Jude – Whistle Blower
Our spiritual communities are as susceptible to disease as our physical bodies. But it is easier to detect whatever is wrong in our stomachs and lungs than in our worship and witness. When our physical bodies are sick or damaged, the pain calls our attention to it, and we do something quick. But a dangerous, even deadly, virus in our spiritual communities can go undetected for a long time. As much as we need physicians for our bodies, we have even greater need for diagnosticians and healers of the spirit.
Jude’s letter to an early community of Christians is just such diagnosis. It is all the more necessary in that those believers apparently didn’t know anything was wrong, or at least not as desperately wrong as Jude points out.
There is far more, of course, to living in Christian community than protecting the faith against assault or subversion. Paranoia is as unhealthy spiritually as it is mentally. The primary Christian posture is, in Jude’s words, “keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ.” All the same, energetic watchfulness is required. Jude’s whistle-blowing has prevent many a disaster.
In our world today, God is still sending whistle blowing diagnosticians such as George Barna and others as modern day prophets to warn us of impending diseases in our communities such as complacency, moving away from absolute Truth, hearing only what we want to hear while avoiding repentance, growing and maturing in God’s ways.
Another well known leader in Christiandom has fallen because he thought he was above the accountability of the Christian community. The world looks on and jeers, “See, I told you…God’s not real.” Our sin is against God first. Others suffer for our sin. We must all be held accountable by a bevy of God-fearing, groups of people in our communities of believers and followers of Jesus. We pray God uses this tragedy to alert people to Truth again and uses it to His good purpose.
THE WORLD IS SEEKING THE TRUTH!
Interestingly enough, a new show calls our attention to those who stand for what is right. Whistleblower takes a thrilling look into the real-life David vs. Goliath stories of heroic people who put everything on the line in order to expose illegal and often dangerous wrongdoing when major corporations rip off U.S. taxpayers. Hosted by attorney Alex Ferrer, a former judge and police officer, each hour introduces cases in which ordinary people step up to do the extraordinary by risking their careers, their families and even their lives to ensure others are not harmed or killed by unchecked, unethical corporate greed.
Question to consider…Does this happen in the Christian community? YES it has and does. Humans are imperfect. We are easily distracted. We all need accountability. Christian communities are built and grow with this premise…to help each other stay focused on God and to grow in His ways while standing on His promises to help us.
We all need help in keeping our focus on the main thing…God…and keeping Him the main thing in all we think, say and do. Let us ask ourselves a hard question…Who do we worship? Our pastor, our worship leader, our small group leader, or God? No one is above God. No one is God. Only God is God. We are not. Pray for all pastors, leaders and volunteers. These are people satan works overtime to bring down to his level.
Let’s see what Jude has to say…
Jude
1-2 I, Jude, am a slave to Jesus Christ and brother to James, writing to those loved by God the Father, called and kept safe by Jesus Christ. Relax, everything’s going to be all right; rest, everything’s coming together; open your hearts, love is on the way!Fight with All You Have in You
3-4 Dear friends, I’ve dropped everything to write you about this life of salvation that we have in common. I have to write insisting—begging!—that you fight with everything you have in you for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish. What has happened is that some people have infiltrated our ranks (our Scriptures warned us this would happen), who beneath their pious skin are shameless scoundrels. Their design is to replace the sheer grace of our God with sheer license—which means doing away with Jesus Christ, our one and only Master.
Lost Stars in Outer Space
5-7 I’m laying this out as clearly as I can, even though you once knew all this well enough and shouldn’t need reminding. Here it is in brief: The Master saved a people out of the land of Egypt. Later he destroyed those who defected. And you know the story of the angels who didn’t stick to their post, abandoning it for other, darker missions. But they are now chained and jailed in a black hole until the great Judgment Day. Sodom and Gomorrah, which went to sexual rack and ruin along with the surrounding cities that acted just like them, are another example. Burning and burning and never burning up, they serve still as a stock warning.
8 This is exactly the same program of these latest infiltrators: dirty sex, rule and rulers thrown out, glory dragged in the mud.
9-11 The Archangel Michael, who went to the mat with the Devil as they fought over the body of Moses, wouldn’t have dared level him with a blasphemous curse, but said simply, “No you don’t. God will take care of you!” But these people sneer at anything they can’t understand, and by doing whatever they feel like doing—living by animal instinct only—they participate in their own destruction. I’m fed up with them! They’ve gone down Cain’s road; they’ve been sucked into Balaam’s error by greed; they’re canceled out in Korah’s rebellion.
12-13 These people are warts on your love feasts as you worship and eat together. They’re giving you a black eye—carousing shamelessly, grabbing anything that isn’t nailed down. They’re—
Puffs of smoke pushed by gusts of wind;
late autumn trees stripped clean of leaf and fruit,
Doubly dead, pulled up by the roots;
wild ocean waves leaving nothing on the beach
but the foam of their shame;
Lost stars in outer space
on their way to the black hole.
