Steadfast, Day 7 Beware of Scoffers and Dividers. Read Jude chapter 1, focusing on verses 17-19. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are to be united through him. Unfortunately, those who don’t follow Christ often find themselves seeking to divide those people who do follow Christ. Jude points out that in the last days, there will be people whose goal and ambition is to create as much division and disharmony as possible. The verse also says that these people will be following their own natural desires because they don’t have the Spirit in them. Well, obviously, if they’re not believers in Christ, they don’t have the spirit in them. Outside…

Steadfast, Day 6 The constant complainer. Read Jude chapter 1, focusing on verses 14-16. Jude has been denouncing the evil people in it. Jude is still calling them out. In these verses, he talks about Enoch, a man that we meet only briefly in chapter 5 of Genesis. What’s notable about him is that he does not die, but that he is one of two people that God just takes up to heaven at the end of their lives. Obviously Enoch walked with God, but here we see that he even received messages and words and prophesied. Enoch lived in a perverse generation. Even though it was only the seventh…

Steadfast, Day 5 Selfish shepherds. Read Jude chapter 1, focusing on verses 12-13. Jude is reiterating the fact that these people who have infiltrated the church are focused solely on themselves. They don’t have an interest or care about any of the other people, or even about what God has to say. They are selfish and self-centered, just like a shepherd who only feeds himself. When we think of the role of a shepherd, we realize that their whole goal is to care for the lives of the sheep. Everything they do consists of caring for sheep. So, it becomes the height of selfishness if the shepherd is only focused…

Go and Do, Day 4 Selfish gain. Read Jude chapter 1, focusing in on verses 9-11. These verses have been a source of much discussion by scholars. In some cases, people were unsure of whether or not to include Jude in the Bible because of these verses and the stories they represent. Reading through verses 9-10, it is not referencing stories in the Old Testament that we are generally familiar with. But in researching, these are stories that are mentioned in the Apocrypha, a set of books that are often included in the Catholic Bible. However, they are not included in the Bible for other denominations, as they were not…

Steadfast, Day 3 Deliverance and judgment go together. Read Jude chapter 1, focusing on verses 5-8. Deliverance and judgment are often found together. As we look at these verses, we remember yesterday that Jude was pointing out there were evil people who had infiltrated the church. Jude is reminding them that there is going to be judgment for those people and deliverance for the people of God. He gives a couple of examples. It’s good to remember that even from the time of Egypt, when God delivered the people, the same path that was deliverance for the people of God was judgment for the people of Egypt. Jesus Christ is…

Steadfast, Day 2 Secret invaders. Read Jude chapter 1. There are secret agents from the enemy that have infiltrated the ranks of the believers. Essentially, that’s what Jude is telling the people. While the church is meant to be a safe haven and a place of encouragement, Jude wants the people to know there are people who do not believe the truth that have joined the ranks of the church and infiltrated their assembly. We have to stay laser-focused on the truth. God’s word is the compass by which we set everything else. We cannot deviate or vary from that, and everyone that we bring into our confidence and our…

Steadfast, Day 1 Are we being steadfast in our faith. Read Jude, chapter 1. We are going to spend the next few days reading through a book of the Bible written by another brother of Jesus Christ. Jude was also one of Jesus’s brothers and a leader in the early church. While we don’t know as much about Jude as we do about James, we see this short book included in the Bible and also referenced by Peter in his second letter. Because it’s so short, I’m going to encourage you to read through all of it each day. Jude’s focus is on the importance of staying in true to…