"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 20, 21} (NIV)
Christians are waiting for our Lord to appear and bring us into eternal life. It may not appear from the outside that we are waiting, for many of us keep ourselves really busy, but the true state of a true Christian is that of waiting.
All of the promises of God are YES in Christ Jesus, and many of them have been fulfilled in the precious state of grace we find ourselves in. Yet the kingdom of God is not yet here on this earth. Our bodies have not yet been changed; they are decaying and they will die. They lead us into sin, and we wait eagerly for that PROMISED Day when our Lord will appear and bring us to Himself.
Jude writes to us and tells us to “keep ourselves in God’s love” by building ourselves up in our faith and praying in the Holy Spirit. In other words, for a true Christian there is a proper way to wait; we are responsible to build up our own faith, and we are to pray in the Holy Spirit.
These two verses in Jude are really an application of the parable of the 10 virgins that our Lord taught in Matthew 25:1-18. The parable is told in the context of the second coming of our Lord and the end of this age, and is clearly directed at the church (the bride of Christ) being prepared while waiting for the bridegroom (our Lord) to come to the wedding feast.
Friend, may we this day, pray in the Holy Spirit. May we pray that little song we used to sing as children:
“Give me oil for my lamp, keep it burning
Give me oil for my lamp I pray
Give me oil for my lamp, keep it burning
Keep it burning till the light of day”
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