Monday, July 28, 2008

To be Zealous......

Today we get to finish off the rest of Titus 2.

11For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

15Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Paul had just given us a list of how we are supposed to be.

Now it seems he tells us why we are supposed to be like that. "for the grace of God has appeared, bring salvation for all people". Neat huh? God's grace showed up. God's grace brought salvation for us. God's grace lest anyone not know who that is, is Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul just finished enumerating who all those people are young and old, male and free, no distinctions about Jew or gentile. Servants, slaves etc. all are included. Credit Matthew Henry for making sure I was aware of that. :)

And what happened when this grace of God appeared?
We found ourselves being trained to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.
We found ourselves being trained to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives.
We remain waiting for his return, when the glory of God will return. Christ gave himself for us. He came to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify a people for himself.

And we are to be zealous to do good works. hmm....think on that for a spell. Are you as a believer, am I as a believer zealous to do good works. To be zealous is to be full of enthusiasm or eagerness; passionate; excited. I have to admit, I'm not always like this when it comes to doing good works. I do them because they have to be done...and sometimes have that attitude. But God wants our attitude to be one of eagerness, one of excitement. That brings to mind thoughts of the eagerness of a child to eat ice cream in the park. :) How much fun it would be, how much joy it would bring. This is the attitude we are to have. God is raising us up to be like that, Christ is purifying for himself a people with this kind of attitude.

Let me then, Let us then, cultivate it. Let us be a people eager to do good works.

Paul closes this chapter with an exhortation to Titus to declare all these truths to the people, to continue to exhort and rebuke with authority. To not let himself be ignored. To be a man of God leading his people. Hmm.....kinda like Paul is urging Titus to remain zealous in his position of pastor to the Cretan church. :)

No comments: