Seeking the Life in Christ

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Daydream Believer

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

August 6, 2026

Daydream Believer

Commit your way to the Lord;

trust in him and he will do this:

He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,

your vindication like the noonday sun.

Psalm 37:5-6

What are your daydreams? There is a three-pronged test to determine our ideals in life. First consider how you spend your time, especially that time we call free. Secondly, examine your check register; where do you spend your money? Lastly, what are the subjects of your daydreams? Combine your findings and you will have what are in fact your ideals, your priorities in life.

All three prongs in the test are important, but I am coming to believe our daydreams may be the most revealing about the driving force in our lives. While the daydreams may be on a somewhat subconscious level, they do heavily influence the choices we make, the words we speak and the actions we take. There is a direct link between the subjects of our daydreams and the insatiable need to be loved, to be accepted and to have a sense of self-worth, a belief that it matters that we are on planet earth.

When you look at the life of Jesus revealed in the Gospels, you see a life wholly committed to the Kingdom of God. What do you suppose Jesus daydreamed as he walked from Galilee to Jericho and on to Jerusalem? When he withdrew from his disciples for quiet time, where do you think his mind wandered? For sure, I know there must have been times when he would think back to his simpler, quieter times as a boy in Nazareth. However, for the most part, I think he dreamed of God’s Kingdom, of when God’s will is fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven.

My Takeaway: Jesus wants his fully-devoted followers to buy into his dream of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, let us “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Let our daydreams be influenced by “ whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8).

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.

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

The Healing Process

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

August 5, 2026

The Healing Process

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.

In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I am not afraid

Psalm 56:3-4 (NRSV)

Are you ever haunted by your past? Your past could be something that you did fifty years ago, or something you did yesterday! Every one of us, all of God’s children are dynamically unique. There has never been another person like you in the history of mankind, nor will there ever be. God has made you an original, one of a kind, a special person. Even identical twins have their own individual and unique qualities. When we are redeemed by God, we are not cloned. God created us as His one-of-a-kind children, and when we are redeemed, we retain our uniqueness. Because God “causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them,” even the events in our past that may trouble us contribute to our uniqueness and are included in God’s healing and redemptive process. Therefore, we can draw from the psalmist’s comforting words and determine to not be afraid as we submit our past to God. We can also rejoice in the Apostle Paul’s comforting words to Titus, “When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4-5)

You may find it helpful to God’s healing process for you to take a sheet of paper and list the parts of your past that still trouble you. Spend time experiencing the emotions that surround each troubling occurrence on your list. Open your Bible and read Psalm 56:3-4 and Titus 3:4-5 and allow the truth of God’s love, the tenderness of His embrace of you, to wash away the fear and sorrow associated with your past.

My Takeaway: Here is one more bit of encouragement before you engage in this healing process:

You keep track of all my sorrows.

You have collected all my tears in your bottle.

You have recorded each one in your book.

This I know: God is on my side!

For you have rescued me from death;

you have kept my feet from slipping.

So now I can walk in your presence, O God,

in your life-giving light.

Psalm 56: 8, 9b, 13

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, August 4, 2026

Expect To Be Blessed

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

August 4, 2026

Expect To Be Blessed

Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.

Romans 7:6b (NLT)

In his sermon, You Are Accepted, Paul Tillich describes that wonderful moment when we realize the truth that we are made right with God by grace, through faith in Jesus:

“… at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted. If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience, we may not be better than before, we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed." (Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, pages160-161)

Miles Stanford would call Tillich’s observation the moment when we taste the grace of God. Stanford then notes, “To taste the grace of God is one thing; to be established in it, and to manifest it in character, habit and regular life is another." (Miles Stanford, Principles of Spiritual Growth, Back to the Bible, Lincoln, NE, pages 12-13) Tasting the grace of God and being established in the grace of God are both resting on the same foundation: God’s acceptance of us through faith in Christ Jesus. First, last and always, our relationship with Abba has been made secure by Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension.

