[Pray] in the Holy Spirit…Jude 20Imagine 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: “How would you describe your prayer life?” and inside there are a number of cards with various words—some positive, some negative. You choose two cards to describe your prayer life: “Irregular” and “Aimless.” Many Christians today would agree, and say, “I’m doing okay in the Christian life, but I’d have to admit—I’m out of shape when it comes to prayer.” Sooner or later, you will come to a situation in which you will want to call on God to help you. The first question is “Which God?” If you say, “There is only one God,” who is He? And how can we know Him? Until you’ve settled this matter, your praying will not get very far off the ground. Here’s the reason: if God is whoever you imagine Him to be, then when you go to pray, you are just talking to yourself, or to a figment of your imagination, and that’s not much help. There is one God, and we can know Him and pray to Him, because He has made Himself known to us through Abraham, Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and supremely in Jesus Christ.How would you describe your prayer life? (Aimless? Vibrant? Irregular? Consistent? Shallow? Growing? Other?)

[Look] to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith...Hebrews 12:2Faith 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 standing in front of you, so you find it very difficult to see. You eventually find a solution. Instead of sitting in your chair, you stand on it. It’s a bit shaky, but it’s the best way to get a glimpse of your favourite players in all their glory. That’s how you must read the Scriptures and come to worship if you want your faith to grow. You must come looking for a glimpse of Jesus and asking the Holy Spirit to open up the Word to give a fresh glimpse of Him to your soul. Some of us come to church, and to the Bible, like a little boy or girl standing behind a crowd of taller adults. We never see anything, and we no longer expect to see anything. Other people are catching a glimpse of Jesus, but you don’t see it. If you come to worship and to the Word with great expectation, you will move from reading about Jesus to knowing Him. You will find yourself feeding on Him, and your faith will grow.On a scale of 1 (very low) to 10 (very high), what is your expectation of “catching a glimpse of Jesus” in worship? How about in your Bible reading?

[Build] yourselves up in your most holy faith...Jude 20Faith 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 colour, and suddenly you’re in the gym. This is the moment. God is handing you the weights. When God allows you to face difficulties, He is calling you to exercise faith. This is how faith grows, by being exercised under pressure. When you find yourself saying, “I don’t know how I’m going to get through this,” this is the moment to exercise your faith in God. This is the moment to walk by faith and not by sight. You will not grow in faith if every time God puts you in the gym, you just sit there until the session is over. If you don’t pray and you don’t exercise the muscle of faith, when you come out of the trial your faith won’t be any stronger than when you went in. You went through the trial, but you missed the opportunity for growth. When God puts you in the gym again, ask Him for eyes to see when it happens, and seize the moment. Come to God and say, “This time, I am going to trust you. Strengthen my faith and cause me to grow.”When was the last time God put you in the gym? Did you exercise the muscle of faith? If so, how? Or do you feel like you missed an opportunity for growth?

[Build] yourselves up in your most holy faith…Jude 20Jude is talking about the same faith here that he mentions in verse 3: “The faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” You can build up your faith by affirming what you believe. That’s why Christians throughout the centuries have recited creeds in their worship: “I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth…” C.H. Spurgeon preached to vast crowds in London over a hundred years ago. When the time came for him to enter the pulpit, he often felt completely overwhelmed. So, as he climbed the steps into his pulpit, he would say to himself, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” You might want to say that when you go into a job interview or another situation you find overwhelming. Maybe Satan keeps reminding you of some failure in your life. You have confessed it. You have repented. But the enemy keeps bringing it to your memory. Affirm your faith: “The blood of Jesus cleanses me from every sin. I believe in the blood of Jesus.” The Psalms are full of affirmations of faith in God. He has given us these affirmations to help us build ourselves up in the faith. The world, the flesh, and the devil are constantly assaulting our minds with lies, doubts, and questions. So feed your mind with affirmations of what you believe: “Oh give thanks to the LORD for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Ps. 107:1). Affirming your faith by confessing what God has revealed will cause your faith to grow. It is like fresh air to the soul.What are some Bible passages that you keep going back to? Which verses have helped you over the years to affirm your faith?

