Jude 17-21 “But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. 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.” This episode talks about how we can build our faith and how important it is to follow the spirit of God. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
There Will Always Be Scoffers
Jude 17-21 “But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. 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.”
“In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.”Unfortunately, I don’t think this is limited to the last times. I think all throughout the ages there have been many scoffers. Many people who mock our religion and Jesus and the Lord our God. Jesus even said in John 15:18, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” The people of God have been ridiculed since almost the beginning of time. People don’t always understand why we do the things we do, or believe the things we believe. I think the part about how they follow their own ungodly desires, is so true, especially today. It may have always been true, just as it is today, however, I feel as though with how easy everything is to get nowadays, it might be worse. I feel as though we are definitely a culture that feels like we deserve to have all that we desire and we don’t want anyone tell us any different.
We are like children rebelling against our parents about all the rules of the house. We don’t understand that often times rules are given to keep us safe. When we are younger we need to rely on our parents for these rules as we are not old enough to think for ourselves. Our parents are older and wiser and can help guide us until we can make our own decisions. This is the same for God. He provides us with rules and a way to live so that He can keep us safe. Until we are wiser and we can make our own decisions about how we want to live. The problems, a lot of times we don’t make great choices. Even when we get older, we don’t necessarily get wiser. The next line in the verse talks about how the people that divide us are those that just follow their instincts and aren’t guided by the Holy Spirit. Wow, I find that powerful. I don’t know about you, but I find myself relying on my instincts rather than the Spirit all too often.
There is a difference between our instincts and that small voice inside of us that is the Holy Spirit. I was just telling someone the other day that she needed to trust that voice inside of them that was guiding her. I told her to pray for what to do and to really listen and the voice inside her would guide her. That still small voice inside of you, that is the Holy Spirit. The one that is so faint you can’t really hear it most of the time, that is the Lord speaking to you. The difference between following our natural instincts and following the Holy Spirit is prayer and time. If you are stopping and taking the time to pray about something, and then also taking the time to listen to what the Lord has to say about it, that you are probably following the prompting of the Holy Spirit. However, if you are just responding automatically based on either your emotions, or on the way you have always done things in the past, then you are not responding to the Holy Spirit. Responding to our natural instincts without listening for the guidance of the Holy Spirit can lead us to following our ungodly desires. This will not get us to where we want to go.
Luckily for us, the verse doesn’t stop there. The verse continues on to tell us how we get to where we want to go. The verse says, “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.” Yes, please, sign me up for eternal life. I want that. If we don’t want to act on our ungodly desires the verse is telling us that we need to build ourselves up in our most holy faith, to pray in the Holy Spirit, and to keep ourselves in God’s love as we wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. How do we build ourselves us in our faith? I think there are a lot of ways. This is a good thing because what might be good for me, might not be good for you. What I really like to do is listen to praise and worship music and sing along, loudly, if I am alone. I love to write in my prayer journal and listen to podcasts and audio books to build my faith. I also love praying in the Spirit. However, some of you listening may not really like to write and so a prayer journal would be more of a chore. Maybe you like to read books instead of listening to them. Maybe you don’t like music, you prefer silence. Whatever you preferences are, there is a way to use that to build your faith. If you learn best around others, find a community. If you like silence just sit in the silence. If you like noise, find a way to pray loudly, or listen to music and sing a long.
God will meet you where you are at. All you really need is the desire to want to build your faith. If you have the desire and you search out ways to grow in your faith the Lord will meet you on your journey, right where you are and He will place opportunities in your path. If you don’t believe this think about how you found this podcast. Did god use someone you know to put it in your path? Think about the last book you read, how did you learn about that book? My friend told me today on the phone that she really wanted to go to a church, but hadn’t decided which one yet and was nervous to go to a new church for the first time. She went out to lunch and someone paid for her lunch. She went over to thank him and it turns out he was a pastor of one of the churches on her list. She went two weeks later and she was welcomed in with open arms. A lot of times we look at a situation and think that it is a coincidence that something happened. I want to challenge you to change your thinking and think of them as God instances. They didn’t just happen on accident. God planned them out perfectly because He has a plan for your life and it is a good plan, it is a great plan. God will help you build your faith. All he requires is that you desire it and that you say yes when He presents you with an opportunity. If you have the desire, but you are struggling to say yes to the opportunities, pray about that too. Take that to God. Pray for the holy boldness you need to say yes to an opportunity that you are scared to say yet to. Also, take that fear to a trusted friend. Let them help you. That is what friends are for. You would help them if they asked and you would be happy they asked. So, why do we always hesitate before we ask? Why is it we think we would be a burden if we asked for help, but we never think our friends are burdens when they ask?
The Lord wants to have mercy on us and to give us eternal life. Let’s help Him out. Let’s do our best to build up our faith so we can resist our own ungodly desires. Let’s build our faith so we can ignore our scoffers. In 2 Timothy 3:12 it says, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” We will be persecuted because we desire to live a Godly life in Christ. So, let’s build up our faith so we can withstand the persecution and we can stay in God’s love as we wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to have eternal life with you. Please give us the strength to withstand our ungodly desires. Please give us the holy boldness to say yes to every opportunity you provide to us, even if we are scared. Lord, help the desire to build our faith grow stronger and stronger in each one of us. You are amazing Lord, we are so grateful that you have offered us eternal life and we ask that you help us stay in your love until Jesus bring us to it. We love you Lord! We are grateful for all you do for us Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus holy name, Amen.
Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk Boldly with Jesus. Remember tomorrow will be our second week for the new segment called Witness Wednesday. Tomorrow’s witness is about a woman who lost her father to a hit and run by a teenage driver and her journey towards forgiveness for that driver. I hope you will join me to listen to her story, as it is truly remarkable. I also hope as you listen to more and more of these witnesses you will realize that we all have seen the Lord working in big and small ways in our life. The more we talk about it the more others will begin to see God working in their lives. I hope every single listener will consider giving their witness. It is not about us, it is about giving God the glory and helping others see all the different ways God works. He is not working the same way in my life as He is in someone else’s life. The more ways we show off God’s work, the more people begin to see it in their lives. I know you may be nervous, so was everyone that has given a witness. God will give you the courage to get though it. Just be open to the idea as you listen each week. One day you might be listening to your own story. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day!