We never, ever, want to lose sight of our acceptance by God. There will be good days when our thoughts and actions are noble, when we have been sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and responded with joyful obedience. On those days, we may be tempted to think God got a pretty good deal when he got us. God would smile and agree. Yes, He believes He got a good deal when we came home to Him, but the basis of His thoughts toward us are grounded in His unconditional love and acceptance of us, not our good deeds.

There will be other days when we turn a blind eye to the ways of God, when we yield far too easily to the temptation to gossip, to anger, to self-indulgence. On those days, we may be tempted to think God will reject us, that He will punish us severely for our sins. In those times, we want to remember that the punishment for our sins has already been paid in full by Jesus. The magnificent truth of the Gospel is that God’s acceptance of us, because it is based solely on what Jesus has done for us, never falters or fades.

My Takeaway: This complete and everlasting acceptance by God shapes the attitude of the child of God living under grace. “Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit” (Romans 7:6 NLT). We refuse to make resolutions and vows because that is to trust in the flesh, not grace. We expect to be blessed because grace confers undeserved, unconditional blessing. (Principles of Spiritual Growth, pages 20-21) This is life in Christ. Why would we want any other?

(In Romans 7:6, Paul introduces in one simple statement, the heart of the Christian’s life. A very good study of this wonderful new life in Christ is in the book, The Pressure's Off: There's a New Way to Live by Dr. Larry Crabb.)

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, August 3, 2026

The Father of Mercies

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

August 3, 2026

The Father of Mercies

“Answer me when I call to you, my righteous God.”

Psalm 4:1a

The Bible is not the least bit concerned with proving the existence of God. The Bible was written because God is. The purpose of scripture is to reveal the character of God. The very essence of God’s character is God’s desire to be in a right relationship with His creation. In Psalm 4, King David reveals the quality of a right relationship with God. David begins by exhibiting great confidence in his relationship with God by calling out to God, “Answer me when I call to you, my righteous God. David was in a right relationship with God because God called and anointed David to be King over Israel. Do you know that you too can call out to God because you have a right relationship with God? Jesus, God’s Son, who was without sin, is in a right relationship with God the Father. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Because we have been made right with God through faith in Christ Jesus, we can rest in the sure knowledge that God is faithful and will fulfill all His promises. What does it mean that we can rest? Consider my paraphrase of John 10:27-30:

“Jesus, I am yours and I listen to your voice; because you know me, I willfully follow you. You give me eternal life, and I will never perish. No one can snatch me away from you, for God my Father has given me to you, and my Father is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch me from my Father’s hand. My Father and Jesus are one in their love and care for me.”

My Takeaway: Because of what Christ has done for me, I can join my voice with David and call out to God in confidence. Because I trust God, I can rest knowing God will never abandon me. This assurance empowers me to join my voice with St. Paul’s great doxology,” Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 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).

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, July 31, 2026

The Experience of Grace

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

July 31, 2026

The Experience of Grace

“Everyone who believes in (Jesus) is declared right with God—something the law of Moses could never do.”

Acts 13:39

There has always been a bit of a conundrum for the Christian in achieving a Godly balance between law and grace. For some, the appeal of grace made the law irrelevant. Saint Paul addressed this issue in his letter to the Romans: “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” (Romans 6:1-2 NRSV). Yet in the account of his preaching in Antioch, Paul said that through this man Jesus, there is forgiveness for your sins . . . something the law of Moses could never do. If the law cannot make us right with God, if the law cannot provide for the forgiveness of our sins, where does it fit into our life in Christ?

The story of the healing of General Naaman in 2 Kings 5 provides us some insight to this question. Naaman was the commander of the armies of the king of Aram. “But though Naaman was a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy” (2 Kings 5:1b). Naaman went to Israel and asked the prophet Elisha to heal him. Elisha instructed Naaman to wash himself in the Jordan River seven times. “And his skin became as healthy as the skin of a young child, and he was healed!” (2 Kings 5:14b). In response to his healing, Naaman pledged, “From now on I will never again offer burnt offerings or sacrifices to any other god except the Lord” Naaman then made this request to Elisha, “However, may the Lord pardon me in this one thing: When my master the king goes into the temple of the god Rimmon to worship there and leans on my arm, may the Lord pardon me when I bow, too” (2 Kings 5:17b-18).

