Fighting Battles

             For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, (Titus 2:11-12)

Sometimes, we look at grace as our “Get out of Jail Free” card. When we do something bad, God doesn’t punish us as badly as our treason deserves. He forgives and even causes it to work together for our good (Romans 8:28). I have likened grace to Jesus taking the baton from me and finishing the race I could not finish myself. There is something to these ideas as far as they go, but today’s passage makes it clear that grace isn’t passive. It doesn’t do to us or for us without our having to respond in any way other than acceptance.

After it produces salvation, grace’s function is to teach us to say “no” to the things that made the salvation necessary. It is meant to teach us to say no to what is evil, and live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the world in which we find ourselves.

There are two spheres in which this grace works. The first is in the visible. We learn to say “no” to the world. This may mean something like, “I don’t drink, smoke, dance, or chew, and don’t date those who do.” The world tends to point to this as hypocrisy and self-righteousness, and it can be correct in that evaluation, but there is value in becoming a person who doesn’t do those things. It may not be hypocrisy, if it is just part of the package – though we should not limit ourselves to giving up only smoking, drinking, dancing, chewing, or dating people who do.

In addition to those external negatives, there are also internal negatives grace is designed to teach us to avoid: anger, fear, greed, lust, hatred, laziness, etc. But grace is not only meant to teach us to say “no.” If we do nothing more than say “no,” we’re like the person out of whom a demon was cast pit. When the demon decided to return with reinforcements, they found the “house” swept clean – in “move-in condition.”

In addition to saying “no” to ungodly lives, we need to say “yes” to self-control, uprightness, and godliness, both external and internal. We must replace the evil with the good. And here’s the problem. At the beginning of the year, or whenever we make the decision to do this, we’re likely to pick one evil: smoking, drinking, dancing, chewing or dating those who do, or hatred, fear, or anger. That’s our target for the year. We might even decide what we’re going to replace it with: prayer, Bible reading, serving in a soup kitchen, etc. We may make progress with those choices. We could, for example, get sober. That’s a good thing.

But what happens on the day that while we’re not tempted to drink so we are winning the battle but we lose our temper or decide not to donate money to a cause we claim to support? There is benefit to fighting a specific battle, but more benefit, perhaps, in learning to use grace or the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-19) in the general fighting of battles.

Don’t get caught by the false dichotomy. It’s not “either we fight specific battles or we learn battle  tactics.” Both are necessary, but the latter strengthens for former. It’s a cycle.