Devotions

God’s grace not only saves us but it also trains us.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people” (Titus 2:11). What great news! Paul extols God’s glorious grace, which saves us. End of story, right? No, that’s hardly the end of the story. Paul quickly adds that this same grace “[trains] us to renounce ungodliness” (2:12).

Paul is describing here what it means to abide in Christ. It involves “[renouncing] ungodliness and worldly passions, and [living] self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (2:12). In other words, God’s grace provides not only eternal life but abundant life now, today. The part we play by abiding in Christ leads to a blessed, godly, peaceful life.

But Paul doesn’t stop there. He instructs Titus boldly, “Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority” (2:15). Remember, Paul’s subject in this passage is grace. He is stating, in essence, “When grace is preached but it doesn’t train you to deny ungodliness, something is missing.” If we want to serve Jesus, we can’t avoid correction, whether it comes from God’s Word or from our respected friends. Yet we are also promised this about God’s corrective pruning: “Later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

His pruning is powerful—both in its pain and in its glorious fruit. Do you lack peace? Have you drifted from the Vine, your source of life, to draw from other sources? Ask God to take His pruning blade to your heart. He may cut, clear and take away things that don’t belong and when He is finished, the glorious tree in your yard may appear to be no more than a stump. But what grows from that stump is fruit you never could have imagined—and something you could not have produced on your own. 

Why a blade in this parting teaching from Jesus? He explains, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). “Full” indicates thorough, complete, powerful. What good, true, beautiful parting words He gave to His disciples—and they are manna for us today. God’s cutting and pruning ends up producing joy—all from the hand of the expert gardener who loves us.

The famine was getting worse and Abraham began to drift away from his altar. Take a hard look at him, because Abraham is you and me at one moment or another of our Christian walk. You say, “I have lost something: my passion for prayer, my peace, my worship, my joy, my zeal for His house, my kindness, my generosity, my capacity to be moved by the needs of the people around me or afar.” Abraham had lost his altar because there was a famine.

What is the famine? The famine is a series of hard knocks, one hurt after another. It is when we go through seasons with strings of disappointments, and we bravely try to go on as if we are okay. Abraham had lost his objective, his vision. Listen to him as he pondered the thought “that I may be well, that I may be left alone, that my life might be spared” (see Genesis 12:10-13). He was called to be a blessing to others, but he had lost his very purpose.

Abraham was dying slowly in the grips of a spiritual famine. He was losing not only his fervor and purpose, but also his favor and his faith. The man who had been called to be a source of blessing began to tragically forsake what had made him great: the very faith that had brought the favor of God on him and through him to touch and bless others.

“And Pharaoh’s house was struck with a plague because of Abraham and Sarah. Pharaoh said, ‘Why have you lied and brought this plague on my house?’” (Genesis 12:17-18). Abraham was no longer a source of joy and respect; in fact, he had become someone who brought shame and pain. He had completely lost his faith and trust in God.

Come closer, take a look at him. He was tormented, afraid, and his spiritual heritage was in danger. As we kneel beside him, we realize why he was considered to be the father of faith. He wasn’t a model because he was spotless and sinless, or because his life was an uninterrupted succession of exploits, wisdom and immaculate perfection. The Bible doesn’t treat his sin lightly or justify him in any way. However, he has a message for us all simply because he knew how to rebuild his altar and find God again. “Abraham came back to the place where he had built an altar before and he called on the name of the Lord” (see Genesis 13:3-4).
 

Claude Houde, lead pastor of Eglise Nouvelle Vie (New Life Church) in Montreal, Canada, is a frequent speaker at the Expect Church Leadership Conferences conducted by World Challenge throughout the world. Under his leadership New Life Church has grown from a handful of people to more than 3500 in a part of Canada with few successful Protestant churches.

I wonder how many Christians reading this message right now are in a cloud of confusion. Does this describe you? Perhaps your prayers go unanswered. You’re constantly downcast. You face things in your life that you can’t explain. You’re disappointed in your circumstances and in people. You continually doubt yourself, you’re plagued with questions, and you constantly examine your heart to see where you went wrong. You feel gloom, despair, indecision—and you can’t shake any of it.

You may be a mature believer. For years you’ve sat under pure gospel preaching but now you doubt yourself, and you feel inadequate. You don’t sense the joy of the Lord the way you once did. So now you wonder if the Lord has a controversy with you.

