Grace and Titus 3

So tonight Mike and Will led Bible study.  They decided it'd be sweet for us to study Titus 3...and I must say, it was an excellent choice.  I hadn't read Titus probably in a year or so...and I should have:

 

Titus 3:4-7.....

⁴But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, ⁵he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, ⁶whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

 

Sometime I forget that Christ came only out of kindness and love.  He didn't come because of anything I had done, not because I have earned it in any way at all, but out of His kindness and love towards me, an undeserving wreck.  And He saved me, thoroughly and completely, not by my actions or words or thought, not because of ANYTHING I have done at all, but solely because of His mercy.  It is through and by His mercy and His mercy alone that it is even possible to have hope of eternal life.  He saved me...I didn't save myself.  Christianity leaves no room for co-redemption.  He saved me, because of His kindness and love and by His mercy.  He saved me, through the washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit poured generously upon me.  He has showerd me with love and grace despite my inability to do anything right at all.  I have been justified by His grace and His grace alone.  Not by His grace AND my effot, but by His grace alone.  His grace, unearned, is poured out generously on me, His faithless servant.  I have become an heir to the promise, an adopted Son of God through His mercy so that I may have hope of eternal life.

 

In His love He has saved me.

By His mercy I have life.

Through His cleansing I have life.

And by His grace I have hope.

 

Only because of Him.  There is nothing I could ever hope to do to achieve these blessings on my own.  Without His grace I have no right to have any part at all in His promise. 

 

"Grace, which asks not a word about what we are, what we have, and what we bring along with us; grace which leaves us no other hope than in that which is undeserved, God's free grace accepts us as men, just as God's Word has accepted flesh, our flesh."     ~Karl Barth

 

Grace and peace,

Mike

John 1:5

 

Oh, also, I found this article interesting:  http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/003/21.36.html