14-16 Enoch, the seventh after Adam, prophesied of them: “Look! The Master comes with thousands of holy angels to bring judgment against them all, convicting each person of every defiling act of shameless sacrilege, of every dirty word they have spewed of their pious filth.” These are the “grumpers,” the bellyachers, grabbing for the biggest piece of the pie, talking big, saying anything they think will get them ahead.
17-19 But remember, dear friends, that the apostles of our Master, Jesus Christ, told us this would happen: “In the last days there will be people who don’t take these things seriously anymore. They’ll treat them like a joke, and make a religion of their own whims and lusts.” These are the ones who split churches, thinking only of themselves. There’s nothing to them, no sign of the Spirit!
20-21 But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit, staying right at the center of God’s love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life!
22-23 Go easy on those who hesitate in the faith. Go after those who take the wrong way. Be tender with sinners, but not soft on sin. The sin itself stinks to high heaven.
24-25 And now to him who can keep you on your feet, standing tall in his bright presence, fresh and celebrating—to our one God, our only Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Master, be glory, majesty, strength, and rule before all time, and now, and to the end of all time. Yes.
Yes! And Amen!
Lord, help us.
In Jesus Name, Amen
1-4 The Pastor, to my good friend Gaius: How truly I love you! We’re the best of friends, and I pray for good fortune in everything you do, and for your good health—that your everyday affairs prosper, as well as your soul! I was most happy when some friends arrived and brought the news that you persist in following the way of Truth. Nothing could make me happier than getting reports that my children continue diligently in the way of Truth!
FLASHBACK to Matthew 25, The Message
No so with God and His commandments. “Nothing has changed”, John reminds us. Love God. Love Each Other. Love means following God’s commands to love. Why? Because He loves us, right now, before cleaning up, before thinking about His will and purpose for us, before we think about Him…He loves us. He loved us first. He loves us still. He will love us always. Nothing has changed. Beware of those who might tell you something different or try to be god in this world of constant change.
Don’t Walk Out on God
Love God with all our hearts, minds and souls…even our bodies that He created. Love Others like He loves us. Revolutionary thought. Yes, nothing has changed with God. Nothing will separate from His love. No new rules or game changers. God is love. God loves you and I. Nothing has changed.
There are many in the world and inside God’s church who are merely impressed with Jesus, do good deeds, but do not know the realty of Jesus as Savior AND Lord of their lives. They are merely impressed with what he did a long time ago. They can even quote some of his teachings. Some confuse wives’ tales with scripture causing all kinds of confusion. What they are missing, most of all is the realty of eternal life offered by God through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. Our response is repentance of our sin. Done. We are then forgiven forever.
The Reality, Not the Illusion
18-21 We know that none of the God-begotten makes a practice of sin—fatal sin. The God-begotten are also the God-protected. The Evil One can’t lay a hand on them. We know that we are held firm by God; it’s only the people of the world who continue in the grip of the Evil One. And we know that the Son of God came so we could recognize and understand the truth of God—what a gift!—and we are living in the Truth itself, in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. This Jesus is both True God and Real Life. Dear children, be on guard against all clever facsimiles.
To Love, to Be Loved
God Is Love
1 John 4, The Message
Dear Heavenly Father, 
What is love? A little first grader thought she knew the answer. She innocently came up to the new teacher and began a serious conversation with, “I know how to make love…my dad taught me.” The new teacher panicked and immediately stopped the conversation to run and get her mentor across the hall, me…”I think Mrs. Callaway needs to hear this, too.” 
The first year teacher told me what her student revealed. As a veteran, I calmed down the ruffled newbee and asked the girl to step into the hall. I asked her to tell us again what dad said. The little girl was so happy to relate her big news. “Dad taught me how to make love by making a heart where love goes like this, (she made a heart with her hands.) Instead of writing the word “love” you draw a heart and it still says, I (heart) love you!” Ah, now we get it. A very happy new teacher went about teaching her little students. I returned to my classroom with a giggle and a praise to God. “I (heart) you”.
Let us pray for opened eyes to God’s reality for all of us. Let us love like God loves us. AND here is the greatest bonus of all…“God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.” AND He still loves us!! Seriously.
21-24 And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God! We’re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we’re doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God’s command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.
Sometimes we live our lives without the aid of clear focus on Christ. We get frustrated at people who do not agree with us or hurt us with their words and we shut them out of our lives. Love becomes focused only on the hurt. We become more unfocused on God’s love. Since God IS love, we lose focus of who God is. We lose focus of God. God and love are the same. We are his “kids” if we love God, accept His love for us and then love others the way He loves us. It is a “simple test” to see the difference between God’s children and the Devil’s children. It takes focus. Need help? Ask God. He will help us see others through the lens of God and His love.
16-17 This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.
