Wednesday Reading: Titus 3:1-7
Key Verse: Titus 3:3
3 For we ourselves also were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, slaving for various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.
Devotion:
One sure thing that you will notice when you have God in your life is that you are more willing to think good of others or to think good towards them. But just thinking about it is not going to get you very far; you have to be able to do good as well. Thinking good about someone is not going to show them that you do, you will have to do good to show them that you mean well! It’s not good turning your back on some that do not do what you think they should either – just think back in your life and see how many times you have done the wrong thing in the past... Our lives were filled with breaking rules and they may well still be; but with Christ on our side and Him in our lives, we have the propensity to do good... but we still have to do it...
Jesus showed us His love through what He did on the cross. He showed us His mercy by raising Himself up from the grave so that we would also be able to follow Him. That love and mercy stands firm throughout our lives. With that example in our minds we need to go out to others and show them love and mercy too. We may not like the fact that we should show mercy to those that wrong us, but think more about what Christ has done for every human on this planet! If He is able to show mercy to the vilest of sinners (in our minds) then we should be able to show mercy to others too. Yes, it is hard.
It was nothing that we did, nor anything that we possessed that gave Christ the idea that He should show love and mercy towards us. We just simply are not that good! He did it because of His love towards us even when we were doing wrong. He wants us to go by that example and to be able to put aside our own feelings when the time comes to show mercy to others so that they will get an idea of how merciful Christ is. Only then will we see others want to come and find out more about Christ... t is through His grace alone that we have eternal life...
Points to Ponder:
Do you like it when others extend mercy to you?
Do you know how much mercy God has already shown you?
