Watch Your Step - It's a Hard and Avoidable Fall

S - Titus 3:4-7 (NIV): "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 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, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."

O - The hope of eternal life is NEVER connected to any righteous activity we can do. This is always true for all people of all time. Amazing grace and defiant mercy are the only means such life is obtained AND maintained. Life in the Kingdom of Jesus is never about our performance; it is forever about God's kindness and love. Any other conclusion or basis is identified in the Scripture as a fall from grace (Galatians 5:4) and an enemy of the cross (Philippians 3:18; Colossians 2:23).

A - All activities, well intended and upright, can never secure my hope nor my eternal status because life (eternal and irrepressible) and hope are a person … and he gives these simply and exclusively because he is kind and generous and seriously loves us. He wants us so intensely he would literally rather die than be without any of us. He is my life, my hope and the salvation of the world. Today, my assignment is to welcome the life and hope that is Jesus to pour into me and (hopefully) to at least splash out of me. I can avoid the fall or returning to an enemy combatant … all for the sake of love. Today, with all of its unknowns and current pressures and brewing dilemmas, really is going to be a beautiful day, one overflowing with life and hope.

P - Dear Eternal life and hope,

How awesome of you to make yourself available to whosoever will. Lord Jesus, I will! Lord, thank you for real life and for resilient hope. Thank you that when I go hopeless and when hope in me is broken you still hope for me and keep that hope available to me. Lord, today your hope is finding me and I am literally and eternally grateful. I give myself to the work of believing and ask that in some way I could be a reason another might believe. I really do love you back.

Steve