October 17- Crete

It is Thursday 

and this is my day for corporate worship with fellow believers. I hope your week is going well and you are exercising your faith.  


I worked most of the day yesterday and a co-worker and I were having a short discussion of the nature of people and that’s some people are just hard. It is difficult it is to treat everyone with the same love and respect when everyone doesn’t seem to “deserve” it nor do they even begin to treat you with any. It’s hard! And without exercising our faith and utilizing the great grace provided to us by the Father, it is impossible! 


When Paul wrote to his disciple Titus, his true son in the faith, he asks the Father and Son to grant Titus grace and peace. Titus was left on the island of Crete (a place Paul had visited a few time) to solidify the church and its leaders. 


“I left you on the island of Crete so you could complete our work there and appoint elders in each town as I instructed you...Even one of their own men, a prophet from Crete, has said about them, “The people of Crete are all liars, cruel animals, and lazy gluttons.” This is true. So reprimand them sternly to make them strong in the faith.”

‭‭Titus‬ ‭1:5, 12-13‬ ‭NLT‬‬


At first it may seem as though Paul is spreading gossip and stereotyping, when he says those things about the people of Crete, but he follows with “This is true!” He calls the people liars, animals and lazy. Wow. That’s a stretch to come back from, but he follows it with “make them strong in the faith. It’s amazing that even though he though so poorly of these people, his passion for them to know Jesus and to serve Him in a powerful was was just as strong as if they been sweet and loving people. 


Have you ever felt like a lazy lying animal? I have. And there are probably a few more sad words you could use to describe me. But even the Cretans were not too far gone to be made strong in the faith! No one is ever too bad or dark to come to Jesus. Sometimes we may feel like God is being too stiff and stern with us, but as here we see, His purpose is to make US better and more fit in the faith! We don’t know what lies ahead but God is continuously preparing us for it. 


Lord Jesus, thank you for the life lessons found in Scripture. And thank you for the times you are hard on us because we know you are being strict with us to make us strong and the place we all want to be is strong in the faith—warriors. We love you and adore you and we pray you would help us every day to be more like you—to treat everyone with love even when we don’t “feel” it. Help us to show your love to the unlovable and to let your light shine. Please surround us today and go before us. Praise you Father. Amen and amen. 


Love you dear one,

Pam

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