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? I do not mean the thing from ten years ago. I mean the temptation circling you now, on the tired evenings when nobody is watching and giving in starts to sound reasonable.
The promise Jude reaches for has a long history in Scripture. The psalmist says, "he that keepeth thee will not slumber," and then says it again for anyone who missed it: "he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." Jesus says of His sheep, "neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." Peter tells scattered believers that they "are kept by the power of God through faith." Paul, writing as a prisoner, 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 he puts the weight on what God can do: "unto him that is able." He does not say God is willing to try. He says God is able.
This comes at the end of a short letter that is almost all about people who fell away. Jude has spent nearly the whole letter warning about them. Then he stops describing the danger, hands the whole weight over to God, and describes an arrival: "to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy."
Picture that day. God Himself brings you in, without a spot on you, and sets you before His glory in a place full of joy. That is how Jude expects the story of a believer to end.
So read your private list of fears again. Every item on it is something you might do. There is not one item on it that God is 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).