[Build] yourselves up in your most holy faith…Jude 20There will be times when you seem to be making little progress, and you wonder, “What’s wrong with me? Am I a Christian at all?” Jude says, “You need to build up your faith.” How do you do that? Satan loves to point out how puny, pathetic, and embarrassingly small your faith is. You should counter by recognising the faith you have—however small—is a miracle, a gift from God, and by giving thanks for it. When you begin to thank God for what he’s done and for what he's doing, you'll find that the cloud lifts and your faith begins to grow. If you cannot see anything God is doing—in your life or in other believers—the problem is not with God, the problem is with your eyesight: “My Father is always at his work” (John 5:17, NIV84). Faith is like a bulb that is planted in the ground and then gets a pile of dirt dumped on it. You’d think that would be the end of its life, but the miracle is that it survives and grows. Think of everything arrayed against your faith. How did your faith survive all the unanswered questions, all the bitter disappointments, and all the exhausting struggles of your life? The amazing thing about your faith is not that it is weak, but that it exists at all. There is only one explanation: The faith that you have, however weak, is the work of Almighty God. Thank God for that miracle. Recognise what God has done, and your faith will begin to grow.What is God doing in your life? If you can’t see anything right now, try to identify a few unanswered questions, disappointments, or struggles that your faith has survived.

I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith…Jude 3Evangelicals often emphasise spiritual life and the importance of the new birth. We rejoice when people give testimonies of how they came to faith in Christ. But spiritual life is no guarantee of spiritual health. You may be spiritually alive, but are you spiritually fit? We know what it’s like to be out of shape physically. What does it look like when we’re out of shape spiritually? Here are some symptoms: Loss of vigour and vision: Lethargy creeps in. Loss of enjoyment of God, the Word, and worship: Your experience of the nearness of God or of brokenness of soul is a memory, but it is no longer a living experience. Loss of gratitude: You worry about what God has not given you, rather than rejoicing in what He has given. Loss of spiritual hunger and thirst: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God" (Ps. 42:1). This is a soul that is in good shape. Loss of compassion: The needs of others are a burden to you; you become impatient with their faults, and you feel frustrated at their lack of progress. These are some of the symptoms of a soul that is out of shape. There is only one way to deal with the problem and that is to get into God’s exercise room.Rank these symptoms on a scale from 1 to 10: “1” means you see no signs, “5” means you see regular signs, “10” means you see signs of this symptom on a daily basis.

But you, beloved, [build] yourselves up in your most holy faith.Jude 20Jude’s message is very simple: Keep yourself in spiritual shape. It is also very practical, because Jude breaks this down into seven workouts for a healthy Christian life. You may be committed to some kind of fitness programme. You may work out with a personal trainer who gives you an exercise routine to help you get in shape. A good exercise routine will get you working on different muscle groups: “This one is for your abs. This one is for the quads,” etc. In any routine we’ll be drawn to some exercises, and we’ll be tempted to skip others that we don’t like doing. Remember, it’s usually the ones that you tend to skip that you most need to do. As with any good coach, Jude’s instructions are simple. Imagine yourself standing in the middle of a field with Jude as your coach. He’s been telling us what we’re up against. Then he says to the team, “But you…” Build yourself up in the faith. Pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourself in God’s love. Learn to wait. Reach out to others. Watch yourself. Rest in the triumph of God. These verses are a gold mine of how to live the Christian life in a world of doctrinal confusion and moral compromise. Let’s work with this trainer, Jude, to get ourselves into spiritual shape.Of the seven workouts Jude has for us, which one is your strongest area and which one is your weakest area?

God… pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant.Micah 7:18Micah preached this message to all the people of Israel. The sad fact is that to the vast majority of people, what Micah said didn't make the slightest difference. Life went on exactly the same as it had before. Another day, another pound (or shekel). The vast majority of people in Micah’s day were still caught up in their old sins, they had no defence against future temptations, and God’s anger remained on them. But there were a few who realised God was speaking to them, and they turned to Him in repentance. They asked for God’s pardon and prayed for His help to begin living different lives. These people were called the remnant— the group that remained. Micah says, “God… [is] pardoning… the remnant.” In other words, He does not stay angry with them but delights to show them mercy. He treads their sins underfoot and hurls their sins into the depth of the ocean. He fulfils His promise to Abraham in them, as He walks with them through every circumstance of their lives. Are you part of the remnant? Joining the remnant means standing apart from the crowd—the crowd at school, in business, or in the highstreet. You can join the remnant today. You can come to the risen Lord Jesus Christ and say to Him: Do this for me! Remove the condemnation of God’s wrath from me. Hurl my past sins into the depths of the sea. Walk with me, teach me, lead me into a new life that pleases you. Crush my future temptations under your feet. This is what He wants to do for you, and when you begin to experience it, you will say with Micah: “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant?”Is your life going to go on the same after hearing that God pardons sin and forgives transgression? Or are you going to turn to God in repentance and ask for His pardon and for His help to begin living a different life?

