The Grace of God Trains Us for Godly Living

I love talking about grace when we’re talking about salvation.

Grace means I didn’t earn it.

I didn’t deserve it.

Jesus paid the price I couldn’t pay, and God offered me a gift I could never purchase for myself.

Amazing grace, indeed.

But then Paul goes and makes grace a little uncomfortable.

Because according to Titus 2, grace doesn’t simply save us and leave us exactly where it found us.

Grace trains us.

It teaches us to say no.

No to ungodliness.

No to worldly passions.

No to some of the very things our old selves might have happily said yes to.

And suddenly grace isn’t only the beautiful gift that rescued me.

It’s also the loving hand of God teaching me how someone who belongs to Him should live.

Today’s Saving Grace of God

Titus 2:11–14 (ESV)

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

Setting the Scene

Paul wrote this letter to Titus, a trusted fellow worker he had left on the island of Crete to help establish and strengthen the churches there.

And Crete wasn’t exactly an easy environment for Christian living.

Earlier in the letter, Paul describes serious problems among the people and warns Titus about false teachers whose lives contradicted what they claimed to believe. Against that backdrop, Paul gives instructions for how believers should live differently.

Then he tells us why.

Grace.

“For the grace of God has appeared…”

God’s grace had been revealed through Jesus Christ, bringing the offer of salvation. But Paul doesn’t separate salvation from the life that follows it.

The grace that rescues us also begins teaching us.

Jesus didn’t give Himself merely to forgive us while leaving us comfortably attached to everything He died to free us from.

Paul says Christ gave Himself:

“to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession.”

We are saved by grace.

And because we have been saved, grace begins changing the way we live.

Reflection

I’ll admit, I prefer the parts of grace that make me feel warm and fuzzy.

You’ve been forgiven.

Yes, please.

You are loved.

Absolutely.

Your salvation isn’t something you earned.

Hallelujah and amen.

Then Paul says:

Now say no.

Well.

That’s where things get a little more personal.

Because following Jesus eventually requires me to look honestly at parts of my life that don’t belong there anymore.

Some things are easy to recognize.

Others are much harder because I’ve excused them, justified them, gotten comfortable with them, or simply decided they’re not that bad.

But grace loves me too much to leave me unchanged.

That’s something I didn’t always understand.

There was a time when I thought Christianity was mostly about accepting Jesus, being forgiven, and knowing where I would spend eternity.

And those things are wonderfully true.

But salvation also gave me a new life to live here.

Paul says grace trains us “to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.”

Renounce is not a particularly cozy word.

It means there are things we have to turn away from.

Sometimes repeatedly.

There are attitudes God will confront.

Habits He will expose.

Desires we will have to surrender.

Choices we once made without thinking that suddenly bother our conscience because the Holy Spirit is changing what we want.

And yes, sometimes obedience is hard.

Sometimes we know exactly what God says and still don’t particularly want to do it.

I’ve lived enough of my life outside God’s will to know that one personally.

But here’s what keeps this from becoming another exhausting list of Christian rules:

Grace is doing the training.

We aren’t obeying so God will finally decide we’re worthy of saving.

We’re learning obedience because He already saved us.

That’s a completely different relationship.

And we’re not training for nothing.

Paul says we’re waiting for our “blessed hope”—the return of Jesus Christ.

There is something ahead of us.

The Savior who came once to redeem us is coming again.

Until then, we belong to Him.

Paul calls us:

“a people for his own possession.”

I love that.

I am His.

And because I am His, I want my life to look increasingly like it belongs to Him.

Not perfectly.

Not instantly.

And definitely not without occasionally learning the same lesson more than once.

But little by little, grace keeps teaching.

Sometimes grace comforts me.

Sometimes grace forgives me.

Sometimes grace picks me up after I’ve fallen flat on my face.

And sometimes…

grace tells me no.

Thank God it does.

Short Prayer

Father, thank You for grace that loved me enough to save me and loves me enough not to leave me unchanged.

I confess that sometimes I want Your forgiveness without Your correction. I want Your promises without the surrender. I want to follow Jesus while still holding onto things You are asking me to release.

Teach me to recognize Your correction as another expression of Your love.

When You tell me no, give me the courage to listen. When You reveal something in my life that doesn’t honor You, help me surrender it instead of defending it. And when I fail, remind me to come back to You rather than run away in shame.

Jesus, thank You for giving Yourself to redeem me and make me Your own.

While I wait for the day You return, teach me to live like someone who belongs to You.

In Jesus’ precious name, I pray. Amen.

Reflection Question

Is there something in my life that God’s grace has been teaching me to say no to—and have I been listening, or have I been making excuses to keep it?

Closing Encouragement

Grace will meet you exactly where you are.

But don’t mistake that for God’s desire to leave you there.

The Jesus who gave Himself to save you is also at work changing you.

Sometimes that change will feel beautiful.

Sometimes it will require surrender.

Sometimes God will put His finger directly on something you’d really rather keep.

That’s grace too.

We aren’t becoming godly so God will love us.

We pursue godliness because He already does.

We belong to Him.

And until the day our blessed hope becomes sight and Jesus returns, His grace will keep doing what Paul said it would do:

Teaching us how to live like people who have been saved.