T for Teaching Truth

I greatly admire many of the religious products for teaching children that most Christian faiths have created to help them follow the Lord.  Be careful though when you come across a story that does not make enough sense.  In any event, my six year old and I read from a wonderful devotion book for Christian children.  It contains nice stories with a bible verse to read each day.  We've thoroughly enjoyed the stories and verses...except when we got to todays.  We still enjoyed the story and verse but had to correct the mistake with the correct quote and explanation of the verse.  The story was a bit vague also and we needed to discuss the error here.  It is a good lesson to be able to search for the truth and to be aware of some things that may conflict with truth.  Anyway, here are the two bible verses we compared:

"He saved us, not because of the good things we did, but because of his mercy." (Titus 3:5)

and

"But when the kindness and generous love of God our Savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because of his mercy, he saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life." (Titus 4-7)

One verse appears to be saying God our Savior appeared because of his mercy and another verse appears to be saying God saved us because of his mercy.  One verse speaks of saving through baptism which is our movement toward the Savior.  It requires our work, deeds, and participation.  The other verse makes you think there is nothing you can do to gain eternal life...except, I guess, believe or something.  Just interesting to note the difference here.