Grace That Teaches

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 319, Grace That Teaches.

Listen to these words from Titus, chapter two, verses eleven and twelve:

"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."

Let that land.

The grace of God… has appeared. Paul didn't say it was proposed, or theorized, or voted on somewhere. He said it appeared. It broke into history. It took on flesh and bone and a name — Jesus. And it did all of that before you asked for a single thing. Before you cleaned yourself up, before you figured it out, before you were ready. God moved first. That is the foundation of everything I want to say to you today.

And this grace that appeared — it didn't come for a select few. The text won't allow that reading: salvation for all people. No group is left out. No past is too heavy. No distance is too far to be standing outside. God's table is wide — and the invitation reached you, today, here.

But there's something Paul says that I want you to sit with. He doesn't say the law teaches us to live well. He says grace teaches us. Feel the weight of that difference. One thing is changing your behavior out of fear of consequences. Something entirely different is changing because you were loved when you didn't deserve it — and that love worked its way from the outside all the way in. Grace is the best teacher because it doesn't threaten: it warms. And a heart warmed by the love of God begins to want different things, to loosen its grip on what it used to hold so tightly, to live from a different center.

And this teaching is for now. Not for heaven someday — for today. For Tuesday afternoon, for Friday morning, for the ordinary and unremarkable hours of this present age. The self-controlled, upright, godly life Paul describes isn't a life removed from the world. It's the common, everyday life — lived with a different quality, a different direction — because grace doesn't pull us out of the world; it equips us to live in it beautifully, differently, with our eyes open.

And there is something underneath all of it that holds us steady: we live between two appearances. Christ has already come — Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the cross, the empty tomb. And Christ is still coming — in glory, full, final, certain. And between those two great moments, we live. The blessed hope we are waiting for is not an escape hatch. It is not wishful thinking. It is an anchor. It is what keeps you firm when everything around you shakes — and things do shake. But the anchor holds.

So today, do this one thing: before breakfast, pause for just a moment. Think of one habit, one attitude, one pattern you're still holding onto — and decide to hand it over to God's grace. Write it down. One line is enough. And pray this, simply: "Lord, teach me through Your love." Not through fear. Through love. Then let grace do what only grace can do.

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