Beauty and the Beast

As we spend time in Titus 2 it is my prayer that you will come to see the breathtaking beauty of God's design for women. But the beauty I speak of is a beauty which is not of ourselves. By God's grace we are not like the feminist of the 60s who brashly shouted, "I am woman hear me roar" Or the "third wave" feminist of the 90s who (to this day) have as their goal not equality with men but rather dominance over men. Somehow these women seem to miss the fact that their tone and manner lacks beauty (or maybe that is precisely what they desire). Neither are we desperately grasping for men's attention with every diet, exercise and beauty tip that comes down the pike.

The beauty of which I speak is the beauty that comes from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If we are to rightly understand God's design for us we must first embrace the Gospel given to us. This is foundational. Without the Gospel all our efforts are worthless before God and will seem pointless to us. And so, as we proceed in the weeks and months ahead you will often hear us referring back to the Gospel for this is our only hope for eternal life and true living today.

The book of Titus is only 46 verses long. It can easily be read in 10 minutes. Within those verses there are 6 uses of the word Savior and 4 times Jesus Christ is mentioned. Salvation words like: justified, grace, mercy, hope, redeemed, washed, etc. permeate the 3 short chapters (another 10 times). That totals 24 references to God's saving mercy in 46 verses. Why is this? I believe it is so that as we read Paul's words for how we are to live our lives, we will not wander into moralism or legalism. Also,the repeated reference to the Gospel gives us powerful motivation for Titus 2 living. Though God's ways are good, they are not always easy. And so we see, the Gospel not only makes us beautiful, it also gives us the motivation to live beautifully.

When I was 10 I was a verbal bully. I was extremely mean to people I was jealous of, or just didn't like. Imagine I lived in a town that was governed by a very righteous judge. Everyone in my town was well cared for. But I did not appreciate that care and was indifferent to this judge and his family. One day I verbally abused a kid in my school. Others heard me and reported me. I was brought before the judge. Turns out, the kid was the son of the judge. Turns out it was the judge's only son. The judge told me the penalty for this kind of abuse was death. I was guilty and sentenced.

The judge and his son spoke to one another, then the son approached me and told me, "I know what you did against me. I know you deserve to die. I want you to know I forgive you. I want you to go free. So here's what we are going to do. My father and I have agreed that I will take your punishment. The crime you committed will be my crime. I will die in your place. My father has always loved you and knew this day would eventually come. He now stands ready to adopt you and to bring you into his loving care. The details have all been worked out. All that is mine is yours.

And so the son, the one I had sinned against was sentenced and died in my place. And just as the son had promised, the father gave me everything that belonged to his son.

That seems too good to be true doesn't it? Well, the part of the story that is true is that I (the beast) really was a verbal bully and worse. But it wasn't only a classmate I sinned against. In truth it was against a Holy God (Beauty). I'm sure you can connect the dots and understand how excited I get when I think about the Gospel. I do not have to look back to when I was 10 years old to see sin in need of Christ's forgiveness. Every day I (the beast) return to the cross (Beauty) where I find mercy and grace to help me (the beast) in my battle against my pride, self-righteousness, lurking anger and more.

Do you see yourself in the book of Titus? And do you see your Savior? What does this do for you? It makes me exclaim along with Paul the excellencies of Christ in Ephesians 1:3-14, and humbly pray along with Mary, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38).