A Morning's Meditations on Titus 3:3-8

Dear Father, it is fitting for You to be praised. Every one of Your perfections is cause to sing anew of Your unparalleled splendor and greatness. Even when I was foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by my desires, You showed kindness and generosity in inconceivable measure to me and to all my race. You manifested a depth of mercy that cannot be plumbed. Immeasurable grace. You saved us! There was nothing—absolutely nothing—that we could do for ourselves. Some of us had tried to be good enough, but our “goodness”—our self-made “righteousness”—was of the wrong sort altogether, and at the judgment seat our righteousnesses would have been exposed, condemned, and discarded as though vile, polluted rags. Some of us had lived blatantly to ourselves and not even sought a form of righteousness. Some of us were mindful of our misery; some of us embraced rebellion; some of us were indifferent. None of us were able to help ourselves or anyone else. None of us were good. None of us sought You. All of us were hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless. Blind. Miserable. Destruction bound. All of us were hopeless. Until…You manifested Your goodness. Until You revealed Your kindness and generosity. Until You showed how much You love people. Until You saved. You saved us by Your own mercy. You saved us through the work of the Holy Spirit to regenerate us and cleanse us. You saved us. You gave us Your Spirit freely and richly—just like You gave us Your Son freely and richly. You saved us. You justified us by Your grace. You made us heirs. You gave us hope. You gave us the kind of hope that we could never have unless You gave it to us: eternal hope. Because of the truth of all this—as You open our eyes and our heart to know these things and to believe them—we are learning to carefully, diligently devote ourselves to what is good and right in Your eyes. We who believe You now want to please You, because You, being Who You are, saved us, even though we are who we are—or were—until You saved us.