day that dawns is meant to be abundant and eternal, the endless morning of the Son.

And stay in grace. – Bill Knott

GOTTA TELL SOMEBODY (June 06, 20250

In every soul who has ever been healed, conviction rises that they must tell the story of how God’s goodness rebuilt a broken body or a wounded spirit. 

Bones got mended; diseases conquered; mobility advanced; relationships renewed. When grace restores what pain has taken, “Then our mouth was filled with laughter,

and our tongue with shouts of joy;

then it was said among the nations,

“The Lord has done great things for them” (Psalm 126:2). 

We gladly own we couldn’t—didn’t—heal ourselves. No self-help remedies can knit the muscles of a heart—or reconcile two wounded hearts. Only a power outside ourselves—a love that will not let us go—would care enough to build our peace, to make us whole. And so the world daily echoes with the praise of those who once feared darkness and despair would be their final verdict: “O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever” (Psa 136:1).

So do not be surprised if you should feel like singing—if contagious joy spills on from you to half a dozen or a hundred. Your healing was for them as well as you. “You, God, have turned my mourning into dancing” (Psa 30:11). 

Irrepressible—and irresistible—joy is the lasting legacy of grace. 

Move in it. And stay in it. – Bill Knott

SWEET WORD OF GRACE (May 30, 2025)

My pride is stung. My spirit’s wounded. The untrue, unjust thing that someone said, that someone wrote, went viral with unheard-of speed, fanned on by evil angels.

And rising with the bitter righteousness of bile, the fantasy of sweet revenge becomes more urgent every hour. “Strike back!” say Truth and Justice. “Set the twisted record straight. Unmask the gossiper for who he is, for what she wrote. Redeem your ruined reputation.”

And then Grace whispers, “You have already been redeemed. Your reputation is the best that it could ever be because your life is hid with Christ in God. The pleasures of retaliation are nothing—meaningless—beside the joys of being both forgiven AND forgiving.”

Grace dulls our taste for vengefulness, and makes us hungry for the fullness of God’s joy. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22).

“Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps 34:8).

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

HAPPILY SURRENDERED (May 23, 2025)

If you revisit all the beaches where you built sandcastles in the sun, chances are, you’ll never even find a one. 

The constant pull of wash and wave reduces all the outposts where we once asserted sovereignty. Our turrets and our towers, our moats and battlements have long since lost the struggle to insist on what was never really ours.

And so it is as grace subdues the castles of our pride and self-assertion. The lovely, unrelenting rhythm of God’s kindness and His mercy overruns our fierce objections and erodes our staked positions. While we were sleeping at our stations, we were flooded by forgiveness, cracked and circled by repeated offers of redemption. And for many—all who acknowledge they are beaten—grace reclaims a life that always was the property of God.

Unless you build cement into your soul—unless you daily and deliberately refuse the pull of God’s unceasing love—you’ll yet surrender to the grace that outmaneuvers all our pride. With the apostle Paul, you’ll soon exclaim, “But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ” (1 Tim 1:13-14).

There is an hour for yielding crumbling fortresses to grace. Your hour has come. The tide is in.

Rejoice in what you used to fight.

And stay in grace. -Bill Knot

HYMN WE SING ( May 16, 2025)

It’s the most famous line ever written about grace by an author not recorded in God’s Word: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

Every week, around the globe, it’s sung and said uncounted times, bringing joy and certainty to billions of believers. Whole lives are built on this.

But the lived reality of grace requires that we move beyond the first person voice, and grasp our role within the choir. For while grace operates for each of us as individuals, we learn it by and through and with—and for—believers Christ in grace puts near us. “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18).

We gather grace from gracious people. We forgive as we’re forgiven. We speak kindly when we listen to kind words. We risk embracing others when we’ve found the deep security of being gripped in love.

A solo Christian is theoretically possible but practically unheard of. God has ordained that all our growth in grace comes through the community of others. We’re taught; we stretch; we struggle; we discover among the others who are also on the journey. From them we gain what no one wretch might ever know:

“Amazing grace, no sweeter words

Were ever sung by choir;

From them we learn the lovely song,

The passion, and the fire.”

