Faultless

 June 12, 2022

“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. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy…” —Jude 1:20-21, 24 

Jude is one of the shortest books in the Scriptures, less than a single page in most Bibles. He writes to encourage Christians and to warn them about false teachers who even in those early years had infiltrated the church. He says some interesting things in the verses I’ve chosen for today, the first being, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” He doesn’t explain exactly what he means by this, but in three adverbial phrases, he does tell us how it happens:

1. “Building yourselves up in your most holy faith.” In v. 3, he speaks of “contending for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” In other words, don’t let yourself get led astray by false teachers. He then gives their identifying characteristics: dissolute and arrogant lifestyles, and encourages his readers to listen to the words of the original apostles; in other words, check everything a preacher says by the Scriptures. Too many Christians are so deficient in their personal study of the Bible that they are easily led astray by anyone charismatic and convincing in their speech.

2. “Praying in the Holy Spirit.” Jude doesn’t give us any clue to what he means here, apparently assuming his readers know about this. At the very least, he is encouraging his readers to be men and women of prayer, something most of us could stand to do more of.

3. “Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.” His best clue to his meaning here is in the following two verses where he speaks of doing all we can do to rescue the lost: “And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.” The love of God isn’t merely something offered to bless us, but something we offer to bless others.

It is instructive that he begins this section with, “Keep yourselves in the love of God,” but concludes with God’s ability to keep us from falling. We have the responsibility to keep in God’s love, but he is the only one able to keep us from falling away. It is the disciplines Jude outlines which are the means by which God keeps us from falling. There are times when he reaches down and divinely intervenes to rescue us, but his most common means of keeping us from falling is when we build ourselves up in faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, and keep focused on being merciful like Jesus. The best part of it all is the last promise: “He is able…to present us faultless before his presence with exceeding joy.” He keeps us from falling away, but in our frailty we often stumble and fall. But the day is coming when we stand before the glorious and almighty Father, completely clothed in the righteousness of Christ…faultless. What a day that will be!