Hold Tight to God
The letter of Jude is a short letter that covers both warning and encouragement. Jude is writing to a group of believers, and he is warning believers that there are some ungodly people in their midst. Some of these people are teaching false doctrine and leading others astray.
Jude warns them to be confident that they are grounded in the truth of God so that they won’t be affected by those who seek to slander or divide them.
Part of his encouragement is to remember the words of Jesus (Jude 1:17). His readers need to continually remember what Jesus said as a way of remaining faithful to that message.
He also encourages them to remain faithful to the things they believed about their own faith, and to continue praying in the Spirit. Reading Scripture, praying in the Spirit, and remaining faithful to God are all critical elements of living a mature Christian life.
That’s why in Jude 1:21, he tells his readers to keep themselves in the love of God as they wait for the day when Jesus will return to make all things new. God’s love isn’t something we experience once—it’s something we continually encounter and participate in.
Jude’s words are relevant to anyone who believes in Jesus. We all need to be engaged in Scripture so that we have confidence in the truths that we believe. As we do that, we should regularly have conversations with God. The more often we do this, the more we are immersed in reminders of His great love.
Take a few moments to think of how you can deepen the time you spend with God. Write down a few steps that you can take to engage in your relationship with Him in new ways.
A New Beginning
New. What a beautiful word. Fresh. Something never discovered before. A beginning.
Is this what you are looking for? To be made new?
Isaiah 43:18-19 (NIV) says: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
The prophet Isaiah wrote the book of Isaiah about 700 years before the coming of Jesus. This passage was written to the Hebrews held in captivity in Babylon, desperate to be set free. They were in physical captivity. They were also in spiritual captivity. Sin—the mistakes and wrongs that are the source of separation between man and God—was reigning over the hearts of man with no one to conquer it. But a way out was coming.
The last part of the passage says: “I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
For a people lost in sin and separated from God, there was no way out on their own. But God made a way by sending His Son, Jesus, as the perfect sacrifice and ...