Now stay in grace. -Bill Knott

FOREVER JOY (May 09, 2025)

Savoring the creamy richness of delectable milk chocolate.

Settling into the plush leather of a luxury car.

Dangling your feet in the stunningly blue water of a South Pacific lagoon.

What do these very different life experiences have in common? Each is richly imaged for us by adroit advertisers who correctly sense how desperately we seek relief from everyday hecticity.

We need something to break the cycle: we need a respite from the crushing stress.

But the Word of God reminds us that we manufacture most of all that pains us. “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Rom 3:23). Our essential uneasiness results from years of choosing the fleeting pleasures of this moment over the joys of God’s eternal friendship.

Is there a better answer than smooth chocolate, deep leather and Tahitian sunsets? “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). “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).

Grace is an enduring delight because the Lord is risen. The pleasure of His freedom lasts forever.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

TO GRACIOUSLY RECEIVE (May 02, 2025)

What is it in our restless hearts that cannot graciously receive a gift?

A friend invites us to a grand, delightful meal, and even before dessert is served, we’re busy evening the score. We fail to taste the kindly moment because we’re painfully obsessed with making certain our account with one we call a friend is “balanced”—even though it is a dinner spread and not a spreadsheet gleaming in the candlelight.

And so we say to God when He so kindly offers us eternity through what His Son has sacrificed: “That’s truly nice—and in exchange I’ll do 10,000 good, obedient things that makes it seem I’m less in Your debt, and somehow more deserving.”

Grace wounds our pride by disallowing all our offers of equivalence. There is no service we can offer God that even starts to mitigate His gift. Our prayers, our gifts, our sweat, our pain do not begin to make us anything but debtors to the kindness we’ve been given. “In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

Grace teaches us the habit of receiving what we never can repay—of reveling in it, and telling strangers just how blessed we are.

A heartfelt “thank you” is the best response when offered joy, and peace, and freedom.

Then stay in grace. -Bill Knott

WELCOMING DISRUPTION (April 25, 2025)

What makes the light of Easter last long past the hymns and lilies?

The ground beneath our feet has moved. The grim, unshaken certainties of loss and grief and toil and death have finally succumbed—and to such stunningly good news: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor.15.22).

Our muddied tale of violence and pain has yielded in a burst of light that stubbornly rejects a fade: “Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and He was raised from the dead on the third day” (1 Cor 15:3-4).

Now dawns the interrupted life—the days when joy reclaims its missing hours. The resurrected Christ insists there’ll be a better, brighter finish to our story. We dare to laugh, to stretch, to love: not all things stay just as they were.

We reach for strangers, suddenly so confident that love will win when all is done. We dance with children in the puddles: the rain we used to curse now waters our new life. The sinews of our hope grow strong, resilient—able now to bear what yesterday we feared.

The Great Disrupter has arisen, and He is making all things new.

So rise and walk—and stay in grace. -Bill Knott

HE IS RISEN! (April 18, 2025)

In the blackness of Sunday morning, the prodigal opened His eyes and murmured softly, “I will arise and go to my Father, and will say to Him, ‘Father, I have borne the sins of every human who has ever lived. I am worthy to be called your Son.’”

And a reunion postponed for 33 years split the midnight of our world. Out of wretchedness came joy. Out of brokenness came healing. Love triumphed over death. Grace reclaimed what sin had stolen. The Liberator came back to life.

Then the voices of a billion angels shook the galaxies and stars: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev 5:12).

That’s why we sing the story of the resurrection every time we can. This is the truth that underlines our certainty: “He was handed over to die because of our sins, and He was raised to life to make us right with God” (Rom 4:25).

This stone-cold planet, rife with death, smothered in pain and gasping for life, is not our destination: “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’”(Jer 29:11).

Your future began with the resurrection of Jesus. Grace declares His victory can be yours.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott