It’s the most frequently portrayed scene in all of human history. Four year olds sketch out the wise men, sheep, and cattle. Sculptors craft three human figures beneath a simple roof, and we fill in the rest. Churches erect elaborate crčches, some with anxious animals, some with freezing actors. Billions of gilded Christmas cards imagine this one moment in its gentle innocence. Why does the story of a humble birth 2000 years ago transfix a weary world? Because it is supremely a story of hope, of resistance, of pushing back against the dreadful narrative of death and power and pain. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it” (John 1:4 5). Jesus entered this life we live by the low road, though He owns all roads that ever were. He was worshipped—yes, adored—by midnight shepherds stained with mud—men ignored by all the proud and powerful, though He is rightfully worshipped by archangels, universal praise, and choirs. “God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important” (1Cor 1:28). Jesus always gives Himself to those brought low by circumstance or grief—the poor, the poorly treated, the poor in spirit—the folks who cannot turn the world their way. Beginning from the bottom, He lifts all of us toward heaven. Embrace this Child. Your hope and joy will also rise. And you will stay in grace. Bill Knott
Source: Adventist Review Podcasts
NOWHERE ELSE (May 03, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu May 2 20:30:04 2024 - 0An old gospel hymn plaintively asks the question in the last line of each verse: “Where could I go but to the Lord?” The hymnwriter noted the deep challenges of everyday life in a broken world. He deplored the lack of things he needed t...BETTER NEWS (April 26, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Apr 25 20:30:04 2024 - 4“That’s old news.” In an information obsessed world, that may be the ultimate put down. Round the clock—and endlessly repetitive—reporting crackles from hundreds of cable television channels. All news radio stations compete for ou...THE GREATEST MYSTERY (April 19, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Apr 18 20:30:05 2024 - 4A mother’s deep affection for her newborn child is completely understandable. The nine months they’ve spent journeying together—and a surge of maternal hormones—create an instant, fierce attraction to that red and wrinkled infant ga...ANOTHER KIND OF PRODIGAL (April 12, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Apr 11 20:30:04 2024 - 5What kind of person gets angry when a wretched, broken sinner is restored by the grace of God? Are there really people that selfish? The answer, according to Jesus, is sadly “Yes”—and they sometimes congregate in churches. In Jesus’...UNMERITED (April 05, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Apr 4 20:30:05 2024 - 3It’s usually said with a cynical smile and an eye roll: “My good deed did not go unpunished.” And it nicely sums up the exasperation we feel when life doesn’t seem fair, when hard work isn’t rewarded, when doing the right thing br...MORNING HAS BROKEN (March 29, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Mar 28 20:30:03 2024 - 4These hours between midnight and dawn test the patience of the world. We stumble through the hallways of dark houses. We seek companionship in all night TV channels and books that used to put us to sleep. We hide from pain or grief that won...ALWAYS AMAZING (March 22, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Mar 21 20:30:04 2024 - 6Fast forward, if you can, to scenes our hearts are aching to be in. Redeemed at last from all the brokenness, the pettiness, the pain of earthly life, we stand before the throne with those from every nation, tribe, and people, breathing in ...NEVER WALK ALONE (March 15, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Mar 14 20:30:04 2024 - 6It’s a pandemic for the ages.  Even though we’re more “connected” than ever, a tidal wave of loneliness has washed around the world. Eight billion cell phones aren’t enough if people talk to fewer friends, never share a walk or...ALL ARE GIFTED (March 08, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Mar 7 20:30:04 2024 - 5We are wary for good reasons. We’ve had too much of hurt, of wounds, of promises that didn’t deliver. Nothing “too good to be true” should ever be believed. But grace presents us with impossibly good things—all backed up by the ...BEYOND BELIEF (March 01, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Feb 29 20:30:03 2024 - 2It takes a lot to surprise the authors of the Bible. In the pages of Scripture, we find unflinchingly honest stories about every kind of failing—adultery, murder, cruelty, abuse. Nothing human is foreign to them.  But they were startl...DOES GOD HEAR ME? (February 23, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Feb 22 20:30:04 2024 - 5When warm light floods the living room and laughter visits along with friends, we bless the grace of God for making all our good days better.  