Open the Bible UK Daily

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling… Jude 24 God is able to give you victory over the power of temptation. Do you believe this? No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Cor. 10:13) What temptat...

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling… Jude 24 This doesn’t mean that when you become a Christian you will never fail. We all fail in many ways. But God is able to keep you from falling. When Jesus was going to the cross, He said to Peter, “Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:31-32). Peter did f...

To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 25 Jude says that there is only one God, and this God is the Saviour God. Now if God is the Saviour, what does this saving look like? There are three dimensions. 1. God is our Saviour from sin's penalty. When you came to faith in Jesus, God forgave...

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling… Jude 24 Jude has been telling us that we need to watch ourselves, because we live this Christian life in the body, but we are also to find our rest in God. Verses 24 and 25 are all about God. That's significant because the first six workouts have been all about you: “But you, beloved, [build] yourselves up in your most holy faith” (Jude 20). Notic...

Let a person examine himself. 1 Corinthians 11:28 Make it your regular practice to give your soul a thorough examination to see if there is anything displeasing to God hidden inside you. There are several ways of doing this. As you read the Bible, note anything that displeases God and ask yourself, “Do I see any evidence of this in me?” Don’t ask vague questions like “Are there any sins in my soul...

To others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Jude 23 When you reach out to others in ministry, you need to be very careful that you do not end up falling into sin yourself. Jude uses the word “fear.” You need to have a healthy fear lest you fall into the same sins as somebody else you are reaching out to. The Bible speaks of two kinds of fear. There is an unhealthy...

Save others by snatching them out of the fire. Jude 23 Those who can see that they’ve been burned know what the fire can do, and they reach out to others in the flames. That takes courage. You can’t do ministry without being burned. There is no pain-free ministry. There is an old story about an African village. One night there was a fire in a wooden building, and the whole family who was sleeping...

Save others by snatching them out of the fire. Jude 23 If you’re going to be useful in ministry, you need to have a proper understanding of yourself and what God has done for you. Sin has damaged us all, but the Bible makes it clear that sin has done deeper damage to you and to me than staining our lives. It’s changed our nature. Like wood that's been in a fire, sin burns. It consumes. The Bible m...

Have mercy on those who doubt. Jude 22 Those who doubt would include those whose faith has been undermined and those whose faith has not yet been fully formed. There are many people like this today. How are we to minister to folks who are confused about their faith? Jude says, “Do this with great compassion.” There’s a big difference between the child who struggles to do what’s right and the child...

Have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire. Jude 22-23 If you want to live a healthy Christian life, you need to learn to wait. The obvious question is, What does God want us to do while we are waiting? The answer is that we are to give ourselves to ministry. God calls us to ministry. There are people in need all around us. So, from now until the day when Jesus co...

Wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ... Jude 21 The people who bring menus to your table at a restaurant are called waiters or waitresses. They have no other agenda but to wait on you. They take your order, bring your food, and then make sure everything is okay. Some people think God exists to wait on us, but the Bible tells us that our calling is to wait on Him. The purpose of our lives is...

[Wait] for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. Jude 21 When Jude talks about waiting, the obvious question is, Don’t we already have God’s mercy? Yes. Don’t we already have Jesus Christ? Yes. Don’t we already have eternal life? Yes! If we’ve already received these things, why does Jude tell us to wait? This is teaching us something important: All that you can experience...

[Wait] for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. Jude 21 Patience is what you need when things have not worked out as you hoped. Somewhere deep within every heart there is a dream of life as we want it to be. That dream is placed in your heart by God. The word “wait” reminds us that the dream will never be fulfilled in this life. Our first parents were driven out of the ga...

Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. Jude 21 Once you see how important the theme of waiting is in the Bible, you’ll have new motivation to exercise this neglected area of the Christian life. Here are five passages on waiting: Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him. (Ps. 37:7) I wait or the LORD, my soul waits,...

God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Romans 5:5 In one of Garrison Keillor’s books about Lake Wobegon he describes a rather awkward teenager growing up in a small town. The lad gives a speech at his high school graduation, and afterwards somebody comes up to him and says, “Nice speech!” But he can’t receive a compliment. “Oh no,” he says, “I was just rambling. I didn...

The Son of God… loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20 Some time ago, a minister from England went to India to deliver a series of evangelistic messages. When he arrived, there were posters hanging all over town advertising the evening meetings at which he would be speaking. The posters were supposed to read: “The visiting minister from England will bring the evening messages.” But inste...

This is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10 One way to work God’s love into your mind is through the Lord’s Supper. At the very centre of Christian worship, God has given us this exercise to keep us in spiritual shape. We come to a table where we receive bread and wine. They direct our attention to the cross, where...

Keep yourselves in the love of God... Jude 21 The Bible talks about the love of God in a number of ways: Providential love is God’s kindness to His enemies as well as His friends. God’s enemies will come under His judgement, but right now they receive good gifts from His hand. Why do good things happen to bad people? Answer: God’s providential love. Saving love is God reaching out to us: “God so l...

[Pray] in the Holy Spirit… Jude 20 Another way to pray in the Spirit is by using the Lord’s Prayer (Mat. 6:9-13). Martin Luther structured his entire prayer life around the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. (6:9) Luther prayed that God would be honoured in his own life, and in the church, and in the nation where he lived. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as...

[Pray] in the Holy Spirit… Jude 20 The Bible contains some marvellous prayers that were breathed out by the Spirit of God. You will find many of them in the book of Psalms. The whole Bible was written as men were carried along by the Holy Spirit and as you fill your mind with God's Word, you will begin to think God’s thoughts after Him. If you learn to form your prayers from the Bible, you will be...

We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Romans 8:26 Imagine a teenage computer geek writing software in his basement: “How can I get this in the hands of the people at Microsoft?” He doesn’t know anyone there, and he has no idea how to introduce his ideas to them. Who knows how many requests they receive in a day. One...

[Pray] in the Holy Spirit… Jude 20 Once you’ve grasped that there’s one God, and that He’s not whoever you want Him to be, the next question is “How do you come to Him?” That depends on what you want to receive. The Bible uses the picture of a throne to help us understand. There is one God, but more than one throne. That’s easy to understand for those of us in the United Kingdom. We have one King...

[Pray] in the Holy Spirit… Jude 20 Imagine meeting with your minister at church. He places a number of envelopes in front of you and says, “We can talk about anything you want. But here are some envelopes with questions written on them. Go ahead and pick one.” The topics range from faith to spiritual growth to fellowship, but you choose the envelope on prayer. The question on the envelope reads: “...

[Look] to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith... Hebrews 12:2 Faith grows by looking at Jesus. Faith becomes strong as you fill your mind and soul with how trustworthy He is. Imagine yourself as a younger child, attending a professional sporting event with your family. Your parents get tickets about twenty-five rows from the game. The people are packed in like sardines, and they’re stand...

[Build] yourselves up in your most holy faith... Jude 20 Faith is like a muscle. It grows strong when it is used. If you want to develop a particular muscle, you pull or push against a weight. Faith grows when it has to push against a great burden. That’s what happens when God allows trials in your life. You lose your job, a relationship ends, or the bottom line of your business is the wrong colou...