Ponder of the Week
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Suggested Scripture to Ponder this week
4/6-12/25
Titus 3:3-7
* Read and reread the scripture (and the surrounding scripture) each day.
* Ask God to show you His truth through His Word.
* Think about the scripture as you go about your day.
* Keep a record of your spiritual growth and understanding.
For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, Whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Titus 3:3-7 (NKJV)
Commentary:
Christians should strive to live holy lives. Why? Christ saved me by His mercy, not because of anything I did or could do. I am justified by His grace. Grace is favor. I am saved because Jesus did me a favor, a monumental, indescribable act of kindness and mercy.
Though my actions did not and cannot save me, I owe a debt of gratitude I cannot ever hope to repay. Obeying and honoring Him is the very least I can do. But living for Him, seeking to be righteous and holy, is not just about servitude. Grudging obedience out of a sense of guilt or obligation is not pleasing to God. It wouldn’t even be pleasing to man.
I also have an obligation to live a righteous life as a witness to the lost. My life should reflect Christ. However, if I live my life just to make the proper impression on others, however sacrificial that may seem, it will eventually be revealed as a prideful fake. This is the kind of forced “holiness” that the world loves to hold up as “proof“ that Christians are hypocrites (I Corinthians 13:1-3).
Some would say therefore that living a holy life is not possible, and not even desirable. But the real reason to strive for holiness is because Jesus, in his mercy, saved me “through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (v. 5). I am a new creature. I am reborn. I am regenerated through Christ. In my old life I indulged in worldly pleasures and sin, but I am no longer that person. My spirit is no longer of this world, though my flesh is. My spirit longs to commune with God, but my flesh clings to fleshly sin. I must discipline my flesh to turn from sin to Godliness.
The world sees discipline as restraint and the opposite of freedom. But it is actually the path to a higher freedom. I am no longer the slave of sin. I am set free! The world cannot comprehend that this is the way to ultimate peace and joy, the very goals the world seeks in ever more frenzied lust and pleasure. As I seek righteousness and Godliness and a holy life, I am unfolding, like a blooming flower, the real me, the saved me, the new me. It is a path to the peace that passes all understanding, and a heavenly inner joy that transcends the world’s definition of happiness, like comparing the sun to a dying ember.