Grace Still

          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. (Titus 2:11-14)

          This passage isn’t one of my favorite verses. Two of the verses happened to be the featured citation on BibleGateway.com and they’re food for thought. Normally, I think of grace in terms of unmerited favor or of Jesus picking up the baton and crossing the finish line when I lack the power.

          That’s not what Paul talks about in today’s passage. Here, grace is an instructor. He describes the Law in the same way in Romans. The purpose of both grace and the Law is to teach us three things:

1) to turn from the bad

2) to turn toward the good, and

3) to look for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

          There’s a sense in which my thoughts respond, “Well, yeah, of course.” There’s also a sense in which my thoughts respond, “Huh?” The disconnect for me centers on the word “instructing.” I don’t know if it’s the rebel in me that says, “I don’t need no instruction!” or a misunderstanding of grace. I’d like to think it’s the latter.

          If it is the latter, it’s another example of something I’ve shared earlier. God’s will is (or at least can be) multi-faceted. Yes, His grace makes up for our failures, but His grace also trains us. The piece of the racing illustration that I didn’t think to mention came to mind first when I was jogging. As I reached a stretch that was hard and I wanted to stop, Jesus came along in my imagination. Sometimes, He’d jog. There were times He swam a backstroke – but the whole time, He was encouraging me to keep going. The humor of it helped break the mental stress, but was that encouragement grace?

          Apparently, yes. Sometimes, He picks up the baton. Sometimes, He pokes us in the ribs with it. If need be, perhaps He’d even beat us with it. And it would be grace still.