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In Titus 2:12, 13, is our life and times as children of God defined – the “present age” compared to the “blessed hope”.  And how we are to live on one plane, looking to another?   Out: Being part of the herd.  We are to say no to “ungodliness and worldly passions” when those around say, “Okay”, “What’s wrong?” and “So what?” to any and all forms of wickedness.  In:“Being self-controlled, upright and godly.”

Truthfully, it is hard to be a salmon – to swim upstream to the cross of Christ when unbelievers, who seem to have it easier, swim downstream, to the beat of the popular.  We are probably upright in so far as self-control and (technical) uprightness goes – we do not run afoul of the law in, say, theft, murder or sexual sins.  However, when we use the Bible to do the MRI or CAT Scan to our hearts, we see the plague within.  So, how to live sober, righteous and holy lives?  The secret lies in the fear of God.  Christians have, or must have, that healthy fear or “reverent awareness” (Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary) of God’s rule in everything we do, and strive to honour him in our conduct.

In Hebrews 13:14, we are told we have no enduring or continuing city on earth.  This is to say, we all live on borrowed time.  Used to time and space and confined by finite human thinking, it is hard to imagine time without end, though.  Much less look forward to it.  But verses 11 and 14 should give us the push.  The tremendous love of God led the Father to send His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross at Calvary.  Jesus Christ was the answer so that God’s wrath against us could be averted into love for us instead (Christ is our propitiation).  If we can always see the bruised back of our Lord, ribboned with stripes for our righteousness and, that He will one day call us to our true home, that might help us to look to His soon “glorious appearing”.

That is why we as Christians must always have eyes in the front and at the back of our heads.  As one of our favourite hymn goes:

“Backward look we, drawn to Calvary, musing while we sing.

Forward haste we to Thy coming, Lord and King!”