Todays readings.. Job 25,26&27, Zechariah 2&3, Jude

“BUILDING YOURSELVES UP IN YOUR MOST HOLY FAITH” 

It is God’s inspired Scriptures that are the only source in our Godless world for “building (y)ourselves up in (y)our most holy faith,” as Jude wrote so long ago.

But first let us see how our chapters today in Job are very special.  Job was inspired to write of God’s creation and describe how the Creator “stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing … He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters …” [ch. 26 v.7,10] 

Job’s writings have come down to us from the earliest days of history and extended through the centuries when the prevailing ‘imagination of man was that the earth was flat: only in recent centuries did men realize the earth was some sort of “circle” and it was possible to sail around the earth.   

  Because of these ancient words, and many other reasons, we are able, as we read God’s word every day, to make constant progress, as we read today the words of Jude, in “building (y)ourselves up in (y)our most holy faith”.[v.20]

Jude begins his short letter by describing himself as “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James.”  Jude is an alternative word for Judas, and Jesus had another disciples named Judas (apart from Judas Iscariot) – see John 14 v.22 – and Jude is another way of writing Judas.  Maybe after the tragedy of the life of Judas Iscariot, this “brother of James” preferred to be called Jude.

Jude prophecies that “in the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions … worldly people, devoid of the spirit.” [v.18, 19] – believers that are lacking in any real spirituality.  It is probable that this initially applied to the state in the faith, or lack of it, in Jerusalem just before the Romans destroyed it!  But Jude is writing to the “beloved” telling them they must be “building yourselves up in your most holy faith…”  How challenging that he calls the true faith “most holy” – let us meditate on the way our “faith” is “most holy” and whether we are really effective in our “building.”