Titus 2:11-12
"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."
Alot of people think that after you become a Christian, it's like your life is magically perfect...no problems, all sunshine and no rain, which is definitely not the case. Actually, it becomes alot harder. You have to turn against the world. Against your former ways. Against your passions of the world and you have to be trained.
You don't just wake up the morning after becoming a Christian and automatically have it all figured out. God has to teach you, he has to train you.
Surely you have all trained an animal in your life. A dog? A cat? Anything? When they do right, you praise them and give them a treat, when they do wrong, you have to discipline them...and when you discipline them and you know that they did wrong, it hurts you because you know that if they did the right thing it could protect them from harm and maybe even death. I wonder if sometimes, God is like that with us?
"...training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age."
All of those things are hard. I don't know about you, but I fail at these things daily. God has to discipline me everyday. I break his heart every single day. But, he loves me and cares about me and he wants to protect me from harm and death, so he keeps training me. And I keep trying. No matter how many times I fail. Because, I want to please him and I want to do the best that I can to make him happy.
Even though I upset him so much, he also delights in me. He loves the fact that we keep trying. He delights in it.
This is pretty short compared to my other posts, but it's pretty to the point. God tells us to do these things, and it is very hard for us. But with him, we can do it. He is for us and he wants us to do it. It also can't happen over night. It carries on throughout our entire lives. Just like you have to train your dog and remind them over time, God does that to us. But it's not all upsetting, God delights in us too. We won't reach perfection until the day of Christ, so keep your head up and keep pushing forward! God delights in you and he is on your side! No matter how hard it is, keep goin. He is Sooooo worth it. (:
Hopefully that was somewhat encouraging.