My Takeaway: Naaman’s experience of God’s grace created a desire to worship only the Lord. At the time, he may not have been aware of Exodus 20:3, “You must not have any other god but me”, but his experience of grace intuitively gave him that knowledge. Thus, Naaman had an awareness of sin. His desire to be close to God led him to seek forgiveness when he sinned. I believe it is God’s hope that our experience of grace, our realization we are His pearl of great value, will create in us a desire for Him, and Him alone. And because we are prone to wander and leave the God we love, an awareness of our need to confess our sin.

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, July 30, 2026

His Word Burns in My Heart

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

July 30, 2026

His Word Burns in My Heart

“But if I say I’ll never mention the Lord or speak in his name, his word burns in my heart like a fire. It’s like a fire in my bones! I am worn out trying to hold it in! I can’t do it!”

Jeremiah 20:9

God’s first stirring of my call to preach was through this passage. These words of Jeremiah resonated deep within my soul. These words of Jeremiah have sustained me through forty-five years of ministry. They have also terrified me at times because after retiring from the pulpit, I feared the fire in my bones would consume me if I didn’t have an opportunity to proclaim the word of God. Having had a heart attack six months after leaving the pulpit intensified these feelings.

The fire still rages within me, but two understandings helped me make peace with the fire. The first is obvious: I get to proclaim God’s word through the publication of these meditations five days per week. Through email, and my BLOG, I am reaching more than twenty-five thousand souls each day.

The second understanding is in the popular axiom,

Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.

This saying is attributed to Francis of Assisi, although there is no record anywhere that he ever uttered these words. Nevertheless, they are still a rule or principle that we can accept as true. I’ve internalized this axiom by wrapping it in the words of Saint Paul:

“so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh”

(2 Corinthians 4:11b NRSV).

In God’s economy, the preacher boldly proclaiming the Gospel to thousands gathered in an assembly hall is not greater than the greeter opening the door of the church for you. Their welcoming smile and ‘Good Morning’ are as vital to building the Kingdom as the pastor’s hand offering you the bread and cup.

My Takeaway: Each day we get to be co-laborers with Christ, building for the Kingdom of God. Pray today that the Holy Spirit will give you the sensitivity to see all the opportunities He will bring across your path.

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, July 29, 2026

Lord, I Am Coming

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today

July 29, 2026

Lord, I Am Coming

“I’m asking God for one thing, only one thing: To live with him in his house my whole life long. I’ll contemplate his beauty; I’ll study at his feet.”

Psalm 27:4 (MSG)

Abiding continually in the presence of God was the passion of the psalmist David’s life. He expressed it here in Psalm 27:4 and in Psalm 23:6, “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.”

David models in Psalm 27 how we can make real in our lives the truth that

the experience of absence

does not mean the absence of experience.

In the first six verses, the psalmist speaks about God, and in verse seven he begins speaking to God. I think this shift is an excellent pattern for prayer. In the first portion of the psalm, David rehearses his personal convictions, his personal core values. Having thus established a firm foundation for his faith, he then makes his petitions to God. David was modeling what I discussed in my book, First Think, Then Pray. In this process of affirming the deepest convictions of his life, David makes a beautiful transition to communion with God: “My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming” (Psalm 27:8).

The Apostle Paul also modeled how his single-minded purpose in Christ sustained him through very difficult times. He told the Athenians, “In Christ we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28 NRSV), and he summarized his ministry in Corinth as, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

My Takeaway: I too have my own personal core faith values. I meditate on my core values in a time of contemplative prayer as I express my devotion to Christ. Like the psalmist David, I have heard God say, “Come and talk with me.” My heart leaps with joy as I respond, “Lord, I am coming.” This too can be your experience.

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, August 6, 2026

Daydream Believer

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

The Healing Process

Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Expect To Be Blessed

Monday, August 3, 2026

The Father of Mercies

Friday, July 31, 2026

The Experience of Grace

Thursday, July 30, 2026

His Word Burns in My Heart

Wednesday, July 29, 2026

Lord, I Am Coming

Seeking the Life in Christ

About Me

Blog Archive

Followers

First Think - Then Pray

Books I Am Reading

Recent Books I Have Enjoyed