True Inward Transformation
Have you ever thought about what a proper response to God looks like when you make a mistake?
It was common in ancient times to tear your clothes as a way of repenting and showing sorrow over mistakes you may have made. It was an outward expression of something happening internally.
But what would often happen is people would make a public display of repentance without actually repenting in their heart. So, rather than tearing your clothes, God says He would rather you repent in your heart. Tearing your clothes means nothing if your heart isn’t broken before God. Outward expressions should come from true, inward transformation.
And God says that anyone who comes to Him in genuine repentance will experience His grace and compassion. We do not need to fear God’s wrath since we are His children. He encourages us to repent and return to Him when we mess up.
Scripture says that God is slow to anger and abounding in love. Rather than living in guilt and sorrow, God says He will give grace and love instead. He desires that we experience and live within His love, even when we mess up.
What is your first reaction when you mess up? If you try to hide or ignore your sin, take some time to consider why. God wants you to experience freedom and love. Go to Him with what you’re carrying in your heart, and repent of anything that goes against His ways.
Remember that nothing can remove His love from you. He desires that you live in grace and mercy as a child of God.
Jude
English Standard Version
Greeting
1 Jude, a servant[a] of Jesus Christ and brother of James,
To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for[b] Jesus Christ:
2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Judgment on False Teachers
3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved[c] a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of ...