Titus 2:11-15, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. Training us to say “No” to conduct which holds God’s standards and preferences in contempt, “no” to worldly passions, “yes” to practicing self-control, upright honest and transparent lives in this present age. These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage, examine, and convict with all authority. Do not let anyone dismiss you as someone to be ignored.” My paraphrase.
Grace teaches, we train, as we train we go out and practice, practice, practice, putting into action what grace has trained us for. Grace disciplines and inspire s our dedication, but never strangles or throttles anyone into submission. Being trained by grace also includes having solid boundaries. Too many want to sing “i’m ok, you’re ok, we’re all ok”, sitting around the campfire singing Kumbah-yah, doing what ever we want because it’s just grace, grace, grace. Nooooo, that’s a picture of an untethered boat adrift on the water, swept where ever the wind blows. That’s not grace, it’s permissiveness avoiding any possible conflict. That’s being good with whatever happens as long as it doesn’t happen to me. God’s school of grace teaches a very different curriculum.
Israel had to shift from an agricultural nation to a nomadic nation which was good at war. They had to shift from using plows to swords, and once they were trained to make swords out of plows, then they had to be trained in how to use the swords, which speaks of a process and not instantaneous knowledge on how to be effective at war. No one wakes up in the morning and they are suddenly filled with all the biblical knowledge concerning being effective at war.
It occurs to me that if we are trained by grace we will be graceful people, if we’re trained by arrogance and greed, chances are very good we too will be arrogant and greedy, and of course that’s not always true for there are very few things in this life which are always and never. The following is not ALWAYS true, but i believe it is generally true: Graceful and kind parents typically generate graceful and kind offspring; manipulative and subversive parents typically generate manipulative and subversive children; children easily catch the character content of the parents due to simply being in contact with them. We are contagious! Don’t you know that we can give away what we’ve got even if we don’t know we’ve got it, we can give it away, and that would include our condition of abnormal functioning as well as our normal functioning. Our children are our mirror in that they reflect our attitudes and habits even when we don’t realize our attitudes and habits. As parents we are always teaching, even when we aren’t purposely, consciously teaching, and our children are always learning, even when they aren’t purposely, and consciously learning.
Are we trained by grace, or simply employing what we were born with, trained in light or trained in darkness?
If grace is not your trainer, then who is? Are you good with only your natural born talents, you know, the characteristics you were born with which are easily exploited by satan who’s will is fully set against us. Are you good with that cur dog being your mentor and trainer? i realize that many seem to think they have everything they need without including God in all they do, but seeing as how the Bible is the universal, one-stop resource for morals, ethics, principles, conduct, and character, i think it would be best to choose the Bible as our standard and see what God has to say. Indeed, this world of fluid and mobile boundaries needs a standard higher than itself, wouldn’t you agree? i heard a man say recently that if you were lost in an immense forest but you only had a compass which points to yourself, then you are doomed.
According to the Bible the greatest ability of our flesh and uncrucified mind is … wrongness of character, our inclination is iniquity from the start. i believe everyone is born with certain capacities and giftings, but above that, the unredeemed mind only knows the unredeemed life style with all it’s inclinations, or what the Bible would call the “works of the flesh”.
What are our natural inclinations, trained by the world under our slave master called sin, which gladly bruises our conscience and gives power to our flesh over our spirit? Paul speaks to that in Romans 1 where he goes through a list of wrongness that is natural to those without Jesus. Our natural talents include every kind of moral distortions, twisted ethics, twisted principles, along with greed and depravity. We are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. Our natural born talents also include gossip, slandering or casting shadows on others, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful. Naturally, we have a talent for inventing ways of doing wrong, seeing no good reason to even obey our parents, and in that we become senseless, faithless, heartless, and ruthless, not thinking it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, refusing to even think in the Lord’s direction.
Many would probably say, after hearing that list, “Well, it’s not all THAT bad, you know. i’m not really like that and i don’t know anyone who is. i’m a good person and i only hang out with good people!” Hmmm, really? If God and His word are the standard, and believe me, in the end He is conclusively, and finally the End-All and Standard, then if God says there is no good thing in me, then i think it absolutely prudent to take Him at His word. Romans 7:18, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”
Even if we understand the good things to do, without Christ we are trained and practiced in the ways of the world, we don’t have the where-with-all to do Godliness. Now that should upset more than a few who still believe they’ve got what it takes to make it on their own.
So, i’m going to use myself as an example. i’m going to cut loose with a list of my natural, flesh born skills, that is – Without Christ-type skills.
These things i know of myself: In and of myself, all on my own, i’m a superior failure, a good and veteran failure. Without Christ, even my victories are hollow achievements. i do failure VERY well.; i’m good at it! i don’t have to learn how to successfully fail; i arrived in this world well trained at it and all i needed to do was practice, afterall, practice does makes perfect. Without Christ, everyone is a perfect and bestselling failure. When i am tempted and fail at resisting, is it acceptable when i can do it comfortably? Some say failure is when we hit rock bottom, but i say for Christians, it is not failure as we measure failure, but it is where the real digging begins. Many people fail to imagine !anything! because they can’t get past the way things are. i prefer to imagine something, though it might fail, than to fail to imagine anything at all. Maybe, just maybe the only REAL failure is failing to be who God has envisioned us to be.
i’m good at not telling myself or anyone else the truth, no training necessary, all i need is a medium to practice in. By the grace of God i see my ugly and understand my long history of it. Hell regularly reminds me of my disqualifications, my past rebellious behavior, and my past disingenuousness. i didn’t have to take any classes to learn to do stuff badly, no training necessary. i didn’t have to learn to quit. i’m a talented and natural quitter. i’m good at shifting the blame so i don’t have to be responsible. i’m good at calling myself horrible names and then believing it’s the truth. i’m a natural at running away, sometimes i think running away is one of my gifts. All by myself, i am the consummate victim and dedicated controller. Sadly, those are a few of my natural talents. But here’s the best part of it all: Jesus lifts me above my natural talents and breaths life into me to live life abundantly, trained by grace, not according to someone else’s idea of what they think i should do. i’m the one standing here, i’m the one standing in these shoes, and i’m the one who is responsible, and through Christ alone, indeed, i DO have the power and authority to be different.
