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Keep yourselves in the love of God
“But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most
holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the
love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto
eternal life” (Jude 20, 21).
Important documents are often kept in a safety deposit
box. We like to keep valuables in a safe place.
Where can we keep ourselves safe? In God’s love! “Keep
yourselves in the love of God.” The word ‘keep’ here means
‘preserve’, ‘keep in safety and protect from harm, decay, loss
or destruction’.
Jude uses the passive form of the same word in verse 1:
“To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and
preserved in Jesus Christ” (Jude 1). A Christian is preserved in
Christ.
Paul wrote: “And the Lord will deliver me from every evil
work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom” (2 Timothy
4:18).
David prayed: “Preserve me, O God, for in You I put my
trust” (Psalm 16:1).
“Keep yourselves in the love of God.” This is a command,
which indicates that we must do something to remain in God’s
love, and also that it is possible to forfeit the protection of
God’s love. Otherwise this command would have no meaning
whatever.
Nothing external can separate us from the love of God:
“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor
principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to
come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall
be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38, 39).
Only by his own neglect can a Christen lose the eternal
protection of the love of God. Thus, it is extremely important
that we know how to keep ourselves in the love of God.
Jesus gave a similar command: “As the Father loved Me, I
also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My
commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept
My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:9,
10).
Thus we must keep the commandments of Jesus to abide
in His love.
Let us examine the context: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the
vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine,
you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears
much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If you abide in
Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire,
and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that
you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. As the Father
loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep
My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have
kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John
15:4-10).
Thus, we remain in the love of Christ, we keep ourselves
in the love of God, by keeping the commandments of Jesus.
Jesus told His followers: “If you love Me, keep My
commandments” (John 14:15).
Jude mentions two essential activities for keeping
ourselves in the love of God: spiritual edification and prayer.
“Building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the
Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God” (Jude 20).
“Building yourselves up on your most holy faith”
Our most holy faith is the Christian faith. It is holy
because it comes from God.
In verse three Jude wrote: “Beloved, while I was very
diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I
found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend
earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the
saints.”
This original faith for which we must contend is our most
holy faith on which we must build ourselves up if we want to
keep ourselves in the love of God.
To abide in Christ’s love we must abide in His word: “Then
Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My
word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free’” (John 8:31, 32).
To abide in the word of Christ we must abide in His
doctrine: “Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the
doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the
doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 9).
God’s word builds us up. Paul told the Ephesian elders:
“So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of
His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an
inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32).
We are built up in Christ: “As you therefore have received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in
Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught,
abounding in it with thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:6, 7).
In the church of Christ, His “one body” (Ephesians 4:4),
we build each other up “till we all come to the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians
4:13).
The church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone”
(Ephesians 2:20; 4:11).
To His church, Christ has also given evangelists, elders
and teachers “for the equipping of the saints for the work of
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians
4:12). To edify means to build up.
Each Christian helps to build up the church, that we,
“speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him
who is the head - Christ - from whom the whole body, joined
and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the
effective working by which every part does its share, causes
growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians
4:15, 16).
We build ourselves up on our most holy faith to keep
ourselves in the love of God.
“Praying in the Holy Spirit”
“But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most
holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the
love of God” (Jude 20).
“By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us,
because He has given us of His Spirit” (1 John 4:13).
To keep ourselves in the love of God we must pray in the
Holy Spirit, “praying always with all prayer and supplication in
the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:18).
We need help when we pray: “Likewise the Spirit also
helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who
searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is,
because He makes intercession for the saints according to the
will of God” (Romans 8:26, 27).
Thus when we pray in the Spirit our inadequate prayers
are accompanied by pleadings of the Holy Spirit in accordance
with the will of God.
In Revelation, golden bowls full of incense represent the
prayers of the saints (Revelation 5:8). An angel with a golden
censer is “given much incense, that he should offer it with the
prayers of all the saints” (Revelation 8:3).
Though we are weak, we pray as well as we can by
following the guidelines on prayer in the Scriptures. Then we
pray with confidence in the knowledge that the Spirit intercedes
for us.
“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that
we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need”
(Hebrews 4:16).
“Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto
eternal life”
“But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most
holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the
love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto
eternal life” (Jude 20, 21).
When we keep ourselves in the love of God by keeping the
commandments of Jesus, building ourselves up on our most
holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, we may look forward
to eternal life.
“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you
completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be
preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He
who calls you is faithful, who also will do it” (1 Thessalonians
5:23, 24). Amen.
Roy Davison
The Scripture quotations in this article are from
The New King James Version. ©1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson Inc.,
Publishers.
Permission for reference use has been granted.
Published in The Old Paths Archive
(http://www.oldpaths.com)