Keeping ourselves in the love of God

"beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life." (Jude 1:20-21)

What a wonderful description of the Christian life! Verses to live by...

• We are "beloved". We don't have to earn the "love of God", but it is already ours.
• How do we "keep" ourselves in this love? The answer is remarkably simple, and marked by relationship with God and each other:
• We are built up by listening to God through other people, and speaking to others on his behalf.
• We speak to God in prayer*
• We wait with eager expectation, because the fullness is future.
• The Christian life is marked by Trinitarian involvement:
• The love of God the Father initiates and underpins it all,
• The Holy Spirit is with us in the present,
• The end point is Jesus Christ and the life he mercifully brings.
• Finally, this keeping of ourselves in God's love is not something we can, or should do on our own. Not only is it done by the radical dependence of simple listening and speaking to God (no complex programs, or methods), but even that is a gift of God - as Jude recognises when he concludes with the gorgeous doxology:

"Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." (1:24-25)

Glory to God, Father Son and Holy Spirit!

* often we can be simplistic in our prescriptions for Christian life. How many times have we heard "Bible reading and prayer"? It is no more complicated than that, but in Jude the listening/speaking is done in community.