Skip to main content

The Greatest Run-On Sentence Ever.

I read these verses from Titus today. How gifted Paul was at stringing ideas together. And how confusing at times!

Titus 3:4-7
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

What an amazing thought that God justifies us by His grace! I have grown a lot in Christ in recent months, and amazingly God's loving kindness becomes more awesome instead of less when I deepen my understanding of my Lord and Savior. What a thought that God showed mercy to all of us and poured out His Holy Spirit so that we might hope in eternal life!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

  “Where grace exists, it reigns.”   C. H. Spurgeon I’m scared of grace.   And this realization comes in the midst of a journey I’ve been on that has the fingerprints of God all over it.   If we were to gather 50 Christians in the same room and invite people to share adjectives that come to mind when trying to describe “grace,” I doubt “scary” would be anyone’s answer.   (It probably wouldn’t be mine either, in case anyone is thinking I’m exalting this term in some sort of holier-than-thou way.)   We’d hear things like amazing, undeserved, free, kind, love.   Of course, it’s inevitable that the crucifixion of Jesus is vocalized in some way.   Essentially, we’d have a huge list of very positive and affirming adjectives that rightly depict the wonderful activity and riches of God’s grace.   What if we asked a slightly different question?   How would we answer, “how does a person obtain grace?”   I’m guessing we’d start throwing out an...

A Convicting And Compelling Gospel

Which adjective in the title more closely aligns with your predisposed way of thinking about and speaking the gospel to yourself and others?   Are you more likely to present a gospel that is heavy on the convicting realities of sin, righteousness and judgment?   Or do you find yourself more readily appealing to the benefits of following Jesus?   If you think about it, neither adjective fully encapsulates the message of Jesus.   It’s right to compel people using the promises of God and the joy filled benefits of a life submitted to Jesus.   But it’s also right to warn of the consequences of rejecting Him.   Since we’re all naturally inclined to emphasize one, we need to allow the other to constrain us, to balance us from taking our natural disposition to the extreme, which may confuse the gospel and the Jesus we wish to present.   Let me attempt to illustrate one example of an unconstrained leaning toward each in turn.   A compelling gospel that is...

Walking Like Christ

If I could only choose one book of the Bible and vote it "Most Convicting" I just might choose 1 John. I have been studying 1 John for a couple of weeks now, and I'm almost half way through chapter 2! :) John's pattern so far has been alternating between statements of light and statements of darkness. So far, my study has caused me to pause several times and consider how my life "stacks up" when compared to John's clear and frank approach to the Christian life. This morning, 1 John 2:6 really stood out to me. It reads: whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked. How did Christ walk? As I reflected on the life of Jesus as told in the Gospels, a lot of events came to my mind. Often, I think Christians have a tendency to view Jesus as compassionate and gentle while forgetting the passion and aggression that He displayed at times. He made a whip and drove the vendors out of the temple. He spoke with adulterers, a...