There Is Hope in Jesus!

Daily Reading: Jude 1

Scripture Focus: 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.(Jude 1.4)

Devotional Thought: Jude warns Christians against being drawn away from the pure gospel message by teachers of false doctrine.  Though it was written almost 2000 years ago, there are messages here that are needed more than ever in the Church today.  A much-needed corrective was written in Why We’re Not Emergent by DeYoung and Kluck:

“In the end, it all comes back to God.  We become what we worship.  If God is relational, inviting, and mysterious overwhelmingly more than He is omnipotent, just, and knowable, then the gospel becomes a message overwhelmingly about community, inclusion, and journey.  But if God is overwhelmingly holy, righteous, and graciously sovereign, then the gospel becomes a message about sin, justification, and undeserved mercy.”

Jude warns about false teachers, calling them “waterless clouds” and “fruitless trees... twice dead, uprooted”.  Where are the roots of these false teachers?  They are certainly not grounded in the firm and unchanging foundation of the Word.  In verse 15, Jude tells of Enoch’s prophesy, saying that the Lord is coming to judge everyone, and to “convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”  One word keeps popping up here: ungodly.  The Lord will judge the ungodly. 

Maybe being godly sounds unattainable to the world.  But, the Church need not stop there in hopelessness!  There is hope for the ungodly, and it is not an unattainable mystery… it is in one man named Jesus!

Jenny

Prayer: Oh, Jesus!  You are my Sovereign and Lord.  I turn to you for strength to live morally upright so that you are honored through my life.  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 96.1-6

1 Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth!

2 Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day.

3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!

4 For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods.

5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens.

6 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.