Monday Mullings

Is mullings a word? Whatever - these are the things I am "mulling" over this Monday. :)

Titus = awesome book of the Bible. This past weekend I had the privilege of attending a retreat at Lake of the Ozarks that was dedicated to going through the book of Titus. Wow - what refreshment, to spend a whole weekend just soaking up God's Word and the wisdom of other Christians!

We covered a lot of different topics this weekend, and I don't think I'm going to take the time to relate all of them to you here. :) However, I did want to share the points from one of the sermons that really was a wonderful reminder. The text was Titus 2:11-14:

¹¹For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. ¹²It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, ¹³while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, ¹⁴who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

The speaker talked about how grace has three roles in our lives:
1. Grace brings salvation. I felt like this was a pretty basic thing for us Christians - we are saved by grace, totally a work of God, not us. We're never going to be good enough - even after our salvation though, this is a good thing to remember. . . to be reminded of how we came to where we are now, and our standing with the Holy God that we serve.
2. Grace schools us - it teaches us to say no to ungodliness, and live our new lives. Now this is something I hadn't thought about before - the work of grace after salvation. But isn't the Holy Spirit the one who enables us to live that holy life? And the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is a major extension of the grace that we have received.
3. Grace "soothes" us. It reminds us of the hope that we have for eternal life. This hope isn't just one we can hold onto as a promise for the future, but something that affects the way we live our lives today!

And our response to this grace is seen in that last phrase - "eager to do what is good." Our gratefulness for His grace prompts our love for Him - and this love creates in us a desire to please God, and makes us eager to do good for Him. The message puts it as being "energetic in goodness."

The lake is beautiful. That's all.