Let me ask you: Do you trust His promises? Do you embrace His precious Word? Do you go on the offensive against Satan with the Word that you’ve heard preached? Or do you ignore the Lord’s past faithfulness to you? Do you not trust that He stands with you, in control of everything pertaining to your life? If so, then you’ve opened yourself to darkness.

Jesus describes the person who lives in darkness, saying, “He that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth” (John 12:35). In other words, “Such a person has lost his way. His steps are confused, he’s indecisive, and he walks in blindness.”

I know what it’s like to enter such a cloud of darkness. Things get confusing. You can’t hear a clear word from God. You want answers quickly, crying out to God, “Oh, Lord, I’m not seeing or hearing You like I used to.” You end up asking Him to be more sympathetic, more pitiful toward your condition. But the truth is, the Lord has no pity for outright unbelief. He’s grieved by it. He expects us to walk in the light we have received. We are to trust in His Word and lay hold of His promises. When we come back to our knowledge of His Word, and to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, will we exit this darkness—but only then!

“Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you” (John 12:35). Darkness here means “spiritual blindness, confusion, loss of clarity, gloom.” At first, I wondered, “Darkness on those who love Jesus? How could such darkness come upon God’s people?”

I readily admit, I personally have been flooded with the light of Jesus. In my more than fifty years of ministry, I’ve witnessed the Lord’s power to raise the spiritually dead. I’ve seen many walk out of the tombs of drug addiction and alcoholism. My book The Cross and the Switchblade was all about God’s miracle-working power. I’ve had a lifetime of watching the walking dead come alive through His resurrecting power.

I’ve seen many other rays of light—from the life-giving names of God, to His New Covenant promises, to the fulfillment of His prophecies. In a sense, I’ve witnessed everything John 12 describes and much more. Indeed, God has revealed to His people today what the eyes of those Jews couldn’t see. We know not just from Scripture but by experience that God has prepared great things for those who love Him. We’ve been given a New Testament to instruct us in this and we’ve been given the Holy Spirit to teach us. Likewise, we have “better promises,” so we can become partakers of His divine nature.

We’ve also been given anointed teachers, pastors, evangelists and prophets to flood our hearts and minds with the light. They immerse us in truth, fill us with glorious promises, and remind us of God’s faithfulness to deliver us time after time. I ask you, with all these wonderful blessings, how could we possibly have clouds of darkness over us?

Usually, when we think of spiritual darkness, we think of atheists. Or we think of jaded, sin-satiated sinners groping about in sorrow and emptiness. But that isn’t the kind of darkness Jesus describes here in John 12. No, this darkness is a cloud of confusion, a spiritual blindness, indecision, a gloom of spirit and mind—and it comes upon believers. 

When those times come, when we’re besieged by temptation or despair, we’re to say with confidence, “You’ve delivered Your servants supernaturally throughout history. Do it again and let Your strength be made perfect in my weakness.”

We must take to heart this word from Christ’s parable: “O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt. . . . Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?” (Matthew 18:32-33).

The question for every Christian is this: “Do I forgive my brethren? Do I put up with their differences?” If I refuse to love and forgive them, even as I have been forgiven, Jesus calls me a “wicked servant.”

Don’t misunderstand; this doesn’t mean we are to allow compromise. Paul preached grace boldly, but he instructed Timothy, “Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2). We are to be bold guardians of pure doctrine.

Yet we are not to use doctrine to build walls between us. That was the sin of the Pharisees. The law told them, “Keep the Sabbath holy,” but the command itself wasn’t enough for their flesh. They added their own safeguards, multiple rules and regulations that allowed the fewest possible physical movements on the Sabbath. The law also said, “Do not take God’s name in vain.” But the Pharisees built even more walls, saying, “We won’t even mention God’s name. Then we won’t be able to take it in vain.”

What was the king’s response to his servant’s ingratitude in Jesus’ parable? Scripture says, “His lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him” (Matthew 18:34). In Greek, this translates, “taken to the bottom to be tormented.” I can’t help thinking Jesus is speaking here of hell.

So, what does this parable tell us? How does Christ sum up His message to His disciples, His closest companions? “So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses” (18:35).

As I read this parable, I shudder. It makes me want to fall on my face and ask Jesus for a baptism of love toward my fellow servants. Here is my prayer and I urge you to make it yours as well: “God, forgive me. I am so easily provoked by others, and too often I respond in anger. Yet, I don’t know where my own life would be without Your grace and forbearance. I am amazed at Your love. Please help me to understand and accept Your love for me fully. Then I’ll be able to to be patient with my brethren, in your Spirit of love and mercy.”