Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Are you longing for some solid truth, firm as a rock, that you can trust, that's also good news? Here it is in Titus 2:11-14:
It's truth taught by the "grace of God that brings salvation ... to all men" (vs. 11). It's not a fear motivation. The "grace" is that "much more abounding" kind that's greater than all our sin (Rom. 5:20). And it's given, not merely offered, to "all men." It overwhelms you when you think about it. "Every man" does one of two things: he either receives it or he rejects it.
That grace (not fear!) teaches us to "say No!" to every temptation to sin that Satan can fling at us (Titus 2:11, NIV). That's where our problems are--"worldly lusts." We don't naturally know how to do it, but that "grace" teaches us to "live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present age" right where we are (vs. 12). The worst sinner learns under that tutelage. It's being in school with Christ as the Teacher. (That's a great privilege!)
We cherish "the blessed hope" of seeing Him come again--we believe His literal second coming is that soon! (vs. 13). That otherwise impossibility is accomplished by comprehending how He "gave Himself for us" (vs. 14). It's looking, beholding, grasping, absorbing, the four grand dimensions of a love (agape) that passes knowledge (Eph. 3:16-19). When you gaze at His cross, the lethal bites of the "serpent" are healed (John 3:14, 15).
Why did He "give Himself for us"? To save us "in sin"? No, to save us from it (Titus 2:14). You see yourself as the believing thief crucified with Him. Self dies with Him. You share His cross, by living faith.
What He's doing is to "purify for Himself" 144,000 people in a time when the Enemy says it's impossible to happen (vs. 14 again; see also Rev. 7:1-4; 14:1-5). Whether that's a literal or symbolic number is not the point. What you must believe is that the Savior loves you so much that He invites you to be among them, to "overcome ... as I also overcame" (Rev. 3:21). He wouldn't invite you if it were not possible.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: October 3, 2012.
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