Devotional Guide, Today’s Reading – Sunday, December 15, 2019

Theme: THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Text: “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.” – Titus 3:3.

 

Comment: Jesus Christ told Nicodemus, a Jew and a  Pharisee  that  “…Except a man be born again, he can not see the Kingdom of God”. (John 3:3) When Nicodemus asked further how a man could be born again Christ answered: “except a man be born of water and spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”. (John 3:5) The water here  is the unadulterated word of God, the Truth, (Ephesians 5:26) while the spirit is the holy spirit. (Romans 8:9-14) To become a born-again, one must first hear the Truth and thereafter believe and accept it; that is faith. (Romans 10:17; Colossians 3:10; Hebrews 11:6) The knowledge so acquired has the potential of changing a man’s whole thinking and behaviour, such that a fornicator, an adulterer, a thief, a liar, a homosexual, a drunkard etc. would desist from all such acts and live a godly life. This is exactly what Christ meant by being born again. – Titus 3:3; 2 Corinthians 5:17.

During the ministry of St. Paul, God used him to do special miracles such that many believed and confessed their shady deeds. (Acts 19:11-19) The Bible charges us thus: “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” – Ephesians 4:22-24.

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