One Day Nearer: 10 Devotions in Anticipation of Jesus’ Glorious ReturnSample

Day 3: Making Christ Attractive to a Watching World

Scripture calls us to live as positive witnesses in a negative world. We’re to conduct ourselves with an awareness that people’s perceptions of God are strongly influenced by our attitudes, words, and actions.

In Titus chapter 2, Paul provides instructions for specific groups of people in the church: young and older men, young and older women, and slaves. Yet many of the principles directed at the groups listed in Titus 2 can be found elsewhere in the Bible for all believers. So we can rightly say that the exhortations found in Titus 2:7-8, which were aimed at young men, are relevant to all Christians.

A key purpose of godly living is to prevent unbelievers from finding any reason to criticize God. When those who oppose us are unable to legitimately speak wrongly about us, we disarm them from opportunities to speak wrongly about God.

What about when people bring false accusations against us? We shouldn’t let those distract us. All we should care about is what God knows to be true about us. Even those who falsely speak evil against us know deep within that they are being untruthful.

As Christians, our conduct will either draw people to God or away from Him. We should want nothing in our lives to detract others from seeing Jesus and the gospel clearly. Because we bear Christ’s name and profess to be His followers, we should care about how we represent Him in a watching world.