The Epistle of Jude is an interesting book in Scripture. It is reputed to have been written by one of Jesus’ brothers, another son of Mary. It contains at least two clear references to books of the Hebrew Apocrypha. And it is addressed to no specific regional audience.
The verse used by Chambers in this entry is the point of Jude where the author turns from discussing those in error to his audience. He doesn’t exhort them, as much as describe them as, among other things, “building yourselves in your holy faith,” as if they are already doing this.
The central theme that Chambers goes off on is that it takes the work of the Holy Spirit to enable and build up a believer in the daily routines of life; that a believer can use their own personal abilities to survive crises. I found that an interesting turn of opinion.
I thought Chambers had said before that if I didn’t work on faith in the routine times, that I would be swept away in the times of crisis. It was the strength and training gained in the barracks that enabled valor and success on the battlefield. I may have misunderstood that if his position is that the “barracks” life is more difficult to endure than the battle.
I see what he means though. Crises don’t come to stay, they come and pass through. I can last on my own strength of character for a little bit, even when it’s a dramatic event. It’s in the daily grinding down of my mind and spirit that I cannot survive without my Master and His Spirit resurrecting me. I can become complacent in routines, but it’s easy to stay focused for short sprints of crisis. I see what Chambers is getting at, and I do agree with that, to a degree. And I suspect that he would accept the same degree of disagreement based on earlier entries.
There are crises that threaten the foundations of faith if that faith is based on the results of relating to my Master rather than my Master Himself. What is done in the daily grinding to reach for my Master and cling to Him enables a building up of a faith that is truly holy. It’s faith in Him, but it is also faith given freely by Him. If I have no familiarity with such faith, then some crises can wipe away my “building” as if it were made on and of sand.
There is a way of life termed “management by crisis” where survival is attained or attempted by enabling crises in life. There are varieties of reasons for doing this, and I have tried it before, and was pretty good at it. I was lazy and didn’t want to do the work necessary to avoid crises, then thrived in the adulation of others after overcoming it (totally obscuring the fact the crisis was my fault for not planning), and finally biding my time in the spotlight waiting for the next crisis, waiting to shine once more. Such a life is about me, not about my Master. It didn’t last long.
Management by crisis requires manageable crises. Since small crises often compound to form larger ones, the “management” technique eventually collapses. It hurts when it does, and for me, forced me to grow up a little. I would always play to my strengths, and avoid my weaknesses. That plays the game of life by my rules instead of my Master’s. He lets me, waiting for the inevitable collapse when I humbly return in shame. I have been fairly successful in the last year playing by His rules, not entirely and not perfectly, but more and more.
Actually, I find that now, many months later (almost a year), it is getting more difficult to maintain that focus on my Master, and I sense myself drifting back toward my old thinking. This is the point where my Master wants to do the most work. This is the point where the benefit gained in faith during daily routine life really begins to grow me. It is here that I am stretched more, even than in crises.
It is my wife and her family that is in crisis. My older sister and her family is in crisis of a different but related sort. I am not. I am in a position to pray for them, bringing their crises before my Master. I am in a position of relative comfort and ease, the perfect place to seek my Master’s face and focus on Him. But I don’t. I do pray from time to time about those in crisis, but I don’t focus on my Master as I should. I still feel the habit of playing to my strengths gripping my mental patterns. I have not entirely torn down that mental framework, but it needs to go. It’s in disrepair, but it’s not gone as it should be.
All this to say that building myself in my holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit are things I want to describe me day in and day out. Jude used those terms to describe his audience, and I want that to apply to me as well. I want to be able to help my fellow believers who are sinking into error and despair. I want to be useful in my Master’s Kingdom in ways that reveal His glory, not my own. I’m on my way, but I’m not quite there yet. Like Chambers says, it doesn’t happen in five minutes.
No comments:
Post a Comment