You know how the Holy Spirit will bring a verse or passage of Scripture to mind? It keeps coming up and you chew on it for a while. Then it goes away for a bit then God brings it back, and you find more in that verse? Well, that’s been happening to me lately with Jude 24.
I used to drive for a living and had long stretches with noting to think about but the passing scenery. For a while, I memorized Scripture which included the book of Jude. Since then, God reminds me of various parts of those 25 verses. They come flooding back to point something out to me, to compare with something I’m reading, or for God to just teach me something new. What He has been teaching me in verse 24 is impressive and still ongoing.
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, (Jude 1:24)
Keep you from stumbling. The obvious part of this is that God can keep us from sinning. When we consider sinning, and we do, God is available to draw us back from the brink if we will just ask. He’s a Gentleman, though. He won’t act if He’s not asked. He has told us this in 1 Cor. 10:13, where Paul tells us we will not be tempted beyond what we are able and God will give us an escape route. We sin when we refuse to take that exit.
What’s been sticking with me lately, though, is the rest of the verse, that He (God our Savior, Who I’m assuming is Christ) will present us blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy. Lots of stuff in there.
Faultless. We will stand before God free from any blame for the sins we’ve committed. A man I knew, Jim, died a couple of years ago, but about a year before he died, he gave his testimony to a men’s group. Jim had been a pimp, a drug dealer, an alcoholic, generally a really “hopeless” sinner. But, Christ broke through to Jim. In his testimony, he told of a dream he had of Jesus coming to take him home. In the dream, Jim started crying. Jesus said, “What is it Jim? Don’t you believe in me?” Jim responded, “Of course I believe in You. It’s me.”
I’ve lived a pretty clean life. I’ve never done drugs, never been an alcoholic, or done any of the things Jim did. But, when Jesus comes for me, I will probably react much as Jim did in his dream. It’s not the greatness of God that will make me shrink from Him; it’s the ungodliness in me.
Jude says Jesus will present us faultless – faultless! The Greek word means “without spot or blemish.” How can that be? I know what I have done, who I really am. It’s because Christianity has something no other faith has: grace.
Before the presence of His glory. Just what is the “presence of His glory?” It is the throne described by John in Revelation 4:2-6 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. 4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, 6 and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
This is the throne where we will be faultlessly presented.
With exceeding joy. I used to think this was speaking of my joy in being there before God’s throne faultless, but I no longer believe that. Look at what Hebrews 12:2. It says it is Jesus’ joy: looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus Himself will be “exceedingly” joyful at our being presented before the presence of His glory.
One more point that excites me: the Greek word for “you” here is singular. It is not saying “you all” but “you as an individual.” Each of us shall stand before the presence of His glory with Jesus exceedingly joyful we are there. We will be addressed and blessed individually, not corporately.
Why is this important?
Many Christians look at themselves as the sinners they are and think they can never stand before God in such a state. Others believe they will just make it by the skin of their teeth with the smell of smoke still on their clothes. They believe they’ll be standing in the back of a crowd hoping no one spots them and throws them out.
They’re wrong! The truth is God has sacrificed everything for us, for the joy that was set before Him. You are that joy.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 