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CONTENDING AGAINST APOSTASY (III)
LORD’S DAY, APRIL 26
Jude 21
1 John 3:1-3
 
“Behold, what manner of love …”
 
CONTENDING AGAINST APOSTASY (III)
 
The two great holy helps God has given us are our “most holy faith” and the “Holy Ghost” (Jude 20). As we avail ourselves of these means of grace, our aim is to “keep” ourselves “in the love of God” (Jude 21). See again our personal accountability emphasized: keep “yourselves.”
 
The word “keep” has the idea of carefully guarding and maintaining. What is it we are thus to guard and maintain? We are to guard and maintain ourselves “in the love of God.” Now since it cannot be supposed that we bear the responsibility of maintaining God’s love for us, the reference here must be to our love for God (which, of course, has its ultimate source in God’s love for us). It is this love that we are to maintain diligently; and this is the crux of the issue when it comes to apostasy. If apostasy is a “falling away” from God, its opposite is a cleaving to God in love. Dear readers, in these last days, “because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt 24:12), let this not happen to you, but “keep yourselves in the love of God,” and in its corollary the love of your neighbours (cf. Matt 22:36-40).
 
This we are to do, with a constant looking for “the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” It will be a help to us, constantly to keep in view the imminent return of the Lord, and the passing away of this world, because this world is full of things that tend to attract our affection away from our Saviour, where it belongs. Speaking of this consummation of God’s love and mercy toward us in Christ, the Apostle John writes, “every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3).
 
So the duty of earnestly contending for the faith, with respect to ourselves, involves a diligent, prayerful study of scripture, obedience to the great commandments of love for God and one’s neighbour, and expectant hopeful watching for the return of our Lord. Dear reader, is yours such a life? Remember, there is no neutrality in our spiritual battle. To be “lukewarm” is to invite censure from the Lord (cf. Rev 3:16). If you are not in this manner earnestly contending for the faith, you are contributing to the damage caused by apostasy.
 
THOUGHT: Am I in danger of slipping from the love of God?
PRAYER: “Lord, let me never, never outlive my love for Thee.”

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