Devotion for Today, October 1, 2020

My Dear FReeper Friends, I pray that this devotional for today brings you all the love, hope, peace and joy that the Lord Jesus Christ promises to all who believe in Him, and accept Him as their Lord and Savior. To those who are undecided, to those who have had so much pain in their lives that they have reasoned that the Lord God has forgotten them, to any who have outright rejected the Gospel of Christ Jesus, this I say to you: Jesus LOVES you more than anyone on earth can ever love you, and He willingly came to earth and died, taking on Himself all the sins that have ever been committed by mankind or will ever commit. Every sickness and disease that has or will ever be present in this world was also laid upon Him, and every mental torment that anyone has or will ever experience He bore within Himself. He also foreknew every disaster that would fall upon earth, and felt the agony and grief that every living thing on earth would suffer and die because of.

But in three days, the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, as He is part of the Trinity of Father God and the Holy Spirit, and was both fully man and fully God. And of course, the Eternal, Almighty LORD GOD cannot die! And death cannot keep the spirit of any believer in The Lord Jesus Christ in the grave, nor their body in future as it is raised at the time of Jesus's Return in the air to gather all His children unto him.

That time is so near, I can feel in my own spirit that I should cry, "Please accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior now, for there is almost no time left!" That time that the earth and mankind will go through, a time so horrific and catastrophic that has never happened before or will again, is right on the horizon. Many will accept Christ during that time, known as the Great Tribulation, but many of those precious saints will be killed for their testimony of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and did not love their lives even at the point of death. The time to decide is now, and now is not after you watch TV for a while or read a book or get on social media. Satan wants your soul, and he will throw everything in your path he can to get you to delay or, yes, continue in unbelief. Look around you, are the events occurring right now on earth not perfectly matched to the prophecies that warn us in The Word of God?

Jude 1:1-25,

"Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James,

To those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:

Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God's holy people.

For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and LORD.

Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the LORD at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.

And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling---these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.

In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. they serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings.

But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, " The LORD rebuke you!"

Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct---as irrational animals do---will destroy them.

Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam's error; they have been destroyed in Korah's rebellion.

These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm---shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted---twice dead.

They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

Enoch, seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: "See, the LORD is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and all of the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold.

They said to you, "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.

These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,

keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

Be merciful to those who doubt;

save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear---hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and 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, and forevermore! Amen."

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