Urgent Needs

Titus 3:14 Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order to provide for urgent needs and not live unproductive lives.

For most people, being idle is not a good thing. Too much time usually leads to wandering, drifting, stagnating. We all need a purpose and the energy to pursue that purpose. Without purpose in life, people waste the life they have been given.

I have noticed how many of my contemporaries have retired and seemingly are doing very little for the Kingdom. They seem to have lost direction, once the Army stopped telling them what to do. I guess their lives are filled with things, maybe grandchildren or hobbies. But I wonder the eternal value of some of those things.

Have you noticed during COVID that you are spending more time online? I know I have! (Noticed me, not noticed you, being online.) I hate to admit it, but I have been in front of my devices about eight hours a day. Yikes! And my self-justifications don’t carry much weight.

Paul enjoins Titus to “devote” himself and his community to “doing what is good.” Devotion is about jumping in with both feet, not allowing anything to get in the way of accomplishing the task at hand. It is day in and day out, nose to the grindstone pursuit. It involves not allowing anyone or anything get in the way, pulling you off course.

Paul includes himself in this urge to be devoted. When a whole community is moving in the same direction, there is great power.  We need the encouragement that comes from being a part of something bigger than ourselves.

And if we are going to be counter-cultural, by doing what is good rather than what brings the quickest reward, or what is politically correct, or is the easiest at the moment. Following Jesus is a difficult road that we walk together.

But why be devoted to this doing of good in the first place? Paul has a two-fold answer. The first involves our ability as a community to meet people’s urgent needs. If we are focused on eternity then the temporal things, those things that are tied to only this life, will have less sway in our lives. We will use them, but not hold onto them. Then we can freely release them for the urgent needs that arise.

But the other reason for our devotion is that it gives us a direction in life. It fulfills one of humanity’s greatest innate desire to be productive. We all want to make a different, a positive difference, in our world. Some make a difference, but no one wants to emulate them. Drug kingpins make a difference, just as Mother Theresa did.

So giving ourselves wholly to doing good raises our eyes beyond our current circumstances and keeps us propelled into the future. We won’t get bogged down in life’s mundane. We will serve the LORD and His people. We will see needs and meet them. We will be Christ’s hands and feet, mirroring His grace and mercy to a fallen world.