It is fitting that those who have been redeemed by Christ should live changed lives because the purpose of His redeeming work on the cross was to “redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14).

Some Christians are alarmed at research that suggests that the number of Americans who consider themselves Christian is dropping. According to researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, over the last twenty years the percentage of the population who describe themselves as Christians fell from eighty-six percent to seventy-six percent.

Every follower of Jesus desires more, not fewer, people to trust Him savingly. To the degree that these statistics indicate that this is not happening, we all should be grieved and concerned.

But perhaps what the researchers are discovering is a growing honesty among Americans when it comes to their religion. During the twentieth century, a type of Christianity gradually crept across America that increasingly lost its biblical moorings. Nominalism became the norm and what C.S. Lewis called “mere Christianity” became the exception.

That is why so little difference exists between those who are classified as Christians and those who lay no claim to that designation. The biblical teaching about salvation has been drained of its meaning to the degree that many today claim to have experienced it without undergoing any moral transformation.

In fact, it has become common to teach that one can receive the gift of salvation without experiencing any sort of personal or moral change. After all, Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven, right?

Of course, no Christian is perfect this side of heaven. But can a follower of Jesus live as an unchanged person? When someone becomes a Christian, doesn’t he enter into a new way of life? Doesn’t salvation necessarily involve a change of one’s orientation toward God and His law? Is the pursuit of holiness optional for a believer?

Paul addresses these questions in the second chapter of his letter to Titus. He explains that “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (vv. 11–12).

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