Lord 👑 - 💥Peace & Truth

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

We have to keep God first in our lives; it’s the only way we can truly live as Christians. Not only are we to do that, but we have to know why we have chosen to follow God. This life isn’t a life of blind faith. We should be ready to defend our faith to anyone who challenges it. We should also be prepared to explain to anyone who enquires about our faith in hopes that they will be inspired to receive salvation.

The letter from Jude doesn’t get much attention. It’s very short, just one chapter, but it gives an exciting insight into the early church. The person mentioned, Diotrephes has made himself the sole judge of authentic teaching and rejects even those missionaries sent with letters authorizing them to teach and preach, who have been declared to be preaching the truth. We might think that division in the Christian community is something relatively new, but if we read the letters of the New Testament, we see that there were problems there as well. The introduction to the letters of Jude, as well as the third letter of John, talks about Diotrephes as someone who was a leader but had taken upon himself the authority that was not appropriate. He is described as hostile and ambitious and doesn’t accept letters or visitors that have the backing of the church leaders. Throughout the centuries, there have been periods of dispute over doctrine and practices, over who has the truth behind them. I have often thought that it has only been because of the presence of the Holy Spirit that Christianity has survived for two thousand years. If it depended on human leadership, it would have died out a long time ago. Leaders have been good and evil, saints and sinners, yet Christianity is still flourishing. We are not so different today than in the first century and I, for one, am grateful for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the past, today, and for years to come.