Stay Steadfast In The Faith

Maintain Your Life with God (Jude 1) "But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. (Jude 20-23) We need to take what Jude says here and bring it into our present prevailing enviroment today.. I see that back in Judes day, they had spiritual leaders that were pushing false doctorine, and friends it is no different today. I have just recently had to steer clear of it, as someone tried to push it my way. If we allow these ungodly doctines to indocorinate us, we will begin to slide away from the truth. Read (Jude 1:4),here Jude wrote an urgent warning to believers to be careful and Hhe addresses them as “dear friends” (vv. 3, 17, 20), he has great feelings for those he writes to as he calls them beloved, and in so doing he encourages them “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people” (v. 3). When he asks us as believers to "contend for the faith". The faith refers to the good examples Christ left for us as He was teaching His desiples what they should believe and practiced by following Him. I believe this is also for us today, that God will help us who have heard and believed to follow Christ who is the truth of Scripture and He will give us the strength to earnestly “contend for the faith,” to remain faithful through tough times, of retaliation and persicution when it comes. Jude encourages us to not be decieved by false teachers, but literally hate the things they are doing. (Note that I said, "HATE THE THINGS THEY ARE DOING" I did not say, we should hate the sinner or the deciever, but to hat the sins they are committing in doing the things they are doing). I tell the story of a young man, whn when harrowing a field in the spring got stuck in a big slew of water on his first round around the field, and had to be pulled out of it with another tractor. Well needless to say, on his second round around the field he drove back into the same slew and got stuck again and had to be rescued and second time. To top it off, he also got stuck the third time around. Why do I mention this here,is because this young mans actions is very much like we are in our spiritual realm, we often knowingly wonder back into danger, back into the sin, in which we knew it took us atray and into trouble before. Yes, the a spiritual reality is that we often tend to head back into what God has rescued us from the first time and we need to be rescued again. Well, Jude captures the frusteration in the stupidity of such actions. He writes to the church who is thrashing about while being threatened by false teachers who are causing then to go down immoral roads and comprimising their faith rather than contending for it. So that is why he tells us here to do just that, that we should be standing strong in our faith rather than bending our spinless backs to these paronars. (1:3), He tells them to contend for the faith not only for themselves but also for others too. He says to them, run into the burning building and snatch others “from the fire”(v. 23), friends we are not to just sit in our pews each Sunday and do nothing, we are to take an active role in shielding struggling believers from the wolves and lions out there seeking whom they may devour.(1 Peter 5:8) We as believers in Jesus have stood back a way to long and have watched other floundering and failing in their walk with God, many times refusing to do discipleship training and helping young and old believers in their walk with God.I understand that sometimes, the discipleship we would like to give is not always acepted as help, but rather it is looked upon as hatred because of the sin, those we want to help are involved in. Our present day world calls evil good and good evil, and so many caught up in certain sins, have been bent into believing that lie. I believe God is still calling us as believers today, to run into burning spiritual fires and rescue others and to teach them how to resist returning to the place they were rescued from. Because God is a big loving and caring God, He will by His grace rescue us more than once, from the slew we keep running into, as the young man in my story at the beginning of this devotional. His goal, is to get us to the place where we begin but it live our lives as victorious believers who no longer need rescuing, but rather we become the rescuers. Because it is through the power of God, in the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives that we begin to grow stronger and we start having the strength we need to contend for the faith and help others be built up in the “most holy faith” (v. 20). Friends, what I am talking about here is our mission, it is our duty as believers, and so often we have fallen short, we have missed the fire engine when it left the station. We need to be there, to pull other believers out of the fire. We need to be God ambasidors in showing His mercy and love to believers who doubt and struggle to keep the faith. We need to learn what it means to show mercy mixed with reverent fear for what they are getting themsleves into. Dear God, please help me contend for the faith and help those experiencing doubt, to step out of danger, to get out of the fire before they loose all of their rewards. We do not want to see fellow believers, works go up in smoke.1 Corinthians 3:11-15) We want to see their works turn into GOLD refined by fire as they contend for the faith. Lord help me contend for the faith, so I can be a fire fighter for YOU. AMEN