THE VERSE
But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.~Jude 20-21
THE THOUGHT
Here we have some practical wisdom as to how to obey the command we first saw in yesterday's Daily Verse- "Keep yourselves in the love of God." Today we learn how to do that. First, it would be helpful to see this verse translated more literally from the Greek: "Building yourselves up in the most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ." The only command here is "keep yourselves in the love of God." The other three verbs are participles, which means that they modify the verb "keep." In other words, they tell us how to keep ourselves: "Keep yourselves in the love of God, building yourselves up in the faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. So there we have three practical steps to keeping ourselves in the love of God: build up your faith, pray, and wait for the return of Jesus.To build yourself up in the faith means, essentially, to continually remind yourself of what you have believed, to preach the gospel to yourself. We build our faith up by continually looking to the cross where our faith is centered, where we see the love of God and our own sin most clearly. C.J. Mahaney, in meditating on this verse, said, "The best way to keep yourself in the love of God is to remind yourself of God's love for you." To build ourselves up in the faith, to preach the gospel to ourselves, is to continually remind ourselves of God's love for us.
The second participle, the second step to keeping yourself in the love of God, is simple: pray. Have you every realized how vitally important your prayer life is? Prayer is a means of keeping ourselves in the love of God. In prayer, we put our hearts into a position of dependence on God and learn to trust Him for everything. The third step to keeping yourself in the love of God is perhaps the most surprising one: wait for the return of Jesus. Keeping ourselves oriented on our future hope, on the glory of heaven and the reward waiting for us there, is the Bible's prescription for fighting off the sickness of worldly temptations. The more heavenly minded we are, the less appealing the seductions of this world become.
THE PRAYER
Father, Thank you for equipping me with everything I need to keep myself in Your love, and for promising me that You are keeping me for Jesus Christ, and that You are able to keep me from stumbling and to present me before the presence of Your glory with great joy. Help me, as I learn to preach the gospel to myself, to pray, and to wait for the return of Christ, to rest in the grace of the gospel, assured that You have kept me, You are keeping me, and You will keep me forever, never letting me go.EXTENDED READING
Psalm 116:7-10Philippians 4:6-7
2 Peter 3:10-13
THE QUOTE
"I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am." ~John NewtonTHROUGH THE BIBLE IN A YEAR
Ezekiel 29-30Job 10
John 10:1-10
1 John 2:18-23
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