Seeking the Life in Christ

Monday, September 14, 2026

Divine Restraint

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

September 14, 2026

Divine Restraint

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.

1 Corinthians 10:23

The Bible teaches us to practice self-restraint. The Apostle Paul even includes self-restraint as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Both James and Peter urge their congregations to practice self-restraint or self-control. Most often, when we think of self-control, we are focusing on all the things we are not supposed to do as Jesus’ disciples. That is easy to understand because the phrase ‘do not’ appears almost 175 times in just the first five books of the Bible.

While the Bible is most assuredly concerned that we exercise self-control over the sinful desires of the flesh, the Bible is also very interested in our responding to our higher calling by practicing divine restraint. Several times in the Gospels, Jesus used the phrase, “I must,” such as, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent” (Luke 4:43). The Apostle Paul also was driven by divine restraint when “he said, “I must visit Rome also” (Acts 19:21). In both these examples, Jesus and Paul were responding to the imperative God placed on their lives. They exercised self-control by not doing other things, not going other places, so that they could fully respond to God’s leading in their lives.

As the followers of Jesus, we too have an imperative from God. God wants to use our lives for the glory of His Kingdom. As disciples, we are called to exercise divine restraint in our lives so that we can offer all that we are, and all that we have, for God to use at His discretion. What does that look like; how do we do this?

Paul follows the passage quoted above (1 Corinthians 10:23) with this instruction: “No one should seek their own good, but the good of others” (1 Corinthians 10:24). This is very similar to what Paul wrote to the Philippians: “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4 NRSV). In both instances, Paul is encouraging us to exercise divine restraint in how we use all our assets, so that we can use them in God-honoring ways, and not just for our own self-interest.

My Takeaway: Cheryl and I are applying this principle in our household by changing some of our household spending practices – not because we must pinch pennies, but because we get to. Some of the money we saved on household expenses by practicing divine restraint we are now investing more in a food Bank in Israel and helping support a member of our church in seminary.

Sē’lah

My book on prayer,

First Think, Then Pray

is now available on Amazon Kindle.

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life. The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Friday, September 11, 2026

Let It Be Done to You

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

September 11, 2026

Let It Be Done to You

“According to your faith let it be done to you.”

Matthew 9: 29b (NRSV)

“According to your faith let it be done to you.” Jesus said those words to two blind men. They had asked Jesus to have mercy on them, “and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord” (Matthew 9:28b NRSV). Then Jesus touched them, and their eyes were opened. This is the faith, the let it be done to you faith, that I want to have active and abiding in my life.

Now faith is not our means to unlock the genie from his bottle. Faith most certainly is not our means to manipulate God into doing what we want. Faith is how we open our lives to receive all that God wants to do in and through our lives. Godly faith will never deviate from God’s sovereign will in our lives.

How can we develop this let it be done to you faith? Matthew, chapter 6, is a great place to start. In just thirty-four verses, Matthew refers to God as Father twelve times. Remember, in Jesus’ culture, the name of God was never spoken. The only record the Jews had of God’s name was the four consonants that were used to spell God’s name in their scriptures (Generally rendered as LORD in English translations of the Old Testament). It was almost blasphemy for Jesus to teach his disciples to call God, “Father.” Jesus has torn down some mighty barriers that separated people from God.

Jesus is showing us that through faith in God as our Father, our needs for love, acceptance and a sense of self-worth can be fulfilled in ways we never dreamed were possible. Jesus is showing us that through faith in God as our Father, we can experience God’s complete love and acceptance of us as His beloved child. Jesus is showing us that our relationship with God is all about trust. Can I trust God with all my life? It is one thing to serve a god that only gives me a list of moral and ethical standards to obey. Jesus is showing us another way; he is showing us that we can trust God, our loving Heavenly Father, with our life, our family, our job, our retirement and our future.

My Takeaway: Growing in a loving, trusting relationship with our Heavenly Father, who is head-over-heels in love with us, will birth let it be done to you faith within us.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21

Sē’lah

My book on prayer,

First Think, Then Pray

is now available on Amazon Kindle.

