Jude 1:20-21 - "Building Yourselves Up"

Today, Sunday November 21 “Building Yourselves Up” Jude 1:20-21 “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” In these verses Jude gives us four things to think about and to do as we respond to the false teachers even in our day! The first thing we should do is to “remember” God’s Word (Vs. 17-19). We should not only remember the warnings that His Word gives us about these false teachers, but we should remember the promises that God has made to us as His children! But most of all, as we are remembering God’s Word, we should be encouraged, comforted, energized and strengthened when we think about the Person Who gave us these promises. He is the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and eternal God of love and mercy! The second thing we should do is to “build up ourselves on our most holy faith”(v. 20). The Christian life must never stand still; if it does, it will go backward. A house left to itself falls apart. The apostates are in the business of tearing down, but each Christian must be involved in building up—first, his own spiritual life and then his local assembly. At the moment we became a follower of Jesus Christ we immediately were made a part of the most exciting building program in all the world! Paul talked about this often in his epistles. “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:19-22) In Ephesians 4:15-16 Paul goes on to say: “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” After Jesus gave His first recorded message, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), He concluded with this application: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27) If we are to stand strong without stumbling (Jude 1:24), we must continually be building on the foundation of God’s Word and on the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ! He is the Solid Rock! We build by simply believing and obeying His Word! We are either building or coming apart, standing strong or stumbling around! May the Lord help us to be good builders today! God Bless!