“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. (Titus 2:11-14) (ESV)
This passage in Titus is one of my recent memorization projects. I used to think I couldn’t memorize scripture. Oh, I had memory verses and did some memorization but nothing consistently. Then quite a few years back, I found a memorization program and tried again. I found it worked well and even when I completed the program I continued choosing passages and writing them on 3×5 cards and memorizing them. I review several of the passages daily so as not to forget them.
One thing I really love about memorizing scripture is the way the passages come to my mind at various times. Often as I am getting ready to fall asleep one or more will come to mind and if I wake up in the wee hours before it is time to get up. This has been a true blessing to me.
This morning the above scripture was what came to mind before it was time to get up for the day. As I was pondering the scripture I settled on the idea of being a people for God’s own possession.
We all have various possessions. They are more or less valuable to us for different reasons. Some we paid a lot of money for and some were just found items. So we understand possessions. When we moved here we paid a lot of money to buy a car so we would be able to get from place to place. That car is valuable to us and we take the best possible care of it. When it gets dirty, we are sure to get it washed. If something breaks on it, we get it repaired.
As I thought about what this scripture says about being God’s possession, I thought of the price God paid for us. It says the grace of God appeared and brought salvation. The grace of God became man and was killed, buried and rose again. That was a price beyond belief and way beyond what we might pay for a house or a car.
God cares for us as we care for our possessions. He trains us. He is polishing us up. He is preparing something wonderful for us. We have a purpose. Most of our possessions have a purpose, even if it is only sentimental. This passage says that we are to be zealous for good works.
We are like a finely crafted piece of furniture that has been made by a master craftsman. He has sawn, nailed, sanded, stained, varnished, polished, waxed–everything to make us what he wants us to be. We must be fulfilling our purpose, proclaiming the skill of the master.
Just some thoughts that went through my mind early this morning. Maybe they will bless you.