Th, 05/07/15, 33rd of 50 Days of Easter, "Day of Praise," so say it with The Easter Guy, "Jesus is alive, and you are loved!"
Okay! Today's devotional...
"And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone." - Titus 3:8
When sorrow, darkness, and tragedy fill our lives, God encourages us, through Paul, to trust God and do good because good that flows out of trusting God is always profitable for everyone.
How so?
How are trusting God and doing good excellent and profitable for everyone (Titus 3:8)?
I once said to my now 19 year-old daughter, "Cassidy, you're nice to everyone." She replied, "Well, Dad, that's because you are."
What others (whether they're our children or otherwise) see us do is what they're encouraged to do. It is profitable to do good because it encourages others to do good.
But good, mind you, comes in at least two packages: 1) modeling plain ol' good and 2) modeling what is good to do when you don't do good.
When one of my kids confessed something to me that they weren't proud of, I told him/her that I was proud of them for confessing. "Well, Dad, you've taught us the blessing of confessing."
When we surrender to the Holy Spirit and confess our sin, God's Holy Spirit works a good spirit of humility in those who see us confess and apologize and make amends.
But there's still at least one more good that profits everyone, and that is the good of trusting and praising God even when difficulty, death, and tragedy surround us.
Some people have given up on God, but, in my experience, the vast majority of people are looking around to see if anyone is going to do good. They want to see if anyone will still look to God, even in the face of great, horrific, and inexplicable tragedy. Jesus did that on the cross, when he was paying the immeasurable penalty for all our sin, he cried, "My God, My God...", looking to God even as he sensed the abandonment of God.
And God worked the ultimate good through that cross, the forgiveness and, therefore, salvation of the whole world; the ultimate good that profits everyone who believes that "Jesus died for you!"
As is said earlier in Titus 3:4-7, "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."
Aaaah, Eternal Life, Abundant Life with God now and forever through Jesus. The ultimate blessing from the ultimate good.
Thus we can understand God, through Paul, who says, "And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone." (Titus 3:8)
Praise God!
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