Justified by Grace

 

Titus 3:5-7 

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;

⁶ Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;

⁷ That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

To get where we are going today, we have to revisit the last verse we discussed yesterday.  This key verse is another example of Paul’s true belief that there is nothing we can do that saves us, but only by His mercy can we come to a place of true fellowship with God.  There are a lot of pretenders out there.  There are still hundreds, and probably thousands, of preachers who subvert the gospel by tying works to salvation.  They say you must tithe to be saved, you must be baptized to be saved, you must do good works to be saved, etc., etc., etc.  While all of these things are good and all should be the result of our walk with God, none of them bring us salvation.  None of them bring that regeneration into our lives that make us a new creation.  It is only by His blood, shed on the cross, combined with our faith, which was given to us by grace (Eph 2:8-9), that we are saved.  We must ask for it.  That is our only duty.  We must ask forgiveness, turn from our sin, and allow His Holy Spirit to take control.  This is not an act of our flesh, but of our inner man crying out for His love, which was so gloriously displayed on that cross.  We must choose eternal life or face eternal death. 

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Once we have been saved, works of righteousness should follow.  Perhaps not right away but soon thereafter.  Paul says we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12-13).  I have always maintained that after the inner salvation that comes from accepting His sacrifice on the cross as a substitute for my sin, this inner salvation must work it’s way out to my flesh.  I may not stop drinking, or smoking, or being gay, or cursing, or lusting right away.  But over time the good works of righteousness will become stronger in the than these works of the flesh.  Good works should be the result of my salivation, and this salvation slowly envelopes my flesh as I begin to learn of His word and His ways, as His light is shed on my path.  And all of us who are mature in the faith must be careful not to push these young ones too quickly.  We can offend them easily, and Jesus told us that if we offend these little ones, it would be better if we had a millstone tied around our necks and we were thrown into the sea (Matthew 18:6).  Our job is to encourage them toward good works, but not judge them as they slowly grow.  In time, as they take more delight in the Lord, the desires of their heart will change (Psalm 37:4).

Each one of us knows the struggle of overcoming this flesh.  Our flesh wants to keep us in our sin and former state.  It does not want to let go of control over our lives. The desires of our heart will always go toward the flesh if we are not engaging with God on a regular basis through reading reh word, worship and prayer.  In other words, we must put Him first.  He must have a central place in our daily routine or we will be much more likely to follow after the flesh.  I know this all too well.  I want to do all that I can to avoid this trap of the flesh in the future.  I must pray, I must worship and I must be in his word to stay out of my fleshly ways.  I cannot defeat the enemy of my life if I have not allowed Jesus to defeat the enemy within.  I also need encouragement from my fellow believers.  This comes through fellowship, especially in a local church.  Hebrews 10:26 tells us we should no forsake assembling together, The reason we should not forsake this is that we need other to keep us on the right path.  There is a lot of deception in the world and in the church today and this fellowship we have will keep us on the straight and narrow way.  I pray that each of you are involved in a local body of believers.

The cross justifies us.  That word justifies means just as if I had never sinned.  Because of His sacrifice, we can stand before God and not face a guilty sentence, He is our mediator (1 Tim 2:5).  He is the one who relates to God that we are free from sin because we have believed in Him.  There is no other way that we can be justified but by His grace.  A great acronym for grace is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.  The richness of Hs salvation of His justification, of His purification, of His regeneration only comes because he shows us grace.  He gives these things to us freely because we love His Son, His only Son.  And when we have made this decision to love the Son, we become heirs to the promises that are contained in the Bible   I am not even going to try and tell you all these promises, but there are literally thousands of them just waiting for the one who will say yes to Jesus.  These promises cover every area of our life, from mental to physical to financial to spiritual.  He has a promise just waiting for you to some and ask. They are all in His word, waiting for you to find them.  Have you found the promise you need today?  Have you gone to God and asked Him to keep His promise, and asked with all faith and belief that He will keep that promise?  We are His children. We are heirs to these precious words that were written thousands of years ago.   May each one of us live daily in this grace that is so freely given to us.

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