Keep yourselves in the love of God - Chambers, Oswald
Jude 20–21
Keep yourselves in the love of god.
The love of god! We have lost it to-day; we have turned our back on the ocean and are looking out over barren colourless hills for the oceans fulness. We need converting againturning round, and there basks the oceans fulness, whose waves sparkle and ripple on fathomless deeps and fulnesses. We are too introspective to-day, we mourn and wonder, then lifted on waves of feeling, we glow and say we love god, but again our feelings ebb and flow and we mourn.
Christianity is not a thing of times and seasons, but of god and faith. Drink deep and full of the love of god and you will not demand the impossible from earths loves, and the love of wife and child, of husband and friend, will grow holier and healthier and simpler and grander. But there are initial stages to be considered before we come to the glorious exhortation. The love of god is not revealed by intellectual discernment, it is a spiritual revelation. What ups and downs we experience because we build not on faith but on feeling, not on the finished work of christ but on our own work and endeavour and experience.
But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith . . . Is that what you are doing every day? Do you have family worship? Do you have private devotions? Do you read your bible more and more? Can you answer yes to these questions, or is an hesitant no given by your spirit to god? Family worship is so far off, so remote, you remember your father and mother who prayed and talked of sin and righteousness and judgement to come, but you have other things to heed; you, forsooth, are more enlightened, you read sceptical books, controversial books, that attack the foundations of your faith.
If these things have crept in unawares into our hearts, let us get back in penitence and consider what is the foundation on which we must build our most holy faith, viz. , that god so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life (rv ). Let us get down to the cross, to the broken heart of our god, down to the propitiation for our sins; let us put away the books that have sapped our faith; let us cut off the interests and the companionships that have weighed our lives down to the dust, and looking to Jesus, let us build ourselves up on our most holy faith. Praying in the holy ghost . . .
That is the next step after laying the foundation of faith. Nothing is so hard as to pray aright. Do you pray for gods servants till your heart glows? Do you ask for your minister that he may be set ablaze with divine fire? Do you pray Sunday after Sunday that souls may be converted to god? Praying in the holy ghost have you ever asked for the holy spirit? We can only keep
Ourselves in the love of god by building up ourselves on our most holy faith and by holy ghost praying, and by nothing else. If we try to fight gods battles with our own weapons, in our own moral resisting power, we shall fail, and fail miserably; but if we use the spiritual weapons of implicitly trusting in god and maintaining a simple relationship to jesus christ by praying in the holy ghost, we shall never fail. . . .
Keep yourselves in the love of god. We know how to keep ourselves in health, how to keep our- selves in knowledge, and so on; but to keep ourselves in the love of god is a big order, and our minds are exercised to know what Jude means by this exhortation. Does it mean by relaxing all stringency and carefulness to slip out into a broad, humanitarian spirit god is love: gods in his heavenalls right with the world? No, it cannot mean anything so natural as that, otherwise we had no need of an inspired writer to tell us to do it, and beside, Jude strikes terrible notes of warning (see vv. 1719). Keep yourselves in the love of god refers very clearly to something distinct and special, something revealed in the direct will of god; a spiritual endeavour that we must consider, and consider carefully with the holy spirits help.
Keep means work. It is not a lazy floating, it is work. Work, or you will depart from the love of god. Begin to trace the finger of god and the love of god in the great calamities of earth, and in the calamities that have befallen you. In sweat of brain and spirit, work, agonise at times, to keep yourself in the love of god. It is our wisdom, our happiness, our security to keep ourselves in the love of god. How do i keep myself in any sphere but by using every means to abide in it? If i wish to keep in the spiritual sphere of the love of god i must use the great organ of the spiritual realm, faith. God loves me say it oer and oer and oer, heedless of your feelings that come and go. Do not live at a distance from god, live near him, delighting yourself in him. Remove all barriers of selfishness and fear, and plunge into the fathomless love of god.
Keep yourselves in the love of god, not keep on loving god, none can do that. When once you have understood the truth about your own hearts sinfulness, think not again of it, but look at the great, vast, illimitable magnificence of the love of god. Oh may we be driven, driven further and further out into the ocean fulness of the love of god! Only taking care that nothing entices us out again. Who shall separate us from the love of christ? Oh, the fulness of peace and joy and gladness when we are persuaded that nothing shall be able to sepa- rate us from the love of god, which is in Christ jesus our lord.