Daily Manna · Day 270 · September 27
Kept from Falling
“Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.”
What are you most afraid you will still do?
Not the thing from ten years ago. The one circling now, on the tired evenings when nobody is watching and the argument for it sounds reasonable.
The word Jude reaches for has a long history behind it. The psalmist says he that keepeth thee will not slumber, and says it twice for the sake of anyone who missed it. Jesus says of his sheep that neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Peter tells scattered believers they are kept by the power of God through faith. Paul, in a cell, says he is persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Jude ends on the same note and puts the emphasis on capacity: unto him that is able. Not willing to try. Able.
And this comes at the end of a letter that is almost entirely about people who fell. Jude has spent a page on them. Then he stops describing the danger, turns the whole weight over to someone else, and describes an arrival: faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy. Not crawling in scraped and apologetic. Presented, spotless, into a room where the mood is gladness.
So read your private list again. Every item on it is a thing you might do. Not one of them is a thing he might turn out to be unable to keep you from.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 270 is What I Hate (Romans 7:15).