Daily Devotion with Pastor Tong Liu: Daily Devotion

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River of Life Christian Church ︳www.rolcc.net/english

Jude 3-4

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Judas is urging us to fight for the Truth in this verse. The truth of the gospel is a whole package - it is full and complete. There will always be some in the church who would preach a partial gospel: Some people focus so much on the message of repentance, to the point they lose their joy and live in fear of condemnation, thinking that they may do something to incur God's wrath and lose their salvation. This type of teaching causes people to focus on acts of righteousness, instead of righteousness by faith. Repentance is a good thing, but when repentance becomes overemphasized, we fall into the trap of the Pharisees.

There are also those who focus too much on grace in preaching the gospel to a point where it becomes an indulgence. These Christians think that since Jesus has paid the penalty for sin, the more they sin, the more they can experience the grace of God. This neglects the truth of the gospel and it cheapens the grace of God. Of course, there are those who focus on studying the history and identity of Christ as the son of God, analyzing, explaining, rather than knowing Him and worshipping Him as God. It is a shame that we see so many people preaching partial truths these days. The Jesus that we believe in today is not only the son of man, but also the son of God. This God-man identity is very important because as the son of man, He understands the suffering we endure on earth, but because He is also son of God, He could die on the cross to pay for our sins. This gives mankind the hope of eternal salvation.

We see that the gospel we preach today is a message of repentance as well as a message of grace. If there is no grace, we have no hope of salvation. If there is no repentance, no man will be able to turn around to God. We need to preach the full truth of the gospel. We cannot focus on only one aspect of the gospel, or pick and choose what we like to preach. Pray that God will help us to be bold in defending the gospel.

Pray with Pastor Tong Liu

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Lord, we thank you that you have given us the full gospel. In this gospel we can have the joy of salvation, freedom, and contentment. We can only be truly free when we know the Truth. If we had focused too much on one aspect of the gospel in the past, please forgive us and help let us walk in Your Truth. We thank you and we pray in the victorious name of Jesus, amen!