“For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Tit 3:3-7).

We are always inspired by the unmerited generosity of philanthropists (people with affectionate concern for and interest in humanity). I recently watched a video clip of Shaquille O’neal (former NBA superstar) randomly purchasing a bicycle for a sweet little boy in a department store. But imagine for a moment if Shaquille O’neal would have entered a boarding school for teenage delinquents to adopt every single one of them, and made them all heirs of his fortunes. Unthinkable! The cross, my friends, makes the world’s greatest philanthropists look like misers next to God. The word used to describe God’s kindness in Titus 3:4 is “philanthrōpia” (where we get the word philanthropist). God is, and will always be the greatest, most giving, most unimaginably generous philanthropist the world has ever seen. The gift of God’s Son for undeserving sinners is an act of philanthropy that simply cannot be outdone:

“so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:7).