10/03/26

Have you ever had a family member or close friend you love dearly, but who started living their life in a way that keeps them from experiencing the love you have for them? Examples might be that they cut all contact with you so they can go off and do all the drugs that they choose and not experience your love that attempts to help them by finding a rehab program. You still love them the same, but you don't know where they are. Therefore, you can't give them the blessings of your love, which desires to correct and help them live a righteous life.

Another example is that you know where they are, but the lifestyle they choose means you can't reach them. We have all seen cults that make people cut off ties with their loved ones. You know where they are; you love them the same, but they have chosen to live an immoral life behind walls that keep you out. Thus, they don't get to experience your love that seeks to bring them back to a moral and righteous life. Your love hasn't changed; they have just removed themselves from a place where they can experience it. The last example I have for you is that they stay in the open; they see you, and you see them, but every time your love starts to convict them for their lifestyle, they do something to soil it and hide from it until next time. Your love is still the same; they just choose to treat it as anything but love.

Jude gives us a warning about how we can often do the same with God. Jude 1:21 NASB95: Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

We know because of Scripture that nothing can separate us from God's love. Romans 8:38-39 NASB95: For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So since we know God's love never leaves us, then we can understand what Jude is saying.

We must be careful not to live in a way that we do not experience the glorious effects of that love. We clearly do not deserve it, but He gives it anyway.

A man can jump out of a plane with a parachute. It is strapped to his back and can provide amazing protection, but if he never pulls the ripcord, he never gets to experience all that the parachute has to offer.

The sun never stops shining, but if we always travel so as to stay on the dark side of the Earth, we never will feel the warmth of its rays nor the vision of its light. Well, at least not at the same level we would on the light side of the Earth. The sun is still there; we have just moved ourselves so we don't experience all it has to offer.

Jude warns us that we should strive to remain in the light side of God's love. Pull the rip cord and wait anxiously for the mercy of its protection. His love is always present, but so many claim it and then go and live their life on the dark side of the earth and refuse to enjoy the view from the comfort of the slow descent of His protection.

Don't be mistaken. Living in sin doesn't cause God to remove His love. He doesn't love you because of who you are or what you do. He loves you because of who He is. However, when you live in sin, it is like hiding from the sun in a cave, or cutting holes in your parachute before you jump.

Don't soil the table of the feast He has prepared for you; instead, sit down, thank God for loving you enough to invite you, and enjoy His blessings.

It is not too late. After all, your love is still there for the one who has refused it for so long. Even more so is His!

Love Bro. Scott