Video Blog: Growing Apart! Jude 20-21 Part 3
But you, beloved,
building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of
God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal
life.
THE STUDY:
Jude reveals
the foundation upon which believers should build: their faith and prayer. The third
foundation we find Jude commanding his readers: keep yourselves in the love of God. This phrase represents the main
imperative of vv 20–21. Jude described his readers as “kept by Jesus Christ” in v 1. But now he urges them to keep yourselves in the love of God.
This is strikingly similar to Jesus’
instruction to his disciples to “remain
in my love” (John 15:9). Jesus explains to his disciples that they remain
in his love by obeying his commandments (15:10). It is precisely in the area of
obedience to Christ’s commands that the false teachers erred so miserably. Jude
reminds his readers that those who truly love God will keep themselves in God’s love. One of the ways believers keep
themselves in God’s love is by obeying his commands (John 15:1–17).[1]
WHAT WE CAN WALK AWAY
WITH ….
- We walk away this morning with the understanding that as believers, we are to be actively involved in this relationship with Christ. This means to keep ourselves in God’s love. How do we do this? By Obedience!
CONCLUSION:
Many of us
have had relationships that didn’t last. Allowing time to distance ourselves
from that relationship we have been able to learn what went wrong! Majority of
time, the failure of that relationship was caused by us not continuing to be
actively involved. I counsel couples who start the session off by saying, “We
have grown apart!” Why have they grown apart? They stopped being actively
involved.
My wife and I
go out on dates. Our friends believe it is because we want to get away from the
kids. There is some truth in that but as for our marriage we want to stay
active in the nurturing of our relationship. For many couples, the trouble
begins when they stop actively nurturing their relationship.
The same is
true in our relationship with Christ. When we start disobeying God’s word we
stop actively nurturing the relationship. This is when love dissipates and we are
saying “We have grown apart!” Let today be a day that you actively nurture your
relationship with Christ by doing what He wants you to do. Let’s show Christ our
love by our obedience.
Blessings my friends
Pastor Rod
[1]
Powers, D. G. (2010). 1 & 2
Peter/Jude: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition. New Beacon Bible
Commentary (293). Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press.
