Keeping: Jude 1:21

From: The Epistle of Jude: An Expository Outline

By: Hamilton Smith

Narrator: Chris Genthree

Duration: 2min

JUS 1:21 • 1 min. read • grade level: 7

(Jude 21²¹Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. (Jude 21))

But praying in the Holy Ghost leads to a further important exercise expressed by the word keep. “Keep yourselves in the love of God” (vs. 21). Prayer in the Holy Ghost puts the soul in close touch with God, and to be in touch with God is to enjoy the conscious sense of His love, for God is love. As Christians we all admit the fact that God loves us, but it is another thing to live in the consciousness of His love. Yet what is more important, or more blessed, than to walk in the constant sense that we are loved by God! The religious world Cain’s world may hate us; many of God’s dear people may misunderstand us, but God loves us. Circumstances may be difficult, sorrows may accumulate, and evil may abound; but if we keep ourselves in the love of God, none of these things will be allowed to call in question the glorious fact that the love of God, expressed in Christ, is streaming down upon us through the opened heavens. Just as we are kept in the love of God, we shall be delivered from love of the world (1 John 2:15¹⁵Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:15)); kept in love with the saints (1 John 5:1¹Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. (1 John 5:1)); and led out in love to the sinner (2 Cor. 5:14¹⁴For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: (2 Corinthians 5:14)).

Moreover, this love will not be satisfied until we are with Christ and like Christ. Then indeed God will “rest in His love” (Zeph. 3:17¹⁷The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)) and joy over us with singing (Zeph. 3:17¹⁷The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)).

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