Hosanna Restoration Church

It is our natural instinct to prefer ourselves. This ranges from our own person or own our own family all the way to our own gender or race in extreme cases. There is a lot of space in between these that you can fill in on your own. For now, I want to limit this to the body of Christ and those watching the body of Christ, as well as those that the body of Christ are watching. Keeping in mind, that the Spirit of God tells us to prefer others.

First, let’s look at the world outside the church. Sometimes we church folks take an attitude of disgust toward people for the things that they do and say. We forget that we are to love the people and hate the actions, lifestyle, or whatever. We wonder how they can do those things, and we seem to forget that we were just the same without Christ in our lives, and sadly still not so different even now. Some of us were far worse than the average person on the street, and others had the potential to be just as bad. You know, “but for the grace of God!”

The fact is that without the Spirit of God living in them, they have no real power to overcome, nor do they have the desire to change. Before I came know Christ, I fit in perfectly with the people that I had fellowship(hung around) with. I seldom saw anything wrong with the things I did. And in those times when I wondered if there were not something better, it did not take me long to decide that there must not be. Praise God that He never gave up on me. So from the Christian looking out position, we need to realize that all people need in order to change is the Spirit of God living in them, and our place is to pray that it will happen. Our place is also to be good examples of what people with the Spirit of God can be and do.

This brings us to the next question. How can people who are Christians do some of the things that they do. Well, it is the same problem. Let’s face it, we all have areas in our lives where God is not is complete control. We all have places where the old natural instinct still gets the upper hand. We all have places where we are stronger in faith than someone else, and we all have places where we have a ways to go. No wonder we are commanded in scripture to pray for one another! That is pray, not judge!

Jude was telling these folks that there were those among them who were creating divisions. Were they doing this by the Spirit of God? According to Jude they were doing this because they did not have the Spirit of God living in them. We really do need one another. We may not all agree on every point of doctrine…but we still need one another. Christ is our solid Rock, and if we will build everything from that foundation then we have a sound faith. The world needs for us to be solid. It needs to see us living with the Spirit of God in control of, and blessing our lives. Verse 21 of Jude says that we should live in such a way that the love of God can bless us. How do we do that? I would say that the best way to do that is to give the Spirit of God access to every area of our lives.