students of jesus

The nice thing about a closing prayer at church is it gives you time to gather up all your stuff and get a head start on the mad rush to the restaurant. The truly adventurous church-goer might even take advantage of all those closed-eyed people and bolt for the door when no one’s looking. Pity the poor benediction. It’s no more than a holy starters gun: ready set, amen, go!

But what if the benediction is filled with revelation and life? What if the Holy Spirit has inspired life-changing words available to anyone with ears to hear?

We have at least one example of a life-giving benediction buried near the back of the book. Jude, the half-brother of Jesus, speaks words of life over his original hearers, and these words are life-giving still today:
Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (vs 24-25)
Before we turn the page and rush into the Apocalypse, perhaps we can discover some of the revelation in this short good-bye prayer.

He is able to keep us from falling ~ This is an amazing comfort! Jude reminds us that part of God's greatness is not only that he can remove our guilt, he is also able to keep us from falling. Do we dare believe it? To walk with him means becoming the kind of person able to walk uprightly before him.

Presented before God--without fault! ~ As we are learning to walk free from stumbling, God is actively taking care of those moments when we do stumble. How to you react to this statement: “The day is coming when you must stand before God.” It should be a source of joy because we can have the confidence that he himself will present us faultless. So what’s to worry about? He teaches us how to walk and repairs our missteps--the best of both worlds.

With great joy ~ Today, like every day for a student of Jesus, we are reminded that the end of our journey is joy, even great joy, or as one translation says, exceeding joy. If this is my destination, why shouldn't I grow more joyful with each step?

The author of these three assurances is God, our Savior, who has the glory, majesty, power, and authority to bring it all to pass. He has proven it in Jesus Christ, and Jude reminds us this is so--but only if we stay for the benediction--the good speaking. Who will speak good over you today? Your brother, Jude--who was also the Lord’s brother. Peace!

Once there was a wealthy man with a strange illness. Each night he forgot his wealth.

He awoke each morning with the fear and uncertainty of a pauper. When his servants arrived with breakfast, he stuffed his mouth quickly, certain the servants would discover they had served breakfast to the wrong man. Sometimes he would grab a crust of bread and run from his own mansion, hiding in the alleyways of the town. His servants would search him out and return him by force to his home, where he was sure he would be punished for his theft.

Other days the wealthy man would encounter his riches one by one, overwhelmed by his good fortune. Still other days he ignored them completely, believing them to be another’s property. And some days he would settle quickly and comfortably into his role of privilege and power. But each day, asleep by nightfall, the wealthy man forgot his riches by midnight only to awake the next morning unaware.

One night an angel appeared to him in a dream and offered to heal him completely. “I can speak the word,” said the angel, “and you will remember your wealth forever.”

“No,” said the wealthy man. “My best days are when I discover afresh who I am. True--it’s a terrible day when I live in fear and cannot accept the blessings, but the worst days are when I ignore them completely, either because of ignorance or privilege.”

Then he made the angel a counter-offer: “Grant that I will encounter my riches one by one, and that I will learn to stop in each moment and offer thanks afresh. I want each day to be a celebration of my good fortune.”

So the angel spoke the word, and gave him the healing he asked for. Over the years a strange thing happened to the rich man. Slowly, yet surely as the sun would rise, instead of forgetting is wealth each night, he began to remember his blessings from one day to the next, but retained the wonder and amazement of a man who encountered them for the first time. In fact, he discovered he was more than merely a person of wealth. He was, in fact, a son of a king. Day by day he saw the benefits and blessings of his father’s opulent, over-flowing love, and shared them with the certainty that the flow would never end. Whatever treasures were daily lavished at his feet, he both partook with thanks and distributed to others at will.

When he died he left an epitaph, engraved for all to see: “Each day has a thousand treasures--most of which I will forget by midnight. But I can thank him in the moment, and the moment can become a lifetime.”