Jude 1:18-21 They (the Apostles of Jesus) said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. It is instinctive to “think the best” and “give the benefit of the doubt” to our fellow man. That is a natural affection of loving God and loving our neighbor, but we are not to be naive to think that we live in a “perfect” world. Friends and family have mentioned to me lately that their teenage kids are being approached and solicited to engage in sex, drugs, booze, and disregard old ideas of moral boundaries and a God that set them. They are shocked to see what tolerance of sin has produced today in our society (now targeting & touching their children) and seeing that the tolerance was only in one direction. Why can’t we all just get along? Because the Truth is: In this world there is right & wrong, there is good & bad, there is light & darkness, there is faith & unbelief; there is godly and there is ungodly. All is based on God and His sovereign reign and rule in our heart & life.
In John 3:17-20 Jesus said: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”
God loves all men and women because God is love; His essence and central attribute is love. Our just God of love shows mercy by giving grace. Justice - meaning to get what we deserve for our sins that miss God’s mark (standards of our Creator found in the Bible), Mercy - meaning to not get what we deserve out of His love, compassion, and kindness, and Grace – meaning to get what we do not deserve out of His benevolence. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” & Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are saved by grace; not by love. God’s free gift of salvation is offered, but we must turn from our ungodly sin in repentance and truly accept the gift He offers in Christ.
God’s mercy is to the misery of sin’s consequence and God’s grace is only in the providing of an atoning Savior in Jesus to pay the price for our sin. Jude speaks of ungodly people, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. On the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. They are like wild waves of the sea, churning up the foam of their shameful deeds. They are like wandering stars, doomed forever to blackest darkness. These people are grumblers and complainers, living only to satisfy their desires. They brag loudly about themselves, and they flatter others to get what they want. The grace of God is not a license for shameful licentiousness, to continue to live in gross immorality and sin in the eyes of the Lord.
Jude 1:25 All glory to him who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. All glory, majesty, power, and authority are his before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time! Amen.
Saved by grace, Brian
4 comments:
Good post Brian, some heavy lifting in there. hope all will take time to truly read and digest.
It is indeed sad to see how even some Christians conform to society's ways that are not pleasing to the Lord. Some forget that we are to be holy because we serve a Holy God! We are commanded to love others but we are also told not to conform to this world for He is not of this world. agree with bro. Gregg...lots to digest because I was taking my time.
God bless.
Thanks for the comments. The issues of our age, dispite our prayers & wishes, are sometimes heavy because they are reality that hits home. Our Heavenly Father teaches us, like our fathers here in Earth to grow and mature with stable standards and rules to handle the issues and also commissioned to bring that "light (of there godly standards) into the darkness", where knowledge of Jesus affects the culture. It is good to carefully dig deep into God's word and digest what is being communicated by the Holy Sprit for godly knowledge and application in our lives today. We are in the ungodly world, but not of the ungodly world. Holy children of God in the world to reflect and bring the light of Christ to our neighbors that they too my find salvation and the fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5) in a "saving" knowledge of Jesus at the foot of the Cross. God is good, life is good, the world ... not so much. Let's make a difference, for Christ's sake. That's why we write.
Very meaty post; I love it. You said, "The grace of God is not a license for shameful licentiousness, to continue to live in gross immorality and sin in the eys of the Lord.
Yet I see some pastors living in the way of the world. This saddens me so much for those who are supposed to be helping us understand the ways of God are yet leading astray. Especially our young who are so susceptible to the teachings of the pastors above them, they are learning a mixture of God and world.
Prayer is our weapon to use in situations like this and wise words placed properly in conversations.
Thank you! You are very wise in what you write here and I am happy to see that you are in a position to influence new Christians.
<><
Post a Comment