My pastor posts a daily devotional thoughts most every day on the passages of scripture he is reading. I follow along by reading the same passage in the morning and some time later catching up with his thoughts. Today is the third and final day in Titus. I don’t know what aspects of the passage he is going to flesh out. Hopefully this will be complimentary to his blog post.
Living Godly in an Ungodly World
In a perfect world just knowing sound doctrine would be good enough to effect the way we live, but the truth of the matter is that we live in an ungodly world. It is difficult to put into practice the things that we know are right. We can find ourselves justifying wrong behavior. We justify cheating on our taxes because we disagree how the money will be spent. We talking bad about our boss because we find ourselves on his bad side. We justify not disciplining our kids because we have had a long day at work.
So then, how do we live Godly in an ungodly world?
We submit to the authorities that God has placed us under (Titus 3:1) – We are good citizens. We didn’t used to be (Titus 3:3). We don’t take offense at having leadership placed over us. We look for ways to serve those who lead us, sometimes even while we disagree.
When teaching on leadership one time I wanted to illustrate how leaders have to make decisions based on the best interest of the people they lead. Sometimes the majority vote is wrong. To make the point I let the kids decide where to eat. They said, “Chick-fil-a.” I said it wouldn’t work. They said, “KFC.” I said it wasn’t a good choice for the group. I kid you not they said, “Churches Chicken.” I finally said, “you need to make a decision that’s good for the group.” They asked, “What’s wrong with Chicken?” The answer was that one of them was allergic to chicken.
Sometimes we may think that those we are called to submit to just hate chicken, but I bet if we give them the benefit of the doubt we will find out that more often than not they are making wise decisions for the group. When we place the interest of others ahead of our own we are ready to hear that. Its while we are self absorbed that we most often rail against the Authorities in our lives.
We do good works (Titus 3:1, 8) – We shouldn’t be godly in our speach only, but in our actions as well. When God has blessed us we need to give of our time, effort, and money to help others along the way. Sometimes that is helping our brothers in Christ along the way. Sometimes that is going out of our way to help people meet Jesus.
We Avoid foolish controversies and toxic people (Titus 3:9) – Some people never get it. We are to lovingly reach out once or twice, but not give audience to those who are seeking a division. This may sound strange or out of character, but the truth is some people thrive of having people listen to what they are saying and so they invent controversy. The best way to deal with someone who is creating controversy for controversy sake is to reason with them once or twice and then deal with them like the little boy that cried wolf.
There isn’t profit in continually giving someone an audience who is bent on folly. You are only feeding the folly. The godly thing to do is cut them off so they will learn of their sin and quickly repent. The last thing you want to do is be seen in the middle of a church scandal while trying to invite your lost friends to meet Jesus.
Application: Living Godly in an ungodly world… What are you doing to submit to the authority in your life? How are you blessing the leadership in your life? What kinds of good works are you involved in or can you be involved in today? Who can you bless? Who do you need to avoid? What situations do you need to remove yourself from?
Which of the 3 is hardest for you?
What are your thoughts on Titus 3?
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Great insights!! Love that we are both journaling thoughts on the same text!
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