Time’s glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,
To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn and sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger till he render right,
To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,
And smear with dust their glittering golden towers.
~William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. 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. 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…. But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
~ From The Book of Jude
Oh beloved, it is true. There is a horrible truth about “Christianity” today.
We move.
We try.
We fail.
And we try some more.
And we fail again.
There are those among us who have come in with two different messages that are really the same thing. One of the messages is that the grace of G_d is but a ticket for us to keep “enjoying” the behaviors that were killing our spirit before He made us alive in Him. The other message is that we need to leverage off of what G_d has done for us, and work really hard to keep ourselves from ever repeating those horrible behaviors again. And again, both messages are actually the same thing: Law, self-righteousness, and pride.
Can we see it? Both, maintaining the right to maintain our old behaviors OR trying to flee from them in our own strength, reek of the same dead flesh that ended us up in trouble in the first place. Both tracks put faith in ourselves over Him, and put us into direct contention with the Gospel.
Enter the Grace for which Jude contends.
Wait.
Wait. Be still. Trust that it is G_d, and G_d alone, who is able to keep us from stumbling. For it is this G_d who has the glory, majesty, dominion, and authority necessary to actually enable us to overcome the impossible problem of sin in our lives.
Difficult? Yeah, impossible. And this is the very good news of the Gospel. We do not have to fight for anything. For it is He that does indeed go before us. And even though everything within us screams that we have to rise up and do something – the only viable path is to sit still in His Presence and let Him continue the work He has begun in us.
Time will indeed tell. Just wait and see beloved!
