Delight Yourself in the Lord Devotionals

Once Was, No Longer Am - Titus 3:1-11

I remember who I was years ago. I don't remember with pain or regret because I am saved and there is no condemnation for those who reside in Christ. This wasn't always the case, however. The weight of the sin of my past was very, very heavy. I didn't fully realize how heavy until the day that Jesus Christ lifted the burden from me. On that day, I literally felt so light that I could lift off the floor, if I wanted to. While I feel conviction still and I am aware of and do not lessen the seriousness of my rebellion and sin, forgiven as I am, I also do not live in the past of who I once was, but no longer am.

Titus 3 talks about both our foolish past and our redeemed present. Titus 3:3, AMP, states, "For we too once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various sinful desires and pleasures, spending and wasting our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another." Then, one day, we finally responded to the knocking upon our heart's door and let Jesus Christ in.

As the years pass, we journey and are changed, if we are willing to trust in Christ and do as He asks. We cannot always understand the way He moves and works and the way things occur in our lives, yet as we trust and go forward, knowing that it is purely His love, mercy, and grace that saved us from ourselves, we begin to lose the desire to be what we once were.

We become justified...which can be seen as 'just as if I'd never sinned at all'. We are "heirs of eternal life", and co-heirs with Christ. We are called Children of God and grafted into the family, adopted. We are called to do good and righteous things and daily, we find the old habits and temptations falling away, losing their hold, as we continue to walk with the Lord.

And, through all this, we are still warned in verse 9 to "avoid foolish and ill-informed and stupid controversies and genealogies and dissensions and quarrels about the Law, for they are unprofitable and useless." While some may take this to mean that we can live the "anything goes" life, they would be incorrect, as verses 10-11 state that "[a]fter a first and second warning reject a divisive man [who promotes heresy and causes dissension - ban him from your fellowship and have nothing more to do with him], well aware that such a person is twisted and is sinning; he is convicted and self-condemned [and is gratified by causing confusion among believers]."

We are not to become politically correct and accepting of sin in our churches. We are not to return to or allow rebellion and sinful desires and pleasures back into our lives and into our churches because it's acceptable in the world to do such things. As a follower of Christ, we need to be salt and light and, in so doing, we have to continue to be willing to grow and change and repent...never assuming we've arrived and that our "little" sins are not as bad as those "larger" sins we see daily in the world and churches.

What shall we say [to all this]? Should we continue in sin and practice sin as a habit so that [God's gift of] grace may increase and overflow? Certainly not! How can we, the very ones who died to sin, continue to live in it any longer? - Romans 6:12, AMP

Read all of Titus 3:1-11, Amplified Version, here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Titus+3%3A1-11&version=AMP