Jacobs Thoughts and Doings

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.

Jude 24

Jude is aware of the fact that even though we are solidly committed to Jesus Christ and all he represents; we sometimes stumble a bit on the way.  For some, doubts enter the soul.  For some, a besetting sin returns to plague the heart.  Praise God because he has ways of making us aware of our stumblings and gives the courage and grace to repent and then get back on the way, strengthened by a new awareness of our weakness and need of his assistance.

I note that the promise is that the presence of Christ in our lives can keep us from stumbling.  That is the best.  But, as we just noted, even a believer finds that he or she inadvertently stumbles.  However, when we become aware of that we repent and get back on the way.

Then Jude paints a glorious picture – it is me,  you and other believers, being presented by Jesus Christ to the Father with great delight, because we are Christ’s by adoption as children of His grace.  We will be presented as faultless!  Can it be?  That is the promise and is possible only because Jesus shed his blood to cleanse us from all sin.  Jude uses the phrase, without fault.  This is only possible because of the cleansing that is available through Christ’s death and resurrection.

So?  There is great joy in the heart of God, in the heart of Jesus Christ and in the heart of the saved believer.  This is the greatest joy that the human heart can ever desire.  It surpasses all joys.  That is a promise that we can grasp with all our hearts.  Jude closes his short letter with this glorious scene, a scene that sets the heart to praise.  May we all who love Jesus, praise God with all our strength, as we are presented before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy. Amen.

The time is here – the last roses of Summer reveal their subtle beauty as the season comes to an end.  I find joy in poring over this small blossom, a most gracious farewell to a delightful Summer. Several of our roses are now blooming for the last time before their Winter sleep.

Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear.

Jude 22, 23

October 10, 1944, 72 years ago today, a sixteen-year-old young man, a rebel, met the Lord Jesus – a meeting that changed his life!  The repentant who was received by Jesus Christ was, of course, me.  So today, my heart is glad.  I owe everything to the One who paid the price of my redemption and who has walked with me on this long but exciting journey of life, all those years, alongside a wonderful wife, Anna Ruth, bless her.  Thank you, Lord, for Anna Ruth!

As I survey my long life, I admit that there were times when I could not find my way but as I look back, the Lord Jesus never gave up on me.  He promised to love me to the end.  That promise held and is as real this morning as it ever was. In my feeble way, I promise to love Him to the end – until faith is a blazing reality.  He never left me nor did he take away from me the desire to live in and for Him.  That is my personal testimony.

I then discovered my life-calling, to point people to Him!  I was a shifty, self-centered young man, lost but too proud to admit it.  Then, Jesus met me and changed me more than I could have imagined. If he could do that for me, could he not do the same for all who were simply wandering about, lost?  I think this is what propelled me to invite others to come to Christ, the passion of my long life.

I strove to put into practice the advice of Jude, “ Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear.” I know what doubt is. I know what it is to fiercely judge others while excusing myself. I know what it is to lack heart-felt mercy. I also discovered that the desire to see all people find Jesus Christ never departed from my soul.  It is there today as a miracle of God’s grace.

So I sing my song of gratitude and joy today, my spiritual birthday, the same song that multitudes have sung and are singing – a choir that by God’s grace I will eventually join and blend with forever, with Jesus. What a birthday gift!

This evening, October 7, Lancaster Mennonite School will kick off a weekend of celebrations to mark its 75^th anniversary. I feel honored to read a portion of Scripture tonight, the opening event for the weekend.

The school opened in 1942.  Anna Ruth enrolled as a sophomore that year and graduated in 1945 and I taught there from 1949 to 1952.  So that lovely spot along the Conestoga River is a revered place for us.

Below, Anna Ruth as a sophomore in 1942, her first year at LMH, with a friend, picture taken in front of one  of the original buildings on the campus.

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Jude 24, 25

I love this doxology, one of my favorites.  Jude places us in the hands of our loving God who is able to keep us from stumbling on the way, or even falling, if we cling to Jesus and he to us.

Try as we might, we cannot please God in our own strength, we need desperately the enabling power of the Holy Spirit who is in us by God’s grace.  Jude does not tell us to concentrate on obeying the law, there is no future in that, but to concentrate our attention on Jesus Christ who is God’s Lamb, given for our salvation.  He becomes our obedience.  He enables us to live the law.

It is Jesus who will present us before God without fault and with great joy.  Praise God for the without fault part, even more for the exuberant joy, on the part of God and, of course, us!  God’s joy is enlarged as those whom Jesus saves appear before him!  That is almost beyond belief.

