Jude 1:1-25
One day judgment will come and God will evaluate our lives.
let us be careful not to be grumblers and faultfinders; to be boastful or flatter others for our own advantage.
but instead, let us encourage one another to build ourselves up in our faith and to pray in the Holy Spirit.
and let us remember to be merciful to those who doubt about the faith, but to show love and grace.
"mercy, mixed with fear"...to show mercy because we have shown mercy and to fear Him because He is the only true God.
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Jude warns against false teachers and leaders, what he wrote is nothing new. Today we find apostasy, false teaching, Gnostics teaching, heresy, mysticism operating in church as in Jude's time. If you read Jere 23:14-23, Jeremiah also warned against false prophets and teachers – nothing is new under the sky.
As we are coming to end time, we need to be careful what we hear, read, and follow. We pray and ask God for a higher discernment, use the Words like a sword.
Jude wrote to combat these false teachings and to encourage true doctrine and right conduct. The word of God can never be compromised because only the truth gives life. We have to guard our heart with all diligence, to open our spirit to compromised teaching, behavior, would mean putting ourselves to intrusion that could bring us down. Spiritual reality is the true work of Holy Spirit. Work of the flash may make us feel comfortable or even happy for a little while, but soon it becomes meaningless, empty. To be part of the world, that condition will dull our senses and we will not become sharp of things of God. A warning from Art Katz said "you don't know what price you are paying to be so indiscriminate to accept anything that comes, ". Take that warning dear saints. Always guard your heart.
To give an example, I am very careful on any "grace" message, Pastor Sam's teaching on Grace is good. There is this pastor in Spore who is big on "grace" teaching, it sounded great to the soul, but deeper study reveals it comes with a lot of compromise on the true message of God. Some pastors in Spore and Malaysia call this "cheap grace message". Then another church's pastor rose up and gave two teachings on "Antinomiasim", (I found that to be extremely well researched work) - churches in Spore almost spilt up over this.
To avoid getting into un-necessary temptation, let us first guard our heart, determined a life style of "fear of the Lord", afterall fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
V3,4,8,16,19 – a leaven of evil was at work. These intruders are: worldly, carnal, skeptical, lawless, critical, flatterers and immoral. In contrast, true believers of Jesus, lifting high the cross of Christ. They are: "Praying in the Holy Spirit" (v20), "Keeping in God's love" (v.21), "waiting for God's mercy" (v21), "Winning souls for Him" (v22-23), "Resting on His keeping power" (v24)
Saints, we will continue to fall short of His glory, but His genuine grace is sufficient, to know we are sinners, and we are only saved by His grace, not our work. We ask God to help us to live a life of purity. We humbly seek not just His hands but His face, to know Him, to enter into His throne room, to behold of His glory and beauty, I tell you once you have that kind of experience, nothing in the world will satisfy you. Let us pray for a hunger for the truth, as we seek the truth God will give us the truth, if we seek half truth, we'll get half truth – alas! If we seek lies, God will give us over to the liar.
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