I\u2019m assuming for the moment that you are a genuine believer in Jesus Christ. I\u2019m writing to those who, through repentant faith, have come to a real relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Ok, we\u2019ve got that squared away. Now to my point.<\/p>\n
How do you know you\u2019re going to make it? To heaven, I mean.<\/p>\n
Jesus, by His death and resurrection, has provided fully for your salvation. The Father has drawn you to Jesus (John 6:44), in whom you have found true and genuine new life.<\/p>\n
Ok, so how do you know you\u2019re going to make it from here to heaven?<\/p>\n
This world is no friend of grace. The threats are real. The temptations are not mere illusions. What assurance do you have that you\u2019re going to make it all the way through to the safety and security of the other side?<\/p>\n
\u201cI have confidence in Jesus\u2019 ability to keep me to the very end!,\u201d you say.<\/p>\n
Good answer! Ok, but how\u2019s that work? How<\/em> does He keep His own to the very end?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The Epistle of Jude is home to some of the Bible\u2019s most profound promises with regard to God\u2019s keeping of His children.<\/p>\n Jude opens by speaking of his readers as those \u201ckept<\/em> by Jesus Christ.\u201d He closes with a sublime doxology: \u201cTo Him who is able to keep<\/em> you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy\u201d (v.24).<\/p>\n Think of that! God is able to keep you from tripping up in this world to the point that you fail to make it \u201chome.\u201d That is to say that He can \u201cmake you stand\u201d (NASB) before Him in His blazing glory and to be found there both \u201cwithout fault\u201d and experiencing \u201cgreat joy\u201d!<\/p>\n That\u2019s what I\u2019m holding out for! That\u2019s what I desire with all my soul!<\/p>\n So how\u2019s that actually work? Again Jude tells us. He says that while God does the keeping we have a part in being \u201ckept.\u201d He commands us: \u201ckeep yourselves<\/em> in God\u2019s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life\u201d (v.21)!<\/p>\n \u201cWait a minute!\u201d you cry. \u201cI\u2019m saved entirely by God\u2019s<\/em> doing. But now you\u2019re telling me I\u2019m \u2018kept\u2019 in some way by mine<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n God and God alone saves<\/em>.<\/span> We don\u2019t save ourselves. But that does not mean we don\u2019t have a part to play. We don\u2019t save ourselves, Jesus saves us\u2014it is all of Him. Yet we are called to receive the gift provided by God through Christ (John 1:12; Acts 2:38). God has designated faith as the means by which He works salvation in us (John 3:16).<\/p>\n God and God alone keeps<\/em> His children. When a person gets to heaven it is 100% God\u2019s doing. But that doesn\u2019t mean God can\u2019t designate the means by which He keeps us. Jude tells us there are two means which God uses to keep us in His love and get us home to heaven.<\/p>\n The first means <\/span><\/strong>is \u201cbuilding yourselves up on your most holy faith\u201d (v.20a). By \u201cfaith\u201d Jude means here not so much the subjective trust we each must exercise in Jesus and the truth of the His Gospel. That\u2019s not unimportant; in fact, it\u2019s essential (as we\u2019ve already seen). But in this instance by \u201cfaith\u201d he means the Gospel itself\u2014that body of truth which holds forth the salvation of Christ. It is, as Jude described it in verse 3, \u201cthe faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.\u201d How was this faith \u201chanded down\u201d to us? The Apostolic Gospel is explained and expounded to us in the pages of the Bible. So continuously and regularly \u201cbuilding yourselves up\u201d on the foundation of the Scripture is one means God uses to \u201ckeep\u201d you as His child.<\/p>\n The second means<\/span><\/strong> God decrees as essential to our being \u201ckept\u201d is \u201cpraying in the Holy Spirit\u201d (v.20b). Filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18) we are to \u201cpray at all times in the Spirit\u201d (Eph. 6:18)\u2014bathed in the Spirit\u2019s presence, under His direction, at His prompting, by His empowering, with His wisdom, according to His will, from the Scriptures under His illuminating, teaching ministry. And when in utter extremity, when words fail and you do even know what to pray? \u201cIn the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us <\/em>with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of <\/em>God\u201d (Rom. 8:26-27). \u201cGod has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, \u2018Abba! Father!\u2019\u201d (Gal. 4:6) and thus we \u201chave received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, \u2018Abba! Father!\u2019\u201d (Rom. 8:15, ESV). God sent His Spirit to dwell in and speak within us so that the Spirit can now speak back to Him in prayer through us and from within us. The Spirit of God\u2019s Son cries out within us so that we might cry out to the Father.<\/p>\n Here then is the two-fold means<\/em><\/span><\/strong> by which God \u201ckeeps\u201d His own unto eternal life\u2014the Word of God<\/em><\/strong><\/span> and prayer<\/em><\/strong><\/span>. God does the keeping. And thank God His grip is better than mine! But He will not keep me apart from my taking up the means by which He has decree He will do so\u2014regularly building myself up on the foundation of Word of God and dwelling in open, conscious, constant communion with Him through prayer.<\/p>\n \u201cBut,\u201d you wonder aloud, \u201cdoesn\u2019t this in some way mean I save and then keep myself and thus it is not all<\/em> of God?\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps it helps to remember what the Apostle Paul commanded the Philippians: \u201ccontinue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose\u201d (2:12b-13). See the emphasis? You and I must \u201cwork out\u201d what God \u201cworks in\u201d us. First God (absolutely essential); then us (also absolutely essential). We can only work out what He has worked in. But are we?<\/p>\n Can I save myself? No, only God saves! But He does it by working faith in me, faith which I must exercise by repentance and trust in His Son (Eph. 2:8-9). Having thus been saved, can I keep myself to eternal life? No! Only God can keep me all the way to heaven! But He does it by willing and working through me, so that I am able to \u201ckeep [myself] in God\u2019s love\u201d by taking up His appointed means of the Scripture and prayer.<\/p>\n Because God is God, He could have devised a way to save us that did not involve our faith. But He didn\u2019t. Because God is God, He could have devised a way to keep us which required nothing of us\u2014but He didn\u2019t. He has decreed to keep me by means of my responsible, faith-filled obedience to build myself up in His Word and to pray in His Spirit \u2013 but even in this it is \u201cGod who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His <\/em>good pleasure\u201d (NASB).<\/p>\n God keeps. Because He does, you can\u2014and you must.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m assuming for the moment that you are a genuine believer in Jesus Christ. I\u2019m writing to those who, through repentant faith, have come to a real relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Ok, we\u2019ve got that squared away. Now to my point. How do you know you\u2019re going to make it? To heaven, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jude","post-preview"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYGxX-ei","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=886"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":889,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions\/889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}