Titus 2:1 teaches that there is right living that goes along with true Christianity.

One of the problems with Christians defining themselves as ‘believers’ is the disconnect that occurs with the responsibility to live ‘rightly’ as a result of right belief. This disconnect is furthered when we discuss our acceptance by God through grace by faith and not by our good works.

While true, it wasn’t that no good works occurred giving humanity the opportunity to be forgiven, Jesus Himself earned our pardon through His perfect obedience to all the will of God. Without His good works we would have none appropriated to us for us to be forgiven.

Our good works can not earn our forgiveness, we are indeed pardoned by grace through faith, but our good works glorify God and prove our pardon from God because now we live as Jesus lived. We are required to do good works both for others to see and experience the glory of God and for us to demonstrate the reality of God’s life in us by His Holy Spirit.

God is holy and requires His people to be holy. Holiness is consistency living in accordance with the character, nature and will of God.

The Bible is full of commands beginning with loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. These commands are not burdensome to us but are the means by which we receive and release the life of Christ within us so that the world may know and experience the love of God He demonstrated in His first born Son and continues through all of His adopted children.

These commands are not a new form of legalistic bondage for earning heaven, that is freely given through the appropriation of Jesus’ work to us, but are the means for freeing ourselves from the bondage of broken living we experienced before giving ourselves to God to the new life of freedom to love God and love others.

Coming to God through Jesus means living a different life than the one we lived before we met the Lord of the universe and the Savior of the world.