Do You Really Know About Grace?
Good Morning Friends,
In today’s scripture Paul is passing on what he had learned about what is necessary to build up the Christian Community. Paul gives us an understanding that badly formed spiritual leadership, leadership that does not reflect a God-filled life, can be very damaging. Paul describes in a unique and wonderful way to young Titus, what it is that opens doors and leads us into right actions… what leads us to the discovery of what is good. This undeserved sovereign favor teaches us about leadership…it teaches us that human leadership is secondary to that of God. Our God is the leader who heals and saves, corrects and blesses calls and judges. God provides the personal leadership that brings us good in our lives. We learn that perhaps the best leadership for us is a bit inconspicuous but also firm, filled with God’s strength selected in our actions. This is the leadership that Paul encourages and hopes to see developed in Titus and in us. So today we learn to say “no” so Christ can be the “yes” in us that encourages others in the hope of the salvation and of Christ living in us. Do You Really Know About Grace?
Scripture: For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
Titus 2:11-14 (NRSV)
And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.
1 Peter 5:10-11 (NRSV)
For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
2 Corinthians 8:9 (NRSV)
Message: Friends, the covenant of grace is the underlying message of creative, redemptive and sustaining love that serves as a unifying principle, connecting and uniting our thoughts and actions into a harmonious whole. This grace is like a winding stream it connects the many rivulets and streams of thought and unites them into one mighty river where history and revelation converge. This Grace brings us direction, discipline, instruction and hope. And make no mistake about it, the choices we make to accept God’s grace are the most important decisions we will ever make. So do not minimize their value because God makes it so freely available. Do not let your pride mask this amazing gift. Grace opens the door to enlightenment and the riches of the Kingdom of God. Don’t let anyone put you down, when Christ is in you. For grace is more than just unearned favor. Grace is that which God does for mankind through His Son, which mankind cannot earn, does not deserve, and will never merit. It is Jesus. Still grace is alien to most of us. It is scandalous. It is hard to accept, hard to believe and hard to receive. Grace as Jesus shocks us in what he offers and it frightens us with what it does for sinners. It boggles the mind to reconcile justice in this world with a, not of this world, grace in the Kingdom. We do so want to control our own fate and that of others as we work out our own salvation. But that is not the nature of the rewards of the kingdom. All who believe are welcomed at the table and those who suffered most for this I think would have it no other way for it is for the least, last and lost that grace shines brightest. Of course we want to earn it but that is not the nature of Grace. Grace is about mercy, not fairness. Grace is free but is not what we deserve. Take comfort for when it comes to grace it can show up anytime. Grace glorifies God because it reveals God’s person. That is the nature of Grace.
Pray we experience grace in do overs and in forgiveness received and offered. Pray realize that the grace of God brings salvation. Pray we realize that it is the grace of God that teaches us how to live. Pray we realize that it is the grace of God that has given us the hope of existence and meaning in our lives. Pray that grace becomes a means of experiencing greater love sometimes in agony and sometimes in joy birthed in our hearts as a creative, redemptive and sustaining act.
Pray we respond in faith to the promise of grace. Pray in the tension of the present with the future we understand the function of the value of a thinking beyond ourselves. Pray we realize that the riddle of our life is born out of our struggle in facing sin and evil. Pray that when we are attacked spiritually that we are doing the will of God. Pray we have a purpose and perspective. Pray we are assisted by the Holy Spirit in times of trouble. Pray the grace of our life is a testament to the triumph of God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 