Titus 2.11-14 11 For the grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and
worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the
present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our
great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from
all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who
are zealous for good works. (ESV)
How does one comment or blog about something as wonderful
as this? We try so hard to be good and impress the Lord with our goodness and
efforts but it seems He says: children
why do you work so hard to impress Me – I love you! And He does, He loves
us. End of blog.
Beginning of Commentary: But if we’re looking for some
cure, some medication, some relief, some salvation, something to do, somewhere
to go; we’re to look no further than His grace, for there we find the answer to
everything in our lives that causes us to want to do better despite the fact,
we can’t.
Enter Grace. It trains
us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passion, and to live self-controlled,
upright, and godly lives in this present age. We need to be trained and we need
to be trained over and over until we finally pass on to our eternity with Him.
Why? Because the magnitude of our fall was so great that we need something
greater to enable us to live and cooperate with the King of Creation. He calls
it His grace, His favor. He favors
us; we’re His favorites.
But we don’t necessarily see it that way. Part of who we
are demands we amount to something so we can boast to God how good we are. We
feel we need to show and tell God that we are worth something and He ought to
be impressed. It doesn’t work that way. His grace is a free gift with no
strings attached. There is no score card; there is no grade; there is no trophy
ceremony for the good-est and the best-est.
And that is the humbling part of grace. We have to humble
ourselves to receive it and we have to humble ourselves to come to terms with:
it is all Him and none of us. Oh so hard, yet oh so freeing. We saints need to
be trained and retrained to accept it’s all Him and none of us.
So then what!? Are we left to float around in a sea of
favor and try to accept its flavor? Well, sort of – we’re to live life free
from the burden of performance and in the freedom of love. I need grace. You
need grace. And that person over there needs grace. But grace is only good for
the one who wants to say no to the pull of ungodliness and worldly passions.
And to say no, one has to be trained
to say it.
For those who’ve had children, one of the biggest things
we desired for our children early on was that they learn (or be trained, if you
will) to quit pooping in their diapers and learn to use the toilet. How freeing
that is for parent and child. (Questionable analogy but effective, no?)
Saint, friend, are we tired of poopy diapers? Have we
tried grace and found it wanting? Have we allowed the favor of God to train us
to say no to what is hurtful or unimportant so that we can focus on living
self-controlled, upright, and godly lives as we await the blesses arrival of
our Lord? Life a mess? Christianity confusing? Scorecard looking bleak? Got
Grace?
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