We are being taught, trained by either Heaven or hell! Who or what are your trainers? And yes, i realize these are polarizing questions, possibly irritating, but we are all constantly at a crossroads of right and wrong, hovering between deciding to go to the left or right.
So, how do you know you are being trained in righteousness? Ephesians 4:22-24 “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
In the previous scripture, Ephesians 4:23, Paul uses a word which i think needs a little clarity: it was the word “attitude”. Attitude speaks to the pitch, roll, and yaw of our heart, how we lean in our heart towards God. For a better understanding of that scripture, i’m going to insert the definition of attitude, so then it would read like this: “to become renovated and renewed in how you lean toward or away from God in your hearts;” That means, in Christ, we have an entirely better set of skills, all we have to do is allow the Holy Spirit to train us.
Our skill set developed in the school of grace, as given by God, is not born of our flesh or intellect, instead He brings it from a place much deeper, beyond our luke warm assumptions of conventional wisdom, found in a place known only to the Lord, quite beyond our expectation. When we wake up one day to see what the Lord has done in us, it is breath taking in beauty and magnitude.
God purposely gave us an option of either being trained by righteousness or by sin. Romans 6:13-14, “…offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” Did you get that? Sin shall NOT be your master, through Christ it shall not shall not shall not.
Did you hear that? That is incredibly wonderful!! Paul said, “For sin, your bruised conscience and alienated mind, shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” Through the blood of Jesus, we take to ourselves a new trainer who trains us in grace.
When we spend our time participating with God, going where He goes and doing what He does, it is easy to see that we are being trained by grace.
Hear what i’m saying here, catch the vision: There’s two sides to the process, someone teaches, and someone learns. i propose a good question is — what exactly is grace teaching us? What are we learning because we are constantly learning, so we must take the question seriously, what ARE we learning?
i am confident it would be simple to show that grace teaches us to be temperate, meaning to have power over ourselves, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. i want to add though, honestly, no one has ever suggested to me that i be “more temperate” …. so i looked it up and it means to be sound in mind, to be sober in opinion or passion. Temperate sounds pretty antiquated to me, and i can’t say i’ve thought to myself, “i must be more temperate,” OR “i must pray to be more sober in opinion.” The use of the word “temperate” suggests we exercise our personal power and authority over all things which influence us. Learn to ask yourself, How does what you’re putting in your eyes and ears line up with the word of God? Do your actions rightly represent God’s preferences and standards? For me, i don’t want to be like a catfish, a bottom feeder which mucks along the bottom, consuming anything which could be ingestible.
i also think it important to say why i spend time looking up meanings of some words. Well, the truth is, some biblical words i’ve never been able to relate to, and i figure if i can’t relate to it, then there’s a lot of other people who can’t relate either. i also want to add that many many times English doesn’t do Greek, Hebrew, or their translation any favors, so it is to our benefit to dig into discovering God’s intent and purpose. It’s part of being trained in Grace.
The Handbook of Bible Application says we need to “depend on God to train our conscience. How can you hold on to a good conscience? Treasure your faith in Christ more than anything else and do what you know is right. Each time you deliberately ignore your conscience, you are hardening your heart. If we deliberately ignore our conscience, over time our capacity to tell right from wrong will diminish.”
The training of Grace teaches us the value of truth, not just facts, but the truth; we learn from grace — kindness and a preference for doing the right thing, not just leveraging the facts to facilitate the advancement of our agenda. Did you catch that? “Not just leveraging the facts to facilitate the advancement of our agenda.” Sounds a lot like criminal thinking and the modern news or media agenda, doesn’t it? Grace teaches us diligence and perseverance, even when we’re in the long night of a storm. Grace emphasizes over and over the importance of a sound conscience. Here’s some sticky words so listen: Without a conscience, conviction has no foothold, making condemnation the only other option. Convicted or condemned, you choose.
Let us hold character and conscience in Christ above the values of the world! As you walk with God, he will speak to you, letting you know the difference between right and wrong. Friends, it’s always the right time to do the right thing. Think. Take care to read or hear ALL the words, not just the title, the first and last sentence to get the idea, that is a life-long-lesson in the school of Grace. Be sure to act on those inner tugs to do what is right — the training of grace is because of the everlasting love of God. The school of Grace and good boundaries is God’s idea. It’s a kindness, and kindness leads us to repentance. Participate with Jesus and let grace train you, the training of grace is for an eternity with God. Think about it.
Ephesians 4:12-13, “to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.”
2 Timothy3:16, “Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way.”
i like that, “training us to live God’s way”, no longer slaves to this world or sin. That is wonderfully attractive.
This has been Outposts, a semi-live broadcast from the late night cascading banks of the Ockluhwahhah River, where the trees gently lean over the rivers’ edge, and every evening is pleasant.
Knuckle down and determine to participate with Jesus, let yourselves be trained by Grace. You’ll never regret living life God’s way.
Until next time, tell the truth, love Jesus, yourself and your neighbor. Don’t be a nitpicker, it’s a worthless endeavor. Be blessed my friends, be blessed!