Monday after the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on October 2, 2023 by under
Scripture: Jude 20-25 (NKJV)
20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
22 And on some have compassion, making a distinction; 23 but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.
24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
25 To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.
Devotion
St. Jude’s brief epistle is filled with divinely inspired warnings concerning the spiritual perils which confront the Lord’s saints. Remembering the words of Sunday’s Gospel—“For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”—we know that apostasy often comes from pride. Men imagine a new doctrine for themselves, or self-confidently believe that they have the strength to resist the temptations which come to them.
In truth, our faith is often quite frail, and sometimes in mere moments some calamity or temptation can seem to challenge us to the breaking point. In such moments of peril, St. Jude’s concluding words console and strengthen us, for we have been baptized into Christ Jesus, “God our Savior,” who is “Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy”. Trials and temptations are occasions for us to faithfully pray this week’s Collect, knowing that it is the Lord who can and does so sustain us in the faith unto eternal life.
Prayer: Lord, we beseech Thee, grant Thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow Thee, the only God; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
