Psalm 71:5 For you have been my hope, Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth.
The more you get to know someone, the more they are likely to allow you to know about them – it’s the circle of trust.
God wants us to learn more about Him every day so He can share more about Himself with us.
There is nothing more precious than the circle of trust with Christ!
Psalm 80:3 Restore us, O God; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved.
God told mankind a Saviour would be born to a virgin and they should wait for this event.
Mankind got too tied up in their own lives to see when this actually came!
We need to ask God to open our eyes so we can see the truth and believe it without doubting.
December 17: Jude 1:3-4
Key Verse: Jude 1:4
For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a licence for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
Devotion:
If this epistle was written by Jude the brother of James, and hence Jesus, the words hold so much more meaning than if they were not. Not because it would make him ‘famous’ but because of the inside knowledge he would have had as the brother of James and Jesus! He would have been able to hear all about what was going on through direct news through the family!
The epistle warns of the ungodly people who are going to infiltrate the church, at this stage the early Christian church! He writes these words warning of ungodly people who will take up positions of power and trust and damage things from the inside. This same warning Jesus gave to the disciples by telling them of the effect a little yeast would have in the bread mixture; it would spread throughout the dough and cause the whole mixture to be different.
The Jews mostly ate unleavened bread, so they knew the affect a little yeast would make on the dough mixture. This is the effect a single ungodly person can have on a church or congregation. I can remember doing into a church in Zimbabwe and being horrified by one or two people who were doing things which did not make sense to me; to me they were destroying the church from the inside…
These are the type of people Jude is warning about, one or two who will change the way the church exists, making it something the original designer did not intend it to be.
Points to Ponder:
Do you follow God’s rules?
Will you try to keep following God’s instructions?
Psalm 42:1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.
Whenever I read these words the song written in the 80’s always springs to mind which makes us think the writer was very close to God…
But, thinking about the words it suggests to me the author was trying to find his way back to God – the living water.
Just as animals will seek out watering holes to continue their lives, so we should be seeking God’s word to enable our lives to thrive!