Good morning. There are only 25 verses in his entire letter. I wish there were more, because oh my, what he could tell us! But sharing information to satisfy our curiosity was not his mission. His letter is brief, but it has purpose. By the way, it wasn’t what he wanted to write. No, he tells us right away in the 3rd verse: Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people.
His desire was to write about the Good News of our salvation through Jesus Christ, but instead he needed to deal with a problem in the church and urge Christian people to fight for their faith. Got it.
The author is Jude, who identifies himself as “the brother of James” (Jude 1), and therefore could have introduced himself as the brother of Jesus, but in humility doesn’t do so. What a pleasure it would be to read stories of Jude, James, and the eldest brother Jesus running around the village of Nazareth as kids. But alas, no, we get 25 verses.
For today, I ask that you consider the end of his brief letter, Jude 24-25: To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
Jude writes, To him who is able to keep you from stumbling. Can you imagine the number of times his big brother Jesus may have stretched out a hand to keep young Jude from taking a fall? But he isn’t writing about that kind of stumbling. This is about spiritual failure, falling down in our faith. But the remedy is the same…Jesus reaches out to prevent our fall. By doing so, Jesus is able to present us to himself in all His glory without fault, and this is a matter of great joy.
We praise God for our forgiveness through the gracious sacrifice made by Jesus. He paid the price, took our sin upon His shoulders, and left our guilt behind as He emerged from the tomb.
But Jesus also prevents us from stumbling! Is that fact made into a central theme of your prayer life? It should be, don’t you think?
“My dear Lord Jesus, I pray today that you will prevent me from falling. That somehow, you will intervene and help me to keep my spiritual balance that I will not stumble or fall. Thank You Jesus!”
Vern