DCLM Daily Manna 23 July 2022
KEY VERSE: “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 4).
TEXT: Jude 1-8 (KJV)
1 Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:
2 Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.
3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
Read yesterday’s Daily Manna here
When people lack proper understanding of divine benevolence, they abuse and demean it. Many misunderstand God’s grace to be freedom from all obligations of the law and an unrestrained liberty to sin.
Apostle Jude, in our text, warned the believers of the early church to be on the lookout for peddlers and preachers who turn the grace of God into lasciviousness – a licence to sin. He did not fail to tell them that God would bring judgment on all those who fail to maintain the state of true grace that produces righteousness, just as He brought judgment on all those who left Egypt but remained in unbelief and the angels who failed to keep their state of purity. Those who revel in sins, like Sodom and Gomorrah, will eventually face divine judgment.
Grace does not release us from the obligations of the laws of God. Rather, it helps us to keep His righteous laws which we were unable to do when we were in sin. Those who claim they have grace as a liberty to sin only prove that they are yet to receive it.
God’s grace brings about true salvation and freedom from all sin. It teaches us to live godly in this decayed world. This is the kind of grace we must seek to have; it is dignifying and not demeaning!
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Does your life dignify God’s grace or demean it?
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Exodus 23-25
Thank you for studying today’s Daily Manna – Don’t Demean Grace – by Pastor W.F Kumuyi
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Daily Manna 23 July 2022