Adventist Review Podcasts

Searching The Obvious: Soft Sand (May 2019)

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” (Psalm 139:7, NRSV) “Searching the Obvious” focuses on how the Holy Spirit is ever active in our surroundings and in our lives, urging us to serve others. Personal stories challenge the reader to be mindful of our Christian Walk, recognize our own fallibility and slow down to ‘search the obvious’, the active presence of the Holy Spirit ever always around us.

Journeys With Jesus: God-Centered (May 2019)

"Journeys with Jesus" is an intimate, personal look at the walk we all have with our Savior. Inspirational, heart-tugging, thought-provoking vignettes of life's journey and life's decisions. Most of all, it points us to our Father, our Friend, as the Source of all wisdom, comfort, and peace. www.adventistreview.org

GraceNotes: When Grace Finds You (May 3, 2019)

The mystery is that grace still finds us, hidden well beneath the cellar stairs—angry, broken, sinful, sad. When we’ve crawled into our painful cave to lick our wounds or plot revenge, we hear the footsteps on the stair. We hear the sound of Jesus’ gentle laughter: “You can stop being afraid now. All-y, all-y—yes—in free!” The games are finally over. When grace comes seeking you, there’s no more need to hide. What’s wounded starts to heal. Your past all gets forgiven. The lonely all get friended. Today, get found: step out into the light. Enjoy the life you’ve always sought. And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

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GraceNotes: Baptize Us Anew (April 26, 2019)

Every day beside the Jordan, can you hear the “hallelujahs”? Can you hear the joy of angels in their vast, euphoric choir as you give your life—again—to Jesus and walk down into the water? Can you feel the hug of heaven as you leave your past behind you—leave your sins and all your merits, held by grace and grace alone? Can you hear the words cascading: “This one’s Mine, My lovely child, of whom I’m so greatly proud”? Do you sense the great affection of the Father who will not be turned away by sin—in your past, your now, your future? Ah, the washing, the renewing that restores a dry disciple! Spend some moments, washed and steadied, in the sand beside the river, hearing heaven’s affirmation of your choice to follow Jesus. Jordan’s bank is sacred space. Come here often: stay in grace. -Bill Knott

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GraceNotes: The Rising Song (April 19, 2019)

The resurrection is the greatest turnabout in time, a reversal of such epic scope that all our yesterdays have been reshaped and all tomorrows made anew. From Friday sundown’s grinding grief to Sunday morning’s glorious light, the balance of the world tipped.   We were the people sitting in darkness.  Now we greet His rising day. Death and dying lost their grip:  life and hope came springing up—out of the ground, within the tomb, above our loss, beyond our sin. Because Christ lives, the world’s dirge will die away;  a song of love and grace will be the anthem of the future. Join in the song that never dies:  “The Lord has risen—so shall I.”   And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

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GraceNotes: Released From Fear (April 12, 2019)

Fear builds around us prisons only we can see. We peer out through the bars of damaged memories and foolish choices—walled in by concrete years of dark regrets. And we assume the sentence is for life. But then one day there is a rattling at the door; keys open up a rusty lock. The cell in which we kept ourselves more rigidly than any jail is opened by a word of grace. “Your sins are forgiven you,” says the Lord who vowed to open every prison door. The sentence is commuted, and yes, the record is expunged. “As far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:12). We walk out in the light of grace—amazed at freedom we have never known, and breathing in the oxygen of hope. This is the genius of the gospel, and why this story always liberates. Walk out of fear, but stay in grace. -Bill Knott

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Gerald Kingbeil: Thy Kingdom Come (April 2019)

Gerald Klingbeil is an associate editor of the Adventist Review magazine who has recently started to consciously pray "Thy Kingdom Come."

GraceNotes: Trusting Grace (April 5, 2019)

The Bible doesn’t say, “By grit you have been saved through effort: this is your part. It is your gift to God.”But tragically, many who say they believe in Jesus hold this old falsehood closer than they grasp the truth: “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God”(Eph 2:8-9). We strain to earn what Jesus freely gives, all unaware He wants to change our attitudes even more than our behavior. Grace teaches us to trust, and “trust” is yet another word for “faith.” What we give up when we rely on Christ is much more than our taste for fatty foods or hours wasted on the Web: we give up fantasies that sweat and intelligent self-will will ever make us worthy of eternity. The One who cannot lie says “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer 31:3). With such affection, broad and deep, we are encircled and enabled. So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

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GraceNotes: Morning Has Broken (March 29, 2019)

When we’ve been wounded by the spitefulness of others, it’s grace that quiets our reactive hearts and calms our angry tongues. We remember being forgiven, and so we can imagine offering forgiveness. The grace that reconciled us to God becomes the opening that makes new reconciliations thinkable.  The foolish cycle of retaliation need not take another turn, for Jesus has absorbed the weight of all our anger, sin and pain. A new day dawns in which forgiveness warms and brightens all we know. Grateful for love that changed our lives, we pray that others also change, find peace, experience forgiveness. So forgiving comes to be our way of living, and grace leads on to grace.  So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

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GraceNotes: Outside and Above (March 22, 2019)

The great illusion at the heart of our unhappiness is the fantasy that we can solve our brokenness and foolishness. A hundred self-help manuals urge us to discover new, untapped potential; find our core of optimism, rise above the litter of past choices. If even one of these vain remedies really worked, the bookstores would be empty, and people everywhere would be living warm, productive, joyful lives. But we continue fumbling in the bargain bin of last year’s over-hyped, self-centered strategies, while Jesus offers just one word. “Come,” He says. “Come away and rest awhile.” “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow.” “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you.” There are no better promises than these. There is no answer for our pain that heals us like God’s word of grace. Our rescue always comes from outside and above. So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

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