Grace of God in Christ

3 March                                                                                                            Grace of God in Christ

Read Titus 2:1-15 and reflect on the passage.

Titus 2:11 is the kind of sentence that starts revolutions. It was spoken into the world by Paul, whose life and mission was centered on this core truth; God is on the move bringing grace, forgiveness and life to all people. It can be hard for us to understand how much that insight has transformed the world. In the ancient political and religious environment that obsessed with gender, class, nationality, ethnicity, tribal identity and religion, Paul preached to all people—confident that the work of Christ had opened wide heaven’s gates. Through Christ, grace came rushing out of heaven like a river over-spilling its banks.

In the Kingdom of God, gentiles dined with Jews. Slaves and slave masters bowed together in prayer. Privileged Romans knelt beside the people they had conquered. All of it was possible because the grace of God offered salvation to all people. Today, God still moves to all people. God moves in neighborhoods we don’t drive through and in countries whose names we don’t know.

We have the opportunity still, which Paul had first, to be champions of this indiscriminate grace—calling any and all to know the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Questions

1. Is there anything in your identity or past that makes it hard to believe that God can freely offer you grace?

2. Is there any person or group you have a hard time believing God can save? How might Titus 2:11 change your view of them?

Prayer

God of radical grace, help me to know and experience Your forgiveness, and help me be a conduit of Your grace.

—Aaron Thompson