The Book of Jude

I just finished reading the book of Jude. This book for remarkable for its conciseness; in one chapter it teaches us almost everything we need to know about false teachers. Jude begins by greeting "those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ." He then speaks of people who have "crept in unnoticed." He gives three examples of groups of sinners being punished: the unbelieving Israelites who fled Egypt with Moses, the fallen angels, and Sodom and Gomorrah. In all three cases, God destroyed or eternally bound them. Next, Jude denounces false teachers as being blasphemers of the same degree as the three previously mentioned groups of sinners. He then compares the false teachers to three infamous sinners. Jude writes, "Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion." However, the greatest part of Jude is not for another eight verses, when Jude writes, "And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh." This is our commission from Jude. As Christians, our job is showing mercy and spreading the good news to the lost and blasphemous world.

Are you living for eternity?

Mackenzie brought up a great subject on Xanga the other day. To paraphrase her post, she commented on how much she could read the Bible if she used the time that she normally used posting on Xanga or Myspace. This was very convicting to me, and since I read that post, I've been examining my life to see what unnecessary, unedifying activities I routinely invest my time in. I've identified a major problem, the Internet. I can waste hours every day reading blogs and articles, watching Youtube videos and posting on Xanga. While the internet can be very useful-indeed, blogs run by people such as Al Mohler or the Harris brothers can be very edifying-most of the time I spend on the Internet is wasted time. Do I really need to watch the treadmill dance again? Is it worth a couple hours of my time to read up on recent health and science advances? As Christians, we have a higher purpose than earthly pleasure and knowledge. In eternity, we will not be quizzed on who was in rehab in 2007. At the judgment seat, it will not matter if you had 20 thousand friends on Myspace. Again, God doesn't care if you have read half of Wikipedia.
Consider this fact: the all-powerful God who created the universe not only became human, but laid down his life in a disgraceful, humiliating death because he loved us so much. When we examine this sacrifice, is it such a sacrifice of our own to take the time to commune with and honor God?



----Colin