THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? (Matt. 3:7) Why does John call them a brood of vipers? They were called a brood of vipers because many of them were poisoning the people with their teaching (their bit). If someone accepted their teaching they would be poisoned and die spiritually. These Pharisees and Sadducees were inflicting deadly bits on the people. So too there are those in the church that have the same effect on the people of God with their teaching, being deceived themselves. Because of a misunderstanding of the meaning of ‘grace’ and ‘justification by faith’ these well-meaning brothers and sisters are causing great harm to the church. They teach that because of ‘grace’ (which they define as unmerited favor), regardless of our behavior, we are still acceptable to God. Is this how the Bible defines ‘grace?’ Let us look and see. 11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, 12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, 14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. (Titus 2:11-14) Here we see that the purpose of grace is primarily to bring about a change of behavior! It is meant to bring about a change of behavior on our part and not merely to bring about a change in how God views us. Without a change of behavior there is no favor with God. According to Titus grace is that which enables us to change our behavior. It brings about deliverance, preservation and safety (according to Strong’s concordance). The purpose of grace is to bring about deliverance from bad behavior which in turn brings about salvation and rescuing from our sins which in turn brings about our preservation and safety. Thus we can see why Titus defines grace the way he does, saying that grace is for the purpose of “instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age…” and “to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” (Titus 2:12, 14) Let us re-evaluate what we have accepted as truth and seek to be Biblical in our understanding and move forward in God’s purposes. Let us receive the grace of God for its intended purpose, so that we would deny ungodliness and worldly desires and live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age and be redeemed [loosed] from every lawless deed so that God would have for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. He deserves no less from us.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 19:16:33 +0000