Dilgent and Vigilant

DEVOTION

JUDE

DILIGENT AND VIGILANT

Jude 14-16

14 Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones 15 to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him." 16 These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.

NIV

We are still seeing the accusations against these false teachers; in fact, this is even a clearer statement of what these people are doing today. But the main theme here is more about the end these people will come to. They will be convicted of their ungodly crimes. Now we should note that these people must have grumbled and found fault as well as followed their own evil desires. It would seem even though we would not be considered false teachers, although in some sense by our life we do teach others, that we should be careful not to grumble, find fault with others, and follow our own evil ways. We are told in the letter to the Philippians to do all things without complaining which would be grumbling. And it is true that by our life we do teach other people what is means to be a follower of Christ. If we live by the truth, and live as we save we believe, then we teach the right way. But if we live different than want we say, then we teach them hypocrisy and we have in a sense become a false teacher. There is no question that unbelievers are watching us and forming their opinions about God and about Christians based on our lives. What we teach them must be the truth, not so much by what we say, but by how we live. Again this is not living or teaching them to follow a set of rules and regulations, but living a life of Christ-likeness. Jesus went to their homes, he ate with them, he healed them, he loved them and he died for them. So do we find fault with them? Do we grumble about their sinful ways? Yet do we follow our own evils desires? Do we boast about ourselves, how good a Christian we are, maybe if not to others, but if only to ourselves? Maybe the only thing we do not do is flatter others for our own advantage. That is surely all about the real false teachers, those who travel around fleecing the flock, or those who spend so much money to broadcast their pleas for support of their so called ministry. Again we need to be diligent in how we teach and vigilant about who we accept teaching from.