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Thursday, September 10, 2026

Eighty Percent Mortality Rate

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

September 10, 2026

Eighty Percent Mortality Rate

And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:3

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talked about being great in the Kingdom of Heaven. (Matthew 5:19) Just before our passage for today, the disciples had asked Jesus, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matthew 18:1). Jesus replied that unless they became like little children, they wouldn’t even get into the Kingdom of Heaven, much less be counted among the greatest. In our culture, we tend to romanticize Jesus’ words and try to think of admirable qualities of little children we know, like trust and wonder, which we can emulate. That’s not what Jesus had in mind.

Consider these statistics for children in Israel 2,000 years ago. For every 100 children born, on average, 30 died at childbirth. Another 21 would die before they reached the age of six. Of the remaining 49 children, 29 would die before they reached the age of sixteen. That is a child mortality rate to age sixteen of 80%. On average, only 20 of 100 children would survive to become adults. You might think a society would thus deem children as precious and highly valued, but that was not the case in that culture. Children were little regarded and considered of no value until they reached adulthood.

Jesus is saying that the first step into the Kingdom of Heaven is to turn from your sinful ways. The second step is to become humble and unassuming as were the little children in Jesus’ culture. Then Jesus’ words will resonate deeply within our souls: “Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:4) (“God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs” (Matthew 5:3 NLT)

My Takeaway: By the way, life in the Kingdom of Heaven is a matter of repeating steps one and two, every day.

Sē’lah

My book on prayer,

First Think, Then Pray

is now available on Amazon Kindle.

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Wednesday, September 9, 2026

Uncle John Had Never Gotten Over It

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

September 9, 2026

Uncle John Had Never Gotten Over It

A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones.

Proverbs 17:22 (NRSV)

When I was seminary, one of my classmates was a very cheerful, upbeat woman. She had an effervescent faith and was quite convinced the sufficiency of God’s grace would see her through life. She drove one of our professors crazy. He ridiculed her and called her ‘Pollyanna.” He was equally convinced that she was not grounded in reality because he knew life was difficult and full of potholes.

Had he taken the time to get to know her, he would have found that she had experienced more than her share of difficulties, even tragic events; she was well acquainted with the potholes in life. She just chose to respond to life differently than our professor. Her response to life reminded me of a story Garrison Keillor tells in one of his books. Garrison’s extended family gathered for a Thanksgiving feast. The hostess called on his Uncle John to pray. Garrison remembered that

“Everybody in the family knew that Uncle John couldn't pray without talking about the cross and crying. And if there is one thing that makes people nervous, it's listening to a grown man cry. Sure enough, Uncle John prayed, talked about the cross, and cried. Meanwhile, the rest of us shifted nervously from one foot to the other and longed for the prayer to end. All of us knew that Jesus died on the cross for us, but Uncle John had never gotten over it."

Neither had my friend gotten over it. My friend remembered well what Christ had done for her, and this inspired her to always, even in the most difficult of times, allow the life of Jesus to be made visible in her mortal flesh.

My Takeaway: I think it was Saint Teresa of Avila who prayed, “From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, spare us, O Lord.” It is good to remember Teresa’s prayer because a good-humored Christian will win more souls for Christ than the best, and most zealous, but ill-humored evangelist.

Sē’lah

My book on prayer,

First Think, Then Pray

is now available on Amazon Kindle.

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

September 8, 2026

Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

Joshua 24:15

A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 film based on the life of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics. Nash developed paranoid schizophrenia and endured delusional episodes that nearly destroyed his life. In one compelling scene, after Nash began recovering from his illness, and when he was awarded the Nobel Prize, he sees his delusional nemesis standing off to his side. Later he affirmed that he is never far away from his delusions and must continually choose what reality to believe.

Joshua, in his leadership of the people of God, had experienced the consequences of ten men choosing to believe their fear, while only he and Caleb chose to trust God. For this reason, when Joshua had successfully led Israel into the Promised Land, Joshua challenged them to “choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15 NRSV). Joshua would later learn that perhaps he should have phrased the challenge, “Choose everyday whom you will serve,” because each and every day we must not only reaffirm our loyalty to God, but we must also reaffirm our decision to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

I know this is basic, even remedial Christianity. Even so, it is crucial to Christ being formed within us that we never lose sight of the basics. Some time ago, I was called upon to mediate a dispute. It was painfully clear that the parties were being guided by the cultural axiom, “Do unto others as they do unto you.” I was prayerfully seeking a guiding principle to govern my demeanor as the mediator and found it in one of Fred Craddock’s sermons:

“You do not take your behavior from the nature of the other person;

you take your behavior from the character of God.”

