Adventist Review Podcasts

We come naturally by our self-absorption. From our earliest moments, we’re congratulated for taking first steps, trying new foods, mastering new skills, for learning how to navigate the myriad complexities of an ever-widening world. The story is, and has always been, about us—our goals, our striving, our gaining, our getting. But then one day the world refused to be our private oyster.  There was...

Grace isn’t fully knowable inside the monuments we’ve built. Our finest structures merely hint at what the Scriptures call the “breadth and length and height and depth” (Eph 3:18) of love the Father gives us. Cathedral arches just suggest the soaring kindness of our God. Our well-stocked libraries of knowledge—comprehensively collected; exquisitely curated—tell but a fraction of the story, deeper...

We dream of exploits that ensure our fame—of fortunes gained or mountains climbed or roles where we control the lives of other, lesser mortals. We gather things—disposables—to fill the hole made urgent by our angry greed. But we would gladly trade them all to be two modest, undramatic things at once: both deeply loved and finally forgiven. No accolades or billions earned will ever soothe a heart t...

It’s every parent’s greatest joy to see a child at play—freely, joyously at play. And children—of whatever age—only play when they understand they’re safe—deeply, seriously safe. We don’t play on battlefields, in lightning storms, or when we doubt we’ll ever see tomorrow. And so the God of Scripture frequently must wait until we’ve outlived our fears before we grasp the fullness of His affection....

HEALED ON THE WAY Learning grace is slow and hard the way recovery of any kind is usually slow and hard. When a bone is broken or a muscle torn, no supply of godly wishing can speed the pace at which the healing happens. This moment’s not for optics, not for show: nothing less than patient, cellular recovery can make us whole again. And so no project that contemplates the complete overhaul of our...

Ah, to be the wounded one—the one who gets to be the powerful forgiver.  We covet this rare role because we’re usually more sinning than we’re sinned against.  And when it comes our turn to show the grace once given us, we linger with the choice, as if it were a heavy thing to pardon what’s been done. We can’t, of course, refuse forgiveness outright:  Jesus tied our own forgiveness to the habit of...

“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...

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 van...

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...

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...

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 s...

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 gra...

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 t...

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 c...

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...

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 dea...

Left to ourselves, what we know of forgiveness would soon disappear. Left to ourselves, acts of mercy would soon drown in the ocean of self-centeredness. Left to ourselves, what light and warmth still shines in our communities would soon go dark. Why help a neighbor, when he is just one more competitor for dwindling resources? But the good news is that we are never left to ourselves. Into this dar...

A gospel song from long ago gathered the hope of millions into a yearning vision of peace:  “Someday, a bright new wave Will break upon the shore;  And there'll be no sickness No more sorrow, no more war; And little children Never will go hungry any more . . .” That bright new world hasn’t yet arrived. The headlines rage. The nations totter. Famished children in refugee camps wait for promised bre...

It never was a straight-line thing, this love we call the grace of God. It circles and surrounds, embraces and includes, until the throngs that praise God’s name are far too vast to count.  In grace, Jesus forgives me. With gratitude, I offer you forgiveness. Because you have been liberated, you pass that grace to one who has offended you. And he in turn, when I offend him, offers me forgiveness....

Those the world calls saints weren’t typically the brittle, stained-glass figures of our pious imagination. The reason their stories are still told is that they trusted God more fully, accepted His freely-offered love, and opened their lives profoundly to His grace.  Their story can be yours as well, for the Bible calls every believer in Christ a “saint.” The apostle Paul interceded for every man...

We can’t make ourselves more loveable to God by years of good behavior. And yet, because of grace, we seek to do what pleases Him. We can’t earn even half an hour in heaven by acts of sympathy or kindness. And yet, because of grace, we spend unnumbered hours caring for the least of all His little ones. Those shining moments when we sometimes rise to our potential don’t make us even one bit more be...

No one can grasp the grace of God unless God teaches him, embraces him, and holds him in an unexpected kindness. There’s no intellect so vast; there’s not a mystic so devout that he can plumb the depth of love by private contemplation. “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine” (Isa 55:8). Only the mind of God could Father-f...

The gospel is only as good as the God who asks us to believe it. If He’s the disappointed, vengeful deity we have pictured in our frightened imaginations, then we do well to hide, to stay away: why would we risk ourselves with Him? But if Christ is, as His Word says, the Lord whose love for us survives even our worst choices and most defiant behaviors, then we may crawl out from beneath the bed an...

A muscular young athlete, bench-pressing massive iron; stonemasons, deeply-focused, chiseling the capstone for a tall cathedral spire; a driven young executive, burning midnight oil as she assesses market data. What do these pictures have in common? All celebrate intense, prodigious effort, spent to take the doer to the top in sport, in craftsmanship, in business. Our world’s awash in images like...

It’s not called “practicing” for nothing. On some great future day, the liberating, life-affirming grace we each receive from Jesus will also be the grace we give as freely to those who wound us, irritate our peace, or call out for our love and care. Between the “now” and “then” there’s a lot of practicing to do—a daily repetition of kind words, forgiving acts, and chosen, holy silences. Like hour...