He will tread our iniquities underfoot.Micah 7:19If hurling your iniquities into the depths of the sea refers to God’s deliverance from past sins, then treading your sins underfoot must refer to temptations that still lie ahead of you. Here you are going out into another week, and Satan has already set some snares in your path. Every one of us will face specific temptations this week. And you will be tested at the point where you’re most vulnerable. Here’s the good news: God is walking with you. As you encounter snares, traps, and temptations on your path this week, the Lord will tread your sins underfoot. Past sins will not master you and future temptations will not overwhelm you. Why not? Because God will walk with you. One reason people commonly give for not wanting to commit to Jesus Christ is simply this: “I couldn’t keep it up. My past sins would catch up with me, and my future temptations would overwhelm me.” Listen, God has already thought about all that. He has made provisions for you. In Christ, God’s anger is ended, your past has been dealt with, and your future is secure.Are you afraid that you can’t keep up the Christian life? Let today be the day that you commit to following Jesus, trusting in the provisions that He has made for you.

You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.Micah 7:19This is a marvellous picture: God hurling your iniquities into the depths of the sea. A pastor once said: “When God throws your sins into the depths of the sea, He puts up a big sign that says. No fishing!” When God forgives. He takes the past with all of its guilt, and it is gone. But there is something else here that comes fresh from this passage. This phrase about God “casting” something into the depths of the sea refers back to the story of how God’s people came out of Egypt. Micah was thinking about the Exodus when he wrote these words: “As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, I will show them marvellous things” (7:15). Micah has this picture in mind: “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea” (Ex. 15:4). When God saves you—you know what’s going to happen—your sins will come chasing after you. Past sins usually lead to present struggles. But here is God’s promise: When your past sins come after you, God will be with you, and He will deliver you from their power, just like He delivered His people from the power of the Egyptian army. He will hurl them into the depths of the sea. This is much more than forgiveness. It is deliverance. He breaks the power of cancelled sin. He sets the prisoner free.Do you feel like your past sins are catching up with you? Take God at His word: “Sin will have no dominion over you” (Rom. 6:14).

He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.Micah 7:18It's hard to think of any issue that causes more difficulty in the minds and hearts of so many people than the anger of God. We tend to suppress the idea of God’s anger or deny it. You’ve likely heard someone say, “I grew up believing in an angry God, but now I believe in a loving God.” What do you do with the passages in the Bible that speak of God’s anger? Many Christians live with an underlying feeling that God is angry with them. There is this strange contradiction of saying you don’t believe in an angry God but feeling that God is always angry with you. If you find it difficult to believe that God really loves you, it may be that you too have this underlying feeling that God is angry with you. If that is the case, you will feel that God might at best tolerate you, but He certainly will not delight in you. The Bible makes it clear that God is irreconcilably opposed to evil and irrepressibly filled with love. It's hard for us to understand how these two things can both be true at the same time. Our natural tendency is to grasp hold of one and lose our grip on the other. If you can’t see how God’s love and justice meet, you will either feel that His love is not really love, it’s just a mask over His anger, or you will feel that His anger is not really anger, it’s just a mask over His love. We desperately need to see how God’s love and justice meet.Do you feel God is angry at you all or most of the time?

I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgement for me.Micah 7:9All of our experience indicates that we seem more under God’s judgement than His blessing. Our culture is falling apart. Families are breaking up. God is hiding His face from us. We have sinned and we are under the wrath of God. Where do you go from there? Micah’s hope in the darkness is that this same God whose judgement we have brought on ourselves will come and take up our case. His hope is that God will take His stand with us (not against us), that He will act for us, and that God Himself would plead the case of His people. Imagine Almighty God speaking in your defence. Micah says, “If only that could happen!” Our only hope is if God should plead our case, if God should step in and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and that is precisely what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. That’s the gospel. God came down among us in Jesus Christ. He came and stood with us. The wrath of God was poured out on Jesus when He died on the cross. God bore the wrath of God. Jesus rose on the third day. He ascended into heaven where He pleads the case of all His people. Micah’s hope for restoring families and changing communities lies in the gospel. He’s not looking for a programme or a set of techniques to make this happen, and he’s not starting a new movement. He’s looking to the gospel.Where does your hope for restoration and change lie?