My Takeaway: The basics never go out of style!

Sē’lah

My book on prayer,

First Think, Then Pray

is now available on Amazon Kindle.

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Monday, September 7, 2026

The Trinity Lives in Us

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

September 7, 2026

The Trinity Lives in Us

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:12

In 2007, Wm. Paul Young published The Shack. Within a few years, the book became a phenomenal success around the world, due in part because people found so many points of identification within his story. One of the enduring memories I have of the book is the lively, very personal, edifying and uplifting relationship within the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit were not abstract depictions of a complex, distant and unknowable deity; the Trinity was very much alive. The Apostle John is pointing to this truth as he encourages us to love each other.

If God lives in us, then the lively, very personal, edifying and uplifting relationship within the Trinity lives in us as well. This reality brings forward the teaching of Jesus and Saint Paul: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36 NRSV) and “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Can it really be that simple? Is sharing each other’s burdens how we obey the law of Christ? Yes! When Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment, he said their fulfillment of the commandment would be their witness to the world that Jesus was the Messiah. (See John 13:34-35)

Love is more than just putting up with one another. The love of God that is brought to full expression in us is lively, very personal, edifying and uplifting as we are merciful to each other, as we joyfully share each other’s burdens. It has been my experience that revealing the full expression of God’s love is the most difficult part of life for the followers of Jesus. When we try to love other people, instead of protecting our own self-interest, it cuts across the grain of every natural instinct within us. Maybe that’s why Paul kept urging his congregations to crucify their flesh.

My Takeaway: God has not given us an impossible assignment, because it is possible to do with training, what is impossible to do by trying. Take the first step and meditate on this passage for a week, or month, or maybe a year or so:

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. . .” (Philippians 2:3-5).

Sē’lah

My book on prayer,

First Think, Then Pray

is now available on Amazon Kindle.

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Friday, September 4, 2026

Thou Art with Me

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

September 4, 2026

Thou Art with Me

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

Psalm 23:4a (KJV)

Popular contemporary psalmist and song writer, Dennis Jernigan, sings the 23^rd Psalm. In his version, he uses the King James translation, and verse 4a is repeated poignantly;

thou art with me, thou art with me, thou art with me.

I first heard his rendition when I was going through a very difficult time in my life, and that one line of Holy Scripture from the song is embedded deep within my heart:

thou art with me.

There are other passages of scripture that have captivated me just as deeply. Psalm 46 has long been one of my go-to passages when I am called to pray for a person, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1 NRSV). Verse ten of this precious psalm calls God’s children to “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10a NRSV). Is that enough for you? Is it enough for you to know that God is with you in your troubling circumstance, without an expectation that your circumstances will change? Is it enough to know that even though your circumstances may not change, you will be comforted by God’s presence (thy rod and thy staff they comfort me)?

The Apostle Paul affirms that God is “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). Paul didn’t say God was going to rescue us from our crisis. He affirmed God is present in our crisis with us, and that God’s presence is comforting. Is that enough for you?

My Takeaway: I can’t explain how or why, but there have been times in my life, when all I had to cling to was, “thou art with me.” In those times, I found God’s presence, God’s comfort was enough. I have come to the place where I can say, ‘Yes and Amen” to Paul’s testimony: “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9 KJV).

Yes, and amen, God’s grace is sufficient for me!

Sē’lah

My book on prayer,

First Think, Then Pray

is now available on Amazon Kindle.

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Monday, September 14, 2026

Divine Restraint

Friday, September 11, 2026

Let It Be Done to You

Thursday, September 10, 2026

Eighty Percent Mortality Rate

Wednesday, September 9, 2026

Uncle John Had Never Gotten Over It

Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

Monday, September 7, 2026

The Trinity Lives in Us

Friday, September 4, 2026

Thou Art with Me

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