Sunday, December 12, 2010

Good deeds are not for Salvation so why should we do them? Part 1

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.” Titus 2:11-15 (NASB)
Paul in this passage is talking to Titus. There are two things that we see here in these first couple of verses. First, God’s grace appeared bringing salvation to all men. Not just the Jews or the Gentiles but to ALL mankind. Second, God’s grace appeared instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age. God’s grace appeared instructing us, it appeared telling us what we need to do. Teaching us to DENY ungodliness and worldly desires. To deny, means to refuse to acknowledge. We are to not even acknowledge ungodliness and worldly desires. We are to have no part with them. We are to deny them access to our lives. We are to reject them. Paul then goes on to say that Gods’ grace appeared instructing us to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the past age? Or the future age? No, the present age! This means we cannot say I will deny ungodliness and worldly desires and live a sensible, righteous, godly life tomorrow or sometime in the future. We are to live a sensible, righteous, godly life NOW, in the present age. While living this life we are to be looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. Jesus came to this earth as a humble lowly servant that was when the grace of God appeared. Now we are looking for the appearing of the glory of Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is our great God and Savior! He gave Himself for us for two reasons. To redeem us from part of our lawless deeds or a few of our lawless deeds? No! He came to redeem us from EVERY lawless deed! He also came to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, ZEALOUS for good deeds. I love that word zealous. Zealous means passionate, fanatical, fervent, keen, and enthusiastic. Every time I read that word zealous it gets me excited. We are to be zealous for good deeds. We are to be passionate, enthusiastic about doing good deeds. It’s not sitting waiting for an opportunity to do a good deed to come around, but it is looking for opportunities to do a good deed so that Christ can shine through what you are doing. We should be zealous for good deeds so that Christ is shown through them. Not for your own glory but for Christ’s glory. This verse reminds me of one of my favorite verses. Matthew 5:16 says “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” What is our light? Christ is our light. John 1:4-5 “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” We are to let Christ shine in our lives, therefore when we are zealous for good deeds, people will see Christ in us and we will have more opportunities to share Him with others both with our mouths and with our actions. Being zealous for good deeds is a lifestyle as is all of this passage.
Brothers and sisters this is to be our lifestyle. We are to deny ungodliness and worldly desires right now. We are to live sensible, righteous, godly lives right now, not tomorrow. We are to be looking for the blessed hope and appearing of our God and Savior, Christ Jesus. We are to be looking for this one who redeemed us and purified us. We are to be Zealous for good deeds, so that we can show our God and Savior, Jesus Christ to this lost and dying world.
Paul tells Titus at the end of this chapter, “These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.”
*This has been posted but as I have gotten into this subject more and more I have decided to write more on this. So that is why it is called part 1. I am planning and hoping for a part two or at least another draft of this note including everything that I am finding. This subject has been something I have been learning about lately. I hope you all enjoy what the Lord has shown me.

2 comments:

  1. You are passionate, fanatical, fervent, keen, and enthusiastic, in other words zealous. Muy bien. I'm off from Dec. 20-28, Tenemos que ir proclamar el evangelio de Jesus Christo. Call me.

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  2. I added myself to follow your blog. You are more than welcome to visit mine and become a follower if you want to.

    God Bless You :-)

    ~Ron

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