6.9.2026 - Scott Elgersma

Tuesday June 9, 2026

The Holy Spirit Brings Power

Titus 1:15

As you enter your time with God today, take a moment to quiet your mind. Breathe this prayer: “Come, Lord Jesus, come. Fill me with your Spirit. Open my heart that you might share your words of life with me.”

We read today from Titus 1:15. Read the passage now or at the end of this devotion. What does this passage teach us about the Holy Spirit giving us the power of God?

Because kids are home from school, a common discussion in homes with children revolves around screentime. How much should a child be allowed to have when they are home all day for summer?  There are lots of different opinions about this, and every home finds its own way to navigate the challenge. 

Note: it’s striking to me that we’ve been having this conversation with children since screens were invented. It was once television. Then it was home computers. Now it is smartphones, tablets, and gaming systems. Philo Farnsworth, John Logie Baird, and Vladimir Zworykin, all participants in the race to develop television, could have no idea the tension that their efforts have brought to mid-morning conversations on a Tuesday in June. 

“It’s time for you to head outside and play with your sister!”

“C’mon mom! One more level? I only got on just a half an hour ago!”

“Now mister, otherwise I’m taking your iPad away for the rest of the week!”

What is striking to me in a recent dialogue I saw recently online (irony!) is just how much our children are embracing and learning what is being modeled to them every day in their homes. A mother complained how she felt like her kids were becoming addicted to their screens and she was debating having “analog weeks” where no technology was allowed. The moderator then confronted the mom as the same person who posts several posts daily on social media platforms, some which take considerable time to edit and put together.

It is difficult for us to advise others on righteousness if our own house is not nearly in order.

Paul advises Titus on just this concept and calls Titus to seek the power of the Spirit in correcting sinful behavior.

“To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.”

Paul’s warning to Titus is certainly about those who either know the grace of Christ, or do not know the grace of Christ. The grace of Christ brings purity to believers through the Spirit’s presence. We move from having an identity as sinners, to being saints through the redemption of the cross. But Paul’s words hint at something that all believers should be conscious of in enlisting the Spirit’s power to transform.

He uses the word “corruption”. This word evokes images of a white sheet with a red stain on it. A new car with a dent in the fender. A painted masterpiece with a knife slash down the center. Something that is pure being made as less than pure by an influence that marks, harms, or taints. Certainly, without grace, the mind of a non-believer is corrupted and sees life through a lens different than a person who follows Christ.

But believers know corruption too. We can be misled by temptations down roads that take us away, not towards Christ. We can get hooked on things that look good on the surface but bait us into sinfulness inch by inch. Corruption in the lives of believers often comes in shifts that move one degree at a time.

Paul’s solution for Titus should challenge us to do the hard work of protecting the “purity” that we know by grace. In 2:1, Paul calls Titus to “teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine.” Powerful stuff, right?

That’s the challenge with the word “doctrine”. It’s a dry word and concept that does not inspire us towards the purity that sound doctrine engenders, so let’s put it another way.

“Titus, you must teach people what God himself has been showing them in both the Old and the New Testaments. He has called them to obedience time and again to protect them as set apart, pure, and blameless. That calling was so that the people would remain holy in their obedience. But God’s people could not do that in their sin. Now in Christ, the fuel for obedience is different. Doing what God has taught us is our way of saying “thank you” to Christ for doing what we could not do for ourselves and giving us a way to be in relationship with God forever!” 

Yeah, it’s wordy, but you get the idea. Sound doctrine is God’s people having a right understanding of how we can love him and love our neighbor with everything we have and showing the world who he is so that they can know him too. When we leave the corruption of sin behind on a daily basis through the Spirit’s power, our lives show that our doctrine is sound. In places where we lose our way, returning to the right understanding of Christ’s love for us resets our purity and allows our gratitude to show out again.

We call this work sanctification. It means that we’re becoming more Christlike. When our understanding of Christ is solid through what we learn and understand about his word, the Spirit empowers us to live in a way that shows the world what a life lived by grace really looks like.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his smile towards you and give you his peace.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

I love you all. Blessings.

Feel free to share this devotion with others.

To contact the author, please email: elgersma@therivercrc.com