Grace That Trains

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 318, Grace That Trains.

Hear these words from Titus, chapter two, verses twelve and thirteen — and let them settle:

"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."

Grace trains us.

Not rules. Not fear. Not guilt.

Grace.

Paul starts there, and that changes everything. Because the order matters. When you try to live well out of obligation — when you wake up every morning grinding at self-improvement through sheer willpower — you wear out. You fall. And then you wonder if something is fundamentally broken in you. But Paul does not begin with what you have to do. He begins with what God has already done. God's grace appeared. It came. And it is grace itself — that living, loving presence of God — that trains us how to live. Not a law pressing in from the outside. A love reshaping from within.

And that grace invites us to renounce.

Now, that word — renounce — can sound heavy. It can sound like deprivation, like forced sacrifice. But Paul is not writing to someone still in chains. He is writing to someone who has been set free. And the person who has been set free doesn't walk away from the chains out of duty — they walk away because they've seen what those chains were doing to them. Grace shows us what was harming us. And then turning our back on it isn't loss. It's relief.

And when we turn away from what destroys, where do we turn?

Paul says: toward self-controlled, upright, and godly lives.

Three directions. One inward — self-control, the way you tend to yourself, your choices, your mind. One outward — uprightness, the way you treat the people around you, how you show up in your relationships, in your work. And one upward — godliness, the way you walk with God. Grace doesn't just work on one corner of your life. It orients all three at once. Because Christ is Lord of everything — not just of a portion you set aside for Sunday.

And Paul roots all of this in the present. "In the present age." Not someday. Now. This day. This job. That hard conversation you've been putting off. Faith is not an escape from reality — it is faithfulness within it. God did not call you to a spirituality that floats above ordinary life. He called you to live well inside it.

And yet you don't walk with your eyes fixed only on the ground.

There is a hope ahead. A hope Paul calls "blessed" — the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. That forward gaze does not pull you away from the present. It steadies you in it. Knowing where you are headed makes you walk more firmly today. Hope is not escapism — it is fuel.

So today, before breakfast, I want to ask one concrete thing of you. Write a sentence. Begin it like this: "I am waiting for Jesus to appear, and so today I will…" — and finish it with one real, positive choice you can make before this day is done. One step in the direction of who you are becoming. Let hope shape your hours.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.