Unshakeable Hope: Day 22

Where there is a promise from God there is always hope!

I am sure you would agree that these daily devotions have been such a blessing. I have loved being reminded of God’s promises which are providing me with an unshakeable hope.

All the promises we are reading are a gift from God to all of us. Yes even you! Sometimes we disqualify ourselves from the promises of God as we think we’re not good enough but nothing disqualifies you from the promises. Nothing you do can rob you of the promise.

Today I want to look at the promise of new birth and new life found in Titus 3:4-7

4 But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

Wow is my first response. It’s verse 5 I want us to focus on but it was too good not to share the other verses.

What strikes me first is we are saved not because of anything we have done but because of his mercy! Isn’t that amazing! It’s not because of anything we did that we are saved but it’s by his grace and mercy. We can’t take any credit, it’s not our own doing, it is another gift of God as it tells us in Ephesians 2:8

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.

Titus 3:4-7 are the message of salvation and the power of the Cross and Resurrection which most of you will have heard many times but it’s so good to be reminded of because it’s never something we should take for granted.

On the Cross Jesus took on the sin of the world, everything we have done wrong in the past and even all our future sins. Because of this we are forgiven and we have been washed clean of every sin. The message translation puts it like this:

He gave us a good bath, and we came out of it new people, washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit.

I had to laugh (and cringe a little) at the term ‘good bath’ but I like the picture of being washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit and coming out as a new person. As when we ask Jesus into our lives it is like a fresh start, new beginning, a rebirth. We are not only forgiven and have the promise of eternal life but we have a new identity as a child of Christ!

Nothing may have physically changed on the outside but we now have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. We are never alone, we have the Holy Spirit as our guide each day. We become a new Christian as it tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!

Let’s never take for granted that we are saved by grace, that in Christ we can experience a fresh start and sin has no hold on us anymore. This is a free gift to us like all the other promises we have read during this series – thank you God!

Prayer
Today I want you take a moment to reflect on what it means to have this new life and to be a new creation and then to thank God in your own words, sharing with him what it means to you.