To whom are we commended?  To the only God.  There is no other.  He alone is our Savior!  To Him be glory, majesty, power and authority.  These words expand our hearts as we ponder our salvation in Jesus Christ. They are words I seldom use or even read about.  Glory is for God alone.  Majesty, God on his throne of love.  Power, the Spirit of God in us to overcome the evil one.  Authority, God’s unquestioned rule in my life.  His authority is our resting place.  I embrace these promises, these truths.

Forevermore.  That caps it all.  What more to say?  The only response is simply but dynamically to shout, “Amen,” along with myriad other saves ones. So be it, now and forever.

Our little brick steps gave way to a porch at our place.  It ties things together, with fish pools, outdoor fire pit, lawn.  A nice addition. It took a couple of weeks to build but it is now done.

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Jude 24, 25

Having exposed (rather harshly at times) the attraction of a heresy that leads away from walking daily and humbly with Jesus Christ, Jude now shifts gears and eagerly writes words of healing and joy that is our text for the day.

Jude commends us, his readers, or gives us, so to speak, to the keeper of our souls, Jesus Christ.  After all, we are His!  We gave ourselves to Him. Why should we even think of taking back our lives, to return to our former days?  We are safe in Jesus.  He is able to keep us from stumbling on the way if we walk humbly at his side.

The reward?  We do not come to Jesus for a reward, but for salvation.  But, as we find ourselves in Jesus Christ we begin to realize how very blessed we are, receiving gifts that we do not, in any way, deserve.  An example, we live without fault as we walk with our blessed Jesus Christ who cleanses and keeps us hour by hour. Not only does Jesus present us before God as faultless, but absolutely full of joy, not in our accomplishments but in the grace of our Lord Jesus.   That is the stance we assume now and forever.

Whose hands are we in?  God’s, of course. He is our Savior and Lord. We experience his glory, his majesty, his power and authority.  That is quite a list!  It is all in Jesus.  It is ours as we walk with him.

How certain are we?  Jude helps us to realize that we are the Lord’s now, that we were his before time began and we will be his forevermore.  Can we possibly take that in?  Why would anyone deliberately walk away from that wonderful salvation?  Unfortunately, some of Jude’s readers did.  Hopefully many repented and resumed their daily walk with Jesus.

May I and you, dear reader, continue to walk simply with Jesus Christ, never, ever leaving him for another alternative.  As Jude testifies, we are in the only God.  There is no other. Let us remain in him, rooted and grounded and growing in Him, now and forever.  Amen.

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.”  These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.  Jude 17 – 21

Having exposed the self-centered heresy, Jude turns to his dear friends with comfort, wisdom and instruction.   That heresies have appeared among the believers should not shock us, or them.  So what shall we do?  Jude has just encouraged them to recognize that the self-seeking desire is the door to heresy. This needs to be faced and exposed for what it is, a Christ-diminishing heresy. If it goes on unchallenged, the entire group of sincere believers suffers.  Therefore, it is imperative that blatant heresies among them must be exposed and condemned.

Now he turns to the positives.  Build yourselves up in your most holy faith.  Jude does not suggest that they redo their foundations because the foundation stands firm forever – the Lord Jesus Christ.  Rather, build on Him.

Never, ever leave that foundation, ever.  That is sure – Jesus Christ is Lord.  If our relationship with Jesus Christ is secure then we can go on to build on that unshakable foundation. That is what Jude calls your most holy faith.

Then he encourages them to pray in the Holy Spirit. What does that mean?  It means to pray, of course, and to continue to pray and to always submit your spirit as you pray to the counsel and wisdom of the Holy Spirit of God. That is sure defense for heresy that places self at the center and not the Spirit of the Lord.  So we must guard our prayer life that we submit to Jesus Christ and not to our self-centered demands.

Then Jude uses an expression that I have tried to comprehend and embrace fully, keep yourself in God’s love.  What does that mean?   For me it means remembering always that I am saved by grace, by the enduring love of God.  I have no other plea.  I must beware of the temptation, then, as life goes on, to forget all about that and seek freedom or some gift that is contrary to the love of God that received me in the first place. I must learn, daily, to wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, not to rush ahead with questionable motives, but to rest on Him, as I first knew him and received him into my life as Lord and Savior. He will work in my life to bring me to eternal life.

Along the path, now and again, one is struck by simple beauty.  The red and green do not clash but highlight one another.  Nature has a lot to teach all of us, especially me.