Titus Connection Volume 19, Number 5 May 2025

Greetings.  These following lessons hopefully will allow you to consider we do not do anything in a vacuum and even with the disfigurement Jesus endured, He did it for every one of us.  Mike

A successful businessman drove to an airport to pick up a well-known pastor.  From every angle you looked at this pastor, he was an impressive man, but the person least impressed seemed to be the pastor himself.
This businessman was impressed with that attitude from the pastor and thought that he must see himself as a spectator to what God was doing.       When the businessman tried to credit his passenger with at least some of his church’s sizeable achievements, the pastor shrugged.
This pastor responded saying, “When I was a schoolboy, from time to time we’d see a turtle on a fencepost, and every time we did, we knew he didn’t get there by himself.”  There is an older song with the title, “I Did It My Way”; that the accomplishments in my life, I made them happen.  Reality is we are that turtle on a fencepost.  We did not get where we are today without the help of the Lord and others.
It is so easy to give lip service to that truth, when in reality, there is a great temptation to absorb all the accolades and think that I did it my way.  Trying to spiritual, I would never say that out loud, but I would be wanting to say that on the inside.
One big pitfall as a spiritual leader is the struggle of being bigger and greater than we really are.  Think back to David.  2 Samuel 11:1, states, “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army.  They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah.  But David remained in Jerusalem.”
For whatever reason King David did not go off to battle that spring as was the normal custom of what kings were supposed to do.  Rather, David stayed home and got in trouble with Bathsheba.  Perhaps he felt was above the activity of going off to war or he did not have to serve his kingdom that way anymore.  If David was thinking that he was the king and a king serves his people, he would have been at battle with his troops.
Leaders can quickly lose the attitude of servant leadership quickly or really never have pursued that attitude.  Pride can easily creep in when we have been even mildly successful.  It is truly by God’s grace we are who we are.  Possessing the attitude of humility, Paul indicated he was the worst of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15-16).
It most definitely is a battle with pride because it creeps in ever so subtly.  We are tempted to stand up and tell people the reason something went well was we did it by ourselves.  We deserve all the credit.  Then the thoughts that “we do not need people” and “various tasks are beneath us” slither in.
Philippians 2:3-5 indicates we are to be others focused just as Jesus did.  This was His attitude He lived by, otherwise we would have no eternal hope.  The fruit of our lives that God blesses and blesses others does not contain pride.  This fruit is focused off us and onto others.
Whenever I take the attitude like what David had, I am putting an “x” on me and offering Satan a free shot.  Too often another sinful act follows, once again probably a very “minor” sin but the pattern begins to be set.  The spiral continues downward.
We need honest, sincere friends who hold us accountable to break into that spiral or are willing to remind us that we are turtles on a fencepost.  Developing habits of praising others for their accomplishments, helps to place more focus on others.
Acknowledging to someone who compliments us for something we did, should be acknowledged.  Thank the person for the compliment and when able, give praise to the Lord in your acknowledgment.  Plus having the opportunity to serve anyone in whatever what they need to be served, without fanfare is a good attitude to develop.

Recently a student was giving a presentation on consequences of poor moral decisions, sharing about a 20 year old woman who was hit in her car by a drunk driver.  As her story was shared, there was a picture of her when she was in her late teens and then we were shown video of what she looked like after surviving the fiery crash.
Most of her face was disfigured and full of scar tissue.  Her story was shared after she passed away at age 40.   Not only did she have to live a difficult life after the accident, but her life was also shortened due to the medical issues she faced during her 20 years of pain and suffering.
Seeing a person who is deformed may be quite gruesome to look at.  When you see a person who has a deformity or something obviously physically or emotionally wrong, do you tend to turn away and ignore the person?
You could be a person right now that has a physical defect and at times you are treated as a freak.  Possibly you have a family member who has such a defect.  In your situations, you know first-hand how emotionally distraught living life can be.
Think about the following person being described.  “There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him.  He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.  He was despised, and we did not care.”  Do you know who is being described here?  It is Jesus and the quote is from Isaiah 53:2-3.
Rarely has a picture or movie depicted well what Jesus physically went through on the day He died.  Image a person who has been severely burned or lives with a deformity.  That is how Jesus looked after the torture He endured.
The reality of what Jesus did can easily turn our stomachs.  This is not to gross people out but allow what He had done physically to Him, to show a deeper love He has for you.
Have you ever had a thorn or sliver of wood piercing your finger or foot?  It hurts.  Now can you imagine having multiple thorns or large slivers rip into your forehead and around your head?
When someone insults or mocks you, you do not like it because one instinct is to retaliate.  Now consider a group of people surrounding you, hurling insults at you and at the same time, punching and hitting you over and over.
During the Roman Empire, the Romans would use the whip that had leather strips extending at the end of the whip which had pieces of sharp stone or medal attached.  When a person was whipped on their back, the sharp pieces would tear into the skin and muscle, ripping them away from the bones of the victim.  A Roman whipping could last as much as 40 lashes (stopping at 39).
Little human tissue would be attached to the back and sides of a person after that.  Then place a heavy, rough wooden beam on those open sores and injures and have to carry it with a great deal of blood loss.  Many would never make it to that point.
Being crucified was one of the most humiliating ways to die.  For Jesus, they took nails and above the wrists and through the feet (how sensitive are your feet?), drove those spikes through.
At the end of this excruciating death, the legs of those crucified would be broken so that they could not raise their bodies up enough to let air into the diaphragm, thus causing the person to suffocate.  When they got to Jesus, they figured He was dead, so they took a spear, thrust it into His side and blood and water came out, indicating death.
The worst part was the fact that God the Father had to allow His Son to die.  Jesus cried out asking the Father why he was forsaking, abandoning Him. (Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, John 19).  Jesus allowed all this to happen to Him because of His great love for you and me.
His disfigurement and death became our victory.  Placing our faith in the fact that He took away our sins when He died and being given eternal life with Him when He rose from the dead, that is why He did what He did.  He became unrecognizable as a human and died for us because of how much He loved us.  What are you willing to do for Him?