But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
Jude 17-19
Jude is sharing his final thoughts now, thoughts that are both encouraging and practical. The first of these is to remember what the Apostles have taught, with a characterization reminiscent of both Paul and John, not to mention of Jesus Himself. There will be “scoffers”. Jude has already stated that they scoff at Christ, authority, angels and at anything they don’t understand. Having rejected any authority, what are they left with? Only their own evil desires with the result that they are teaching others to engage in sexual immorality; how convenient! At the risk of stating the obvious, if a person wants to be sexually immoral, he or she will need someone to do it with! These are people who cause division in the church as they pry some away from the Truth of Christ, and away from godly teaching.
But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
Jude 20-21
Now Jude turns to the practical: When faced with false teaching of any sort, we have a choice. This is true with any kind of temptation; there is always a choice. We can choose to build ourselves up in our faith and by praying in the Spirit we can keep ourselves in God’s loving presence. Over the years I’ve had conversations with quite a number of people who were struggling with temptations and sin; they just can’t seem to shake them off. When I ask how their prayer life is going, they always tell me how strong it is and how great their relationship is with the Lord. At first, this would confuse me, but then I learned to listen more carefully, to ask more questions, and sooner or later they always reveal whether intentionally or not, that they don’t have much of a prayer life, if any at all, and that they really don’t have much of a relationship with Christ. It always comes down to the same thing in the end, for they are focused almost entirely on themselves.
It doesn’t have to be that way!
Start talking to God; work on that relationship. It doesn’t need to be anything so formal and difficult, just start talking to Him. For more on this, check out the tab at the top of the page on “The Journey” for some ideas and things that work for me… go on the Journey and explore spiritual practices that will help you change your focus and help you deal with temptations and false teachers. It’s not so hard as you might think!
Life Project Blog 
Is “praying in the Holy Spirit” the same as praying with the spirit?
1 Co 14:13-15 Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.
It may be that the “pray without ceasing” command is most do-able if praying in the tongues that no man understands is practiced.
Could be.
Prayer is formal. Yes, that’s true. Thanks Don.
🙂
You know I meant is’t.
Yep!
“Start talking to God; work on that relationship. It doesn’t need to be anything so formal and difficult, just start talking to Him.”
Amen DM.
And start listening, seeing, hearing, watching, feeling, sensing, being. Not just the “headline act” – the invisible act – the behind the scenes act – the ones like you me act. The ones who do not act. The ones in whom God lives, breathes, walks and talks.
(I have a portable soapbox – sorry!)
That’s handy thing about soapboxes, so portable! Great observatins, too, thanks Paul
Hi Don! Your blog is awesome! I love the details you give within your message. Do you have a article written on Romans Chapter 12? I would be interested in reading it. Thank you.
Thanks, i appreciated your kind comments. I’m afraid that I can’t recall having posted on Romans 12 up to this point, sorry!
Thank you for this. I am surely lacking in this area, and what you said rings so true (thankfully, God has been pressing on me to build up my relationship with Him in prayer). It seems so obvious but not so much (for me anyway). So thank you for the reaffirmation 🙂
Thanks Elaine; funny how these things work out!
Really enjoyed this series on Jude. Going to follow your suggestion and check out “the Journey”. 🙂
Sounds like a plan!
Great provisions from the word; it is indeed food for the spirit; thanks for the spiritual leading. vw
🙂
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