{"id":8123,"date":"2021-12-15T00:00:56","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T14:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=8123"},"modified":"2021-12-17T09:58:58","modified_gmt":"2021-12-16T23:58:58","slug":"rising-above-to-excellence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2021\/12\/15\/rising-above-to-excellence\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising Above to Excellence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Titus 3:8\u00a0<em><sup>8<\/sup><\/em><em>The word is trustworthy. And about these things I want you to insist, in order that those who have come to believe in God may be careful to be engaged in good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Paul reflects back on the <em>trustworthy word <\/em>in verses 3-7. Titus was to focus his mission in Crete on teaching this \u201csound doctrine\u201d (2:1). The saying is <em>trustworthy<\/em> because of its source: Paul taught what he received from the God and was confirmed in the church and Scripture (Romans 16:25-26; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; Galatians 1:11-12). The word <em>insist<\/em>(diabebaiousthai) stresses the certainty of Titus\u2019 mission with dealing with the false teachers (1:10-16; 3:9-10) and teaching the Christians to live in an immoral culture (chapter 2).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The outcome of this message of salvation in the lives of those who have put their faith in God will be <em>good works<\/em> (3:1). God has created us to do good works that ultimately give glory to God and bear witness to our faith in Christ (Ephesians 2:10). Believers should engage themselves (<em>proistasthai<\/em>) or set their minds on what is <em>excellent<\/em> and <em>profitable<\/em>. This type of thinking and action is of high moral quality and what is helpful to people. Doing what is good does not lead to salvation but should be the result of salvation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When we cooperate with the transforming leadership of the Holy Spirit, who redeems and renews us (verse 5), we will produce fruit that will be obvious to others and influence situations in a positive direction. This sanctifying process will make an impact on the people around us and lead us to mission to the world. Paul is challenging Titus and the Cretan believers to step up and be engaged in the gospel mission to the world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For older posts, click\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/blog\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=DavidAckermanDailyDevotions&amp;loc=en_US\">Subscribe to Daily Devotions by Email<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Titus 3:8\u00a08The word is trustworthy. And about these things I want you to insist, in order that those who have come to believe in God may be careful to be engaged in good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. Paul reflects back on the trustworthy word in verses 3-7. Titus was to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8123"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8161,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8123\/revisions\/8161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}