Thanks for joining us for today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

I'm Sheridan Voizzi, and I've titled our reading, Walk With Me.

A few years ago, a popular song hit the charts with a gospel choir singing the chorus,

Jesus walks with me. Behind the lyrics

lies a powerful story. The choir was started by jazz musician Curtis Lundy when he entered a

treatment program for cocaine addiction. Drawing fellow addicts together and finding inspiration

in an old hymnal, he wrote that chorus as a hymn of hope for those in rehab.

We were singing for our lives, one choir member says of the song.

We were asking Jesus to save us, to help us get out of the drugs.

Another found that her chronic pain subsided when she sang the song.

That choir wasn't just singing words on a sheet, but offering desperate prayers for redemption.

In Christ, our God has appeared to offer salvation to all people.

While eternal life is part of this gift, God is working on us now,

empowering us to regain self-control, say no to worldly passions, and

redeem us for life with him. As the choir members found, Jesus doesn't just forgive our sins. He frees us

from destructive lifestyles. Jesus walks with me, and you, and anyone who cries out to him for help, he's with us, offering hope for the future and salvation now.

Today's scripture reading is from Titus chapter 2, verses 11 to 14.

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live

self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age while we wait for the blessed hope,

the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people

that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

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