30 April 2010
Dear people.
I'm about ready to press the send button here at 6:35am. Then I think
I'll grab a jog. And tomorrow morning, I think I'll try to join in the
5k fun run sponsored by Pregnancy Care Center. I'll just be a tortoise.
I finally consulted the vet yesterday afternoon. Whereas Daisy is an
older dog (10 or 11), she's suggesting another 2 weeks in the cast.
I'm trying to avoid the cost of any more than one additional xray...the
one required before removal of the cast.
Be blessed today. Jesus is coming soon. Maranatha.
Love and prayers, Dad/Ray
30 April 2010
Passage: Jude
Focus: “They are godless men who change the grace of God into a license for immorality…” Jude: 4.
It
seems to me that Jude’s primary objective in writing this letter was to
warn the HELL out of his readers (that which disqualifies one for
salvation) and to encourage them in holiness that most assuredly
qualifies one for heaven (eternal life). He provides several cases of
wrong responses to God’s grace and states, “They serve as an example of
those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (v. 7). That can mean
nothing but HELL.
Let’s give some attention to a
license…say a driver’s license. It is an important document (or used
to be) to hold if one is going to participate in the modern privilege
of owning or operating a motorized vehicle on public roads. For good
reason, the laws of every government impose rules and regulations to
protect that right and prevent it from damaging the rights of others.
So the possession of a driver’s license is not authorization to make
one’s own roads through the fences and back yards of the neighborhood.
It does not give one the right to drive into stores or on sidewalks or
through all the landscaping of the city park. It is not a provision
for disregarding red lights, speed limits, or right of ways. The
license only grants permission to operate a vehicle within the
parameters of the laws governing that permission. That makes sense to
me.
Now consider carefully Jude’s words as he
presents his primary concern in verses 3 and 4. Perhaps I will insert
some of my own parenthetical comments along with the text. “Dear
friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation
(God’s ultimate objective in issuing the license of His grace) we
share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith (the
proper and appropriate use of the license of salvation/God’s grace)
that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose
condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among
you. They are godless men (though they claim to hold the same license
as the saints), WHO CHANGE THE GRACE OF OUR GOD INTO A LICENSE FOR
IMMORALITY and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord (failure
to live in proper submission to the government and giver of the
license).”
The grace of God has been issued to us
ONLY as a license for holiness unto heaven. Any use of it outside
those parameters is unauthorized, unacceptable, and punishable.
“God would never save us by grace so we could live in disgrace.”