God's Choice - Titus 3:3-5

   Last night was the Bible study on Titus, so many of the thoughts in here I attribute to my pastor.

   Our story starts with this: "we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another." Can any of us deny that? Even now, thought justified and perfect before God, I struggle with slavery to the pleasure God has gifted. I enjoy making myself feel superior by silently ripping down the people who any me at work (customers, not coworkers, but that does not change their eternal worth). I am undeniably a fool, choosing my will over God's, choosing short term pleasures over growth in my relationship with God and the intense joy that brings, and choosing to give my heart only partially the most jealous lover that has ever existed.
   Yet there lies the wonder, too, and the amazement; I am loved by God! Paul tells Titus "But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy." God does not love us because of anything in us; the description of us right in the verse before guarantees that. Yet He saved us. Because of his loving kindness, his goodness, He saved us.
    Meaning God's love has always been a choice. He chose to love us; He chose to pour out for his the blood of His own Son, to love us even more than life, glory, comfort, or the endless, beautiful, unbroken relationship between the Trinity. He chose us, while we were foolish, disobedient, slaves to sin, hated by others, and hating everything and everyone. That is when He chose to love us. And that choice will never change.
     Meaning, not when I, as a weak, foolish sinner still, do not follow God's will; that will not change God's choice, God's love. Sara Groves wrote the song where the main theme is God saying "You cannot lose my love." He chose us, before the foundation of the world. He chose to love us.

     " For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are […] And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption."