After Revelation 1 talks about a living & loving relationship with Almighty God that can bless us with hearing from HIM, in chapters 2-3 The Lord Himself describes 7 different reasons that we may be not hearing anything from The Lord, or confused & conflicted about what HE is saying in the midst of our every day living.Revelation 2:1-4 is the first reason Jesus talks about->”...These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands:”I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars;and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary.Nevertheless,I have this against you,that you have left your first love”.These verses describe a person that goes through all the motions that would make them appear to be faithful to the Love that God has given us through Christ, but there are things in our heart/mind/life that would indicate that we are NOT truly devoted this “first love”!If our “faith” is based on what we “do” to “appear faithful” to The Lord,then we are one of these that The Lord is addressing as leaving our first love!This is like a marriage relationship that makes every outward attempt to “appear faithful”,while secretly being unfaithful in thoughts;deeds;motives; or in any other way that would taint True Love!These verses describe a person that sorta/kinda has 2 lives! One life that seeks to dot all the “I’s” and cross all the “T’s” so they look and sound faithful on the outside & in public,while on the inside and in private places they have a second life where they are UNfaithful to their “first love”.They are going through the motions,and in essence growing further and further away from what gives TRUE Meaning & TRUE Purpose & TRUE Fulfillment in life->The Purposes that God intended for His First Love to have in our lives->Colossians2:2”...that they may have the full riches of complete understanding.In order that they may know the mystery of God,namely,Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom & knowledge.”Ephesians3:17-19,”And I pray that you being rooted & establishes in love,may have power together with all the saints,to grasp how wide & long & high & deep is the love of Christ,& to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” So,the very first challenge to our Fullness in Christ is our fading “first love”for all that Christ has proven of HIS First Love for us!The Lord says that this fading begins when we begin to be more concerned with the way we “look” on the outside,while not “looking after” what’s going on in our heart/mind/life on the inside & in private. Dear Lord,I so want to know the fullness of Your Love and Your Ways,& yet I know that much of what I am is this very person You describe in Rev2:1-4.Thank You for the forgiveness that You suffered for me to have,so that I may this moment know that I can not only know Your Love...,but also ask for Your help in bringing me back to a heart/mind/life that is true to You my First Love.

In Revelation 1, when John says that he was “in the Spirit”, he is describing a posture in his mind/heart/life that every follower of Christ can have...that enables our hearts/minds/life to know the voice of God and hear HIS voice that is beyond what only words can ever convey! Over the last several days,sitting on what John meant by “in the Spirit”, I believe he is talking about the completeness of what Isaiah describes in Isaiah 11:2 when describing “The Spirit of The Lord shall rest upon Him (Jesus), The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of (AWESOME REVERENCE OF) The Lord.” John & Isaiah are telling us how to tune all frequencies of our life in to The Spirit so that we may hear more clearly and definitively the Voice of God. SO- the “variables” that I must TUNE in my life for this to happen are: 1)Acknowledging the Leadership of The Lord in my life-Trusting and committing to Follow Him. 2)Seek and Rely on The Lord’s Wisdom ONLY. 3)Seek to truly Understand His Wisdom and Apply His Wisdom to all mind/heart/life responses. 4) Seek The Lord in Prayer to learn what HIS Counsel is about mind/heart/life “stuffs”. 5) After all the above,rely on HIS Strength not mine to follow through with HIS Ways about all things, & turn from my ways that are out of tune with HIS. 6) Study and Learn what The Lord teaches in HIS “Textbook” about HIS Character;HIS Promises;HIS People;HIS Love; HIS Mercy;HIS Grace;etc. 7)May our whole life,everything we think,say,& do be a reflection of our Absolute Reverence for WHO God IS;for WHAT He has done; for His Promises;for HIS Righteous & HIS Holy Love for us ultimately expressed through Jesus Christ. Dear Lord,thank You for making it clear through Your Word how I may hear Your Voice as John did on Patmos! Now I know some of the reasons that you have seemed silent sometimes in my life...forgive me,& now be my Helper and my Strength in bringing all of these things IN TUNE in all of my life so I may know Your Voice more clearly every day, and keep me from being deceived….and especially from deceiving myself…

In the book of Jude, his immense concern for those around him, especially “those who are called sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ” (Jude1), is overwhelmingly evident...since he “felt he had to write and urge us to contend for the faith”! His heart would not allow him to veer from vehemently encouraging us to know AND defend all the TRUTHS of The Gospel of Christ/The TRUTH/God’s Word! And to protect&defend these TRUTHS in and around our lives...and to have a profound concern for those in Christ that are being misled away from the TRUTHS of The Gospel of Christ/The TRUTH/God’s Word, as well as a deep disdain&contempt for sin of any kind. In Jude’s letter he is revealing how his own mind/heart/life has been transformed by the TRUTHS of The Gospel of Christ/The TRUTH/God’s Word, and in essence declaring how our mind/heart/life need to be transformed by the TRUTHS of The Gospel of Christ/The TRUTH/God’s Word! In fact toward the end of his letter Jude says this in verses 22-23, ”And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering (our hearts should pain as Jude’s heart does over wandering away from the TRUTHS of The Gospel of Christ/The TRUTH/God’s Word). Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment (be prepared to contend for the faith;Jude3) show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives (deep disdain&contempt for sin of any kind)