But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation.Micah 7:7God may seem hidden to us, but He is never absent. He may seem far away, but He is always at work. Micah knows God is near, and that is why He watches and waits. Fishermen know about this. You don't see any fish, but you know they’re there, so you watch and you wait expectantly. God may hide His face from you for a time, but not forever. If you find yourself in great darkness, watch to see what God will do. Watch what He does in your own heart. Watch what He does in the people around you. Watch what He does among other believers. God’s purpose often takes us through the darkness, but it never ends there. You may think of waiting as something you have to endure in order to get what you want. But God speaks about waiting as the way that we grow when we don’t have what we want. God’s promises are as good in the darkness as they are in the light. That’s why Micah can say, “When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me" (7:8). God works in the darkness as much as He does in the light. God’s greatest work was done in total darkness during three hours when Jesus hung on the cross. Nobody could see what He was doing then. If ever there was a moment when it seemed God was hiding, it was on the cross where He splintered the gates of hell and opened up access to heaven. But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me… When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me (7:7-8). That’s faith.Where do you need to exercise faith today by watching and waiting?

Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to me, “Where is the LORD your God?”Micah 7:10All Micah can say is that things will be different in the future, but as he writes, he has no compelling answer to offer the cynic who says, “Where is your God?” Micah is surrounded by trouble and God is nowhere to be found. He doesn’t know where God is, or what God is doing. This is wonderfully helpful, because surely all of us have been there—an illness strikes, a church splits, a business collapses, a son or daughter abandons the faith, or a tragedy strikes the family. If a cynic came and said to you: "Well then, where is your God in all this?" You would be stuck for an answer. You would have to say, "I don’t have a clue." This is an important (but often neglected) truth about the God of the Bible. He is the God who hides Himself. This is paradoxical because He is also the God who reveals Himself, otherwise we would not know anything at all about Him. But the Bible makes it quite clear that sometimes God hides Himself, even from His own people. “Truly, you are a God who hides himself” (Isa. 45:15). Sometimes we can’t make sense of our lives and we just don’t know what God is doing. But thankfully, our Christian faith does not rest on things always making sense to us. It rests on God’s promises. If you expect to always know what God is doing in your life, your family, your church, or your country, you will be disappointed. The secret things belong to the Lord. He hides them from us.Have you experienced God hiding Himself from you?

Woe is me!Micah 7:1In order to understand Micah’s misery, we must look at three things that were happening among God’s people. The loss of godly character. Micah says, “The godly has perished from the earth” (7:2). He is talking about a loss of godly character: “I look at how people are living, and all I can see is godly character being swept away. I look for models of upright living, but I’m not seeing them.” The rise of self-interest. “As I look across the country,” Micah is saying, “here is what I see: The ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire—they all conspire together” (7:3). It’s all about pressure groups with their own agendas and self-interest that has replaced the common good. And when that happens, family life starts falling apart. The breakdown of family life. Micah saw something deeply distressing: “guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother” (7:5-6). He observed a loss of trust between husbands and wives, and a loss of respect between kids and parents. What’s breaking Micah’s heart is that this is happening among God’s people. Micah says, “As I look at what is happening among God’s people, it breaks my heart!”What concerns you most: the loss of godly character, the rise of self-interest, or the breakdown of the family in the culture and among God’s people?

He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.Micah 7:19When Jesus came preaching the message of the gospel, He said, “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). But too often we’ve cut that in half. We sometimes drop the “repent,” and go strictly with “believe the gospel.” The result is “believers” who are little different from the world around them. Dr. Alan Redpath used to say, “God has not promised to forgive one sin that you will not forsake.” God is not in the business of ferrying unchanged people into heaven. God is calling us to a different way of life, marked by justice, mercy, and faithfulness. These are the marks of a person who walks with Him. This is our calling. The good news of the gospel is that God offers to deal with you on the basis of justice, mercy, and faithfulness. He offered His firstborn Son for the sin of your soul. Christ bore your sentence on the cross. He got the justice so that you could have the mercy, and God is faithful to that. But the way you receive that mercy is to enter a relationship with Christ, who says, “Follow me.” He invites you to walk humbly with Him, and to treat others in the same way that He has dealt with you—in justice, mercy, and faithfulness.Have you been expecting God to forgive sins that you have not yet forsaken? Take some time now to talk with Him about this.

