Monday August 8, 2022
Grace To Live Right
Titus 2:11-14 – “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. It instructs us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives in the present age, as we await the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.”
We are saved by grace, not by works, as the Bible makes us understand, so no one can boast in their own righteousness. But this same grace that got us saved also ‘instructs us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives in the present age.’ Please stay away from concepts and teachings about grace that seek to grant you license to continue in sin. Your salvation was not an end, but rather a step in a process: ‘To redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds’ – is the reason Christ gave Himself for us.
God remains holy; he has not changed. Opening the door of Grace has not changed Him, and it is His divine agenda to raise offspring (us) with a nature and a disposition like His: holiness. His grace did not come to make it okay for us to live as sinners – just because ‘Jesus has taken care of it all.’ True, we are not saved by our works of righteousness in the first instance, but by grace. But you cannot continue in unrighteousness just because your salvation did not depend on your righteousness. The Scriptures are clear enough:
What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? By no means! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We therefore were buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be raised to life as He was. We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. (Rom 6:1,2)
No, we must not take the grace of God for license to continue in sin. Rather we must, as Hebrews 4:16 puts it, ‘approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.’ Today, may you receive mercy, and the grace to live right!