But when the rain slants heavily across our midnight loneliness, is grace still real? Is God ...AND THERE WAS HOPE (February 16, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Feb 15 20:30:03 2024 - 13A century ago, the poet wept: “Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.”  And after greater blood and anarchy, who dares to argue with him? Pollyannas need not apply.  And yet, sweet children are still softly kissed before they ...HE ALWAYS WAS HUMBLE AND KIND (February 09, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Feb 8 20:30:03 2024 - 10Name any virtue dear to you, and there’s one grace behind it. Even the Bible’s best known virtues— “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control” (Gal 5:22 23)—grow from one even mor...REHEARSING THE GOSPEL (February 02, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Feb 1 20:30:04 2024 - 6When we were children, practicing was frequently the bane of our existence. Endless loops of cursive handwriting; sticky valves on rented clarinets; stubborn keyboard ivories that mocked our stubby fingers. Practicing brought little joy as ...THE HONEST TRUTH (January 26, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Jan 25 20:30:04 2024 - 5When all our boasts are at an end; when no one’s left we might impress; when all our tales of make believe have not made anyone believe—we stare into the mirror that reveals our brokenness and pain. Hard as it is, this is the moment ric...THE SONG OF THE REDEEMED (January 19, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Jan 18 20:30:04 2024 - 5I sing the solo grace “that saved a wretch like me,”—and so I should. Without it, I would be forever lost and never found. But grace is more than what God does for me, though there may never be a hymn to fully capture that. Grace is t...UNWEARIED LOVE (January 12, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Jan 11 20:30:03 2024 - 5The finest things that we can say are sometimes framed as negatives. Here’s one: “Love never gives up, never loses faith” (1 Cor 13:8). That’s why we celebrate what the Bible so often calls God’s “steadfast love”—His unchang...A COVENANT FOR WANDERERS (January 05, 2024)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Jan 4 20:30:04 2024 - 7Make covenants, not resolutions, as you walk into the year, for covenants give us company in keeping what we pledge. A resolution with no witness is too often just a wish, a good intention with nothing but our declining willpower to make th...GRACE TO FORGET (December 29,2023)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Wed Dec 27 20:30:05 2023 - 8Each year, as New Year’s Day arrives, believers wrestle quietly with one of the Apostle Paul’s most puzzling assertions: “One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal...INFANT LOWLY (December 22, 2023)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Dec 21 20:30:05 2023 - 5It’s the most frequently portrayed scene in all of human history.  Four year olds sketch out the wise men, sheep, and cattle.  Sculptors craft three human figures beneath a simple roof, and we fill in the rest. Churches erect elabora...THE NIGHT WILL BE LIGHT (December 15, 2023)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Dec 14 22:30:04 2023 - 6Our fascination with the stars is as old as . . . one gorgeous night in Eden. As darkness first descended on God’s rich, untrammeled world, there was no fear, no threat, no shying from the shadows. A dazzling panoply of stars entranced th...NEVER WAS A WAR (December 08, 2023)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Fri Dec 8 20:30:04 2023 - 9It’s a tough time to be selling “Peace on Earth.” In the Christmas Shoppe at the megastore, elves and reindeer move briskly out the door. Nativity scenes in warm pastels are inner lit with bulbs and cheer. Miles and miles of twinkling...WATCHING OVER US (December 01, 2023)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Nov 30 20:30:04 2023 - 5It’s a story filled with angels, and so a story filled with grace. An angel reveals to an aged priest that his wife will bear a son named John. The angel Gabriel announces to a virgin that she will be the mother of the promised Messiah, w...FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH (November 24, 2023)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Wed Nov 22 20:30:04 2023 - 9“If you would tell me, tell me true,” a wise old man once said. “There isn’t time enough for lies.” And when we’ve polished all our trophies, and sung again our victory songs, we come at last to stories too painful to be false. ...ALL ARE GIFTED (November 17, 2023)
Adventist Review Podcasts - Thu Nov 16 20:30:04 2023 - 10We are wary for good reasons. We’ve had too much of hurt, of wounds, of promises that didn’t deliver. Nothing “too good to be true” should ever be believed. But grace presents us with impossibly good things—all backed up by the ...
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