Thursday, June 30, 2011

Keep Yourself in the Love of God

The weekly Bible study group I've been a part of has just spent four weeks in Jude's short epistle, and it has been wonderful. The verse from Jude that really floats my gunnysack is this:
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.
That rocks. And that part where Jude says, "keep yourself in the love of God," that has been making me wonder, how do you do that? then I ran across this quote from Elyze Fitspatrick's book Because He Loves Me:
One reason we don’t grow in ordinary, grateful obedience as we should is that we’ve got amnesia; we’ve forgotten that we are cleansed from our sins. In other words, ongoing failure in our growth is the direct result of failing to remember God’s love for us in the gospel. If we fail to remember our justification, redemption, and reconciliation, we’ll struggle in our sanctification. In other words, remembering, revisiting, and rediscovering the reality of our justification every day is the hard work we’re called to do if we’re going to grow.
I don't think Elyze has exhausted the possibilities for how to "keep yourself in the love of God," but it's a pretty good start.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

sounds like a good group.