Fight to Stay United

Dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. Jude 17-19

Jude provides a contrast here that we do well to recognize. If those who are “scoffers” and “follow their own desires . . . who divide you,” then those of the spirit must be those who fight to maintain unity. The strongest criticism in the New Testament is given a number of times of those who seek to divide us within the church. That unity is ours in Jesus and it is maintained as we fight to hold to the truth and where the world might offer retaliation, we hold out forgiveness. Let grace be your first response today.