Titus 3:5 “[God] saved us because of his mercy. It was not because of good deeds we did to be right with him. He saved us through the washing that made us new people through the Holy Spirit.”The first part of this that strikes me is that God saved us. What did he save us from? Lots of possible answers there: he saved me from myself, he saved me from being a slave to sin, he saved me from spending eternity separated from him.
Why did he save us? Because of his mercy. Dictionary.com defines “mercy” as this: “compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one’s power; compassion, pity, or benevolence.” Did you catch that bit about it being compassion toward an offender… or other person in one’s power? That’s right, we’re the offenders. And we’re under God’s power. He could have just whipped us into shape or not ever given us the option of being “offenders”, but he chose to use mercy; “compassionate forbearance”.
The next REALLY important bit of this verse is that we were not saved because of good deeds we did. We can’t do anything good enough to make up for all the sin and disobedience we’ve been guilty of since Adam & Eve. We can do good things, and in fact, God wants us to do good deeds, but it’s not how or why were saved. We cannot earn salvation no matter what we do.
How did he save us? By washing us inside and out. He washed out all the icky stuff, cleaned us til we were squeaky clean. He made us new people. New people. That means I’m not the same as I once was. Does it mean I’ll never mess up? No. I have to LEARN how to be this new person. But I’ve got the power to live up being the new person God created because I’ve got the Holy Spirit inside me, and the Holy Spirit gives me all I need.
