“When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved [your name here], not because of works done by [your name here] in righteousness but according to his own mercy” (Titus 3:4-5, ESV). This is a reminder that God’s attitude towards us is one of goodness, loving-kindness and mercy. In fact, these are so strong in him that he didn’t even bother to take our good works into account when he wanted to save us. There was no need. His goodness, loving-kindness and mercy were more than enough, not to mention the infinite inferiority of our good works.
Let us constantly remind ourselves of these. It would be a wonderful practice to constantly repeat these three divine traits to ourselves for a week. We need this continuous encouragement. We need the Spirit to embed in our hearts the reality of God’s attitudes towards us because these are the foundations for our Christian life. They are the world that we live out of; they are our motives for all we do. If we try to live out of obligation, or pleasing others, or personal preference then our spiritual life will die. It is only by living out of God’s love for us and our love for him that we can abide in Jesus who is “the life”.
