According to His Mercy

Titus 3:1-5

3 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,

² To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men.

³ For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.

⁴ But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,

⁵ Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

I see here an area where I am seeing Christians falter on a regular basis, including myself.  We put down and demean the president and vice president, the congress and Senate with jokes and harsh words instead of paying for them on a regular basis.  We think we know better, that we can do a better job, that they are all wrong and corrupt.  We pass on jokes and cartoons and meme’s that make fun of our government and its leaders, those leaders that God has put in place, and we think nothing of it.  Maybe you don’t do this, but I find myself doing this way too often.

This verse brings to mind 2 Chronicles 7:14 to me.  We are all familiar with this verse but so few times do we follow it.  We want God to heal our land but we do not do what God has asked in order for this to happen.  The first thing we must do, before we pray, before we seek His face, before return from our wicked ways, is to humble ourselves.  I love to bake, and I know that it important when baking to add ingredients in the order they appear in the recipe.  There is a reason we mix things the right way – it makes the product come out correctly.  If I leave out an ingredient, the recipe will fail.  Imagine leaving out the sugar in sugar cookies, or the oatmeal in oatmeal raisin cookies, or the eggs in a cake.  The outcome will not be as I desire.  This verse needs to be handled the same way.  Humbling ourselves has to come first, yet we walk in our pride thinking Christians who don’t witness, or who are drunkards, or who curse on a regular basis, or who are only Sunday morning Christians are just pretty, dressed up sinners.  But we don’t realize that in putting down our government authorities and by disobeying them., we are sinning just the same as the worst sinner.

If we want our country to return to God, humility is the only thing that will lead the way.  Humbling ourselves means to fall under the obedience of scripture, not our own thoughts and our own wisdom.  Humbling ourselves means to pray for our governmental leaders even though we don’t agree with their ways.  Humbling ourselves means to not pass on those silly cartoons that circulate through email, or to not speak evil of others around us.  Humbling ourselves means to be gentle to mall, and to allow meekness to lead the way. My definition of meekness is that we always know where the power lies – it lies in God.  Not in my words or strength or ability, but in God.  I conduct myself with all the gentleness, goodness and humility I can muster and allow God to do His thing.  That is meekness. 

We should follow this because we have not always been perfect.  I certainly have not been.  I have broken every single commandment at one time or another.  I was so far away from God, and continue to drift from His side on a regular basis.  I am often ashamed at where my own pride and disobedience takes me, so I turn from my wicked ways and come back to Him.  Then I falter again. 1 John tells us that if we say we don’t sin, we are living a lie.  God has to be merciful to me on a regular basis or I will end up in the lake of fire with the devil himself.  I have been in places that would disgust you, yet God has mercy on me.   I have done things that even disgust me!  In the last month I have done these things.  I have walked down roads that certainly weren’t meant for me.  My pride takes me where I should not go, and yet God still loves me.  He waits outside the house, looking down the road, waiting for me to return to Him with humility.  When I do, His mercy drowns out my sin and restores me to my place in His Kingdom. It’s not my works that get me there, but according to His mercy.  If He has that much mercy on me, don’t you think He expects me to have that same mercy on others? I thank God for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  I thank God for my Senators and my congressmen and women.  I thank God for my governor and state officials, my county leaders and my city administration.  I ask God to bless them and fill them with His Holy Spirit so that they might use godly wisdom to lead this nation, my state, and my community.  I pray that God’s mercy will become evident to them and they will repent of any evil way and bring our country back to His side.  I know that it is not by might, and not by power, but by His Spirit that this country will return to God.  I can only affect the outcome of this country through humility and grace.  May I always display those two things in my discussion of our country and its direction.  God has the power to change the course of a nation, I do not.  God is able to do this.  Do you believe that?  I do.  May my prayers, actions and speech always reflect my trust in God, not in my distrust of man.  May I always act according to His mercy, not my own pride. And may we all come to our knees in humility knowing that we are not perfect, but a perfect God still hears our prayers and responds.  What a wonderful God He is!

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