Hey Jude

“Hey Jude,” by the Beatles, has sold around 8 million copies and in 2013 was ranked as the 10^th “biggest” song by Billboard magazine. Lest you think I am a Beatles fan, I am not nor have ever been. The only lyrics of this song that I know are “Hey Jude” and the four minute coda of “Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na.”

There is another Jude that I am very familiar with and that is the book of Jude which is wedged between 3^rd John and Revelation. Although it is only 25 verses long, I have spent a couple of weeks reading it over and over and studying commentaries about it. It has been such a blessing. Almost daily I send all my children a short 4-5 sentence devotional thought, and several have shared what great insights this book has been for them as well.

For this month’s prayer and fast article, I decided to do an “expositional” article highlighting some of insights Jude’s insights and subsequent prayer requests. I hope it is an encouragement to you as well.

• Verse 1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,
  • The world says we should be masters of our own fate and satisfy ourselves in whatever way we want. Servanthood is growing increasingly out of favor, even in the church.
  • Pray that our children will be true servants of God and have a servant’s heart before man and find their joy in that means.
    
• Verse 2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
  • We can only be saved through Christ’s mercy, not of our own merits. God has an unending supply of mercy, peace, and love. If it can be multiplied to us, that presupposes we have room to receive more of it.
  • Pray that our children and us may receive multiplied waves of mercy, peace, and love from God. May peace be their boon companion throughout their lives.
    
• Verse 3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
  • Our children will have to learn to contend (fight) for the things of God because the culture is screaming so loudly through social media, music, etc. They must fight against their own appetites and the thinking of the world.
  • Pray that God would place a fighting spirit inside our children, and that they would be warriors for the kingdom.

• Verse 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
  • Throughout Peter, 1,2,3 John and in Jude we are cautioned against false teaching. So many young people have succumbed to the Sirens of life and have deconstructed their faith rather than walking by faith. Not only do we need to teach a biblical worldview, we must intercede for them asking God for discernment.
  • Pray that our children will discern false teaching and be independent thinkers who will not be caught in deception.
• • One of the devil’s most useful weapon among young people today is to pervert grace, suggesting that since salvation is a result of Christ’s work on Calvary, what we do doesn’t matter. Grace is not a license to sin but the empowerment of God not to sin. Where there is a misunderstanding of grace, there will be a misapplication of liberty. This is another battle our children must fight.
  • Pray that God will help our children understand what grace is and apply grace accordingly so that we can be more like Christ.
    
• Verse 5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
  • Preaching is to continually remind us of the damage that sin can do because we tend to forget it since we live in a world that minimizes sin. We never arrive but must always be straining to fulfill the high calling of Jesus Christ in big things to small things.
  • Pray that our children will love the preaching of God’s word and that any time they would flirt with sin, the Holy Spirit will bring warnings from the past to their mind to encourage them to resist the temptation.

• Verse 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—
  • God sets boundaries for everything. He set the boundaries of the ocean in Proverbs 8:29. He told Adam and Eve what one tree was off limits in Genesis 2:17. Lucifer did not respect his bounds in heaven but wanted to overthrow God. The temptation of man is to also go past God-ordained limits.
  • Pray that our children will have a loving respect for the boundaries God places in their lives. Pray that they will understand that these limitations are for their safety and well-being.
    
• Verse 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
  • God has given us so many examples of what sins does, both in the bible and in real-life examples. I encourage parents to share stories of people they have known and how sin has wrecked lives. We can learn about sin through the bible, its effects in the lives of others, or experience its devastating effects ourselves. Let’s encourage the former not the latter.
  • Pray that our children will get a real grasp of sin’s curse through observing its effect in the lives of others and be motivated to run as far away from sin as possible.

• Verse 8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
  • Everyone has an authority. In a survey among Baptist teens, it found that one-third of them made their decisions from the bible and another third on what made them feel happy. If we rely on our own definitions (dreams) we too will walk in the flesh, disregard what authority says, and blaspheme the things of God.
  • Pray that our children will not live be bread alone but by every word that precedes out of the mouth of God. Pray that will acquire an unquenchable thirst for the things of God.
    
• Verse 9 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”
  • We are so quick to play fast and loose with the things of God. The devil, perhaps citing some of Moses’ failures like when he murdered an Egyptian, contended over who had the right to Moses’ body. Even though Michael had God’s authority behind him, he didn’t rebuke the devil but left that to the Lord in saying, “the Lord rebuke you.”
  • Pray that neither we nor our children will presume to pass out quick judgments but will leave those things up to God. Pray they will always walk in humility, even when walking in God’s authority.
    
• Verse 10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
  • People talked down about things they are not up on. They don’t take time to study to show themselves approved, but instead live by their misdirected instincts. How quickly people judge that which they know little or nothing about. Not only should our children live by God’s Word and not what they think (their own instincts) but they should be careful about giving their opinion until they have studied things out.
  • Pray that our children will not be intimidated by public sentiment which knows next to nothing about the bible. Pray the world’s blaspheming will motivate them to pray for the blindness of others.