What does the Lord require of you but… to walk humbly with your God?Micah 6:8If you want to walk with God, you need to get on the path where He is—the path of justice and mercy. God says to us: "If you get on that path, you will find me there." God is the God of justice and mercy. This is what the cross is all about: God’s justice was poured out on Jesus so that God’s mercy could be poured out on us. There is a story about a devoted monk from the tenth century. All his life, he longed for Christ to appear visibly to him. He prayed for this every day for years: "Lord. I want to see you. I have given my life to you. Won’t you appear to me once?” Then it happened. The monk looked up and the Lord was standing in his cell. He was completely overcome. But at that same moment, the bell over the door of the monastery rang. The monk knew why. Every day beggars came to the monastery looking for bread. The monks had a roster for handing out bread, and that day it was his turn. He faced an agonising decision. Should he ignore the beggar and stay with Christ? Or should he leave Christ and go to the beggar? What should he do? What would you have done? The monk slowly rose from his knees, took the bread, and gave it to the beggar. Then he slowly walked back to his cell. To his absolute astonishment, he saw Christ waiting for him. He fell to his knees. Then Christ spoke: “If you had not gone, I would not have stayed.”Do you want to walk with God and know the presence of Jesus? Go and find some way to serve a person in need, and you will find that His presence is with you.

What does the Lord require of you but… to love kindness?Micah 6:8The second dimension of our calling is to love kindness or mercy. To love mercy is not merely to show mercy, but to love it. People who love mercy look for any opportunity to show it. We’ve talked about ways in which you may have wronged other people, but there are also situations in which other people have wronged you. Is there anyone in the business world who has not been treated unjustly? If someone has wronged you, it is very likely that at some point God may bring about circumstances in which you have an opportunity to settle the score. What are you going to do? You can embarrass, humiliate, cold shoulder, penalise, ruin, or destroy that person. The options are endless, and delicious. Maybe you had years of conflict with your father, so you punished him by not allowing him to see your children. Now he has died and you wish you had not done that. What you do when God puts you in a position where you can get even, will reveal a great deal about your character. What did Jesus do? Remember the story about the Pharisees who somehow caught a woman in the act of adultery and brought her to Jesus. He loved mercy by releasing her and telling her to “Go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:11).What difference would it make if you went out this week, actively looking for opportunities to show mercy? What if you did that for a month, a year, or a lifetime?

What does the LORD require of you but to do justice?Micah 6:8To “do justice” means you do what is right even when it is costly. You pursue integrity rather than convenience. It means asking, “How can I give full value?” rather than wondering, "What can I get away with?" It means refusing to take advantage of someone who is vulnerable. It means treating the weak the same way you would treat the strong. Acting justly means standing up for someone who is vulnerable, the person who is bullied at school, and the believer who is persecuted. It means showing proper respect to every person as a man or woman made in the image of God. Always speak and act in private in a way that would not make you ashamed if it were made public. That’s how every Christian should live. One day we will all stand before the judgement seat of Christ, and everything you do and say in secret will be brought out into the open. God will not ask you, “How many prayer meetings did you attend?” Or “How many times did you take communion?” But “Tell me how you dealt with that complaint.” Or “Tell me about the accounts you presented during that merger back in 1997.” Or “Tell me why you didn’t hire that person of colour. You said they weren't qualified. Was that really the truth?” There are some situations in which you can make restoration, and if there is any way of doing that, you should do it. Zacchaeus knew who he had taken money from when he shouldn’t have, and he gave them back four times as much (Luke 19:8). The truth is that most of what we have done wrong can’t be put right. God knows that. But you can make a new commitment to justice today.What would it look like for you to make a new commitment to justice today?

With what shall I come before the LORD… Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?Micah 6:6These are the words of someone who holds up his hands and says, “You got me. I’m guilty. Now what do I do?” Our first instinct when we feel guilty is to become religious (burnt offerings). “This doesn’t feel right. Maybe we could give something to the church? Or do some work around the church?” Notice the ascending scale in the plea bargain. It starts with a few year-old calves. But that doesn’t feel like enough. What about thousands of rams? If that doesn’t cut it, what else can I offer? What do you want from me? "Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (6:7). This is a grandiose gesture. “Maybe I should sell my cabin in the country, or become a priest, or a missionary?” How do we deal with this guilt? That’s where we come to this marvellous answer: “He has told you, O man, what is good: and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8). God is saying, “I want you to separate yourself from the sin of the city, not by coming out of the business world, but by doing business in a different way.” If you belong to Jesus Christ, God is not looking for you to be religious. Putting a veneer of religion over an unchanged life won’t impress anyone, and it certainly won’t impress God. Your calling is to a life marked by justice, mercy, and faithfulness.Which one of these do you think God wants to talk to you about today: Are you acting justly? Do you love mercy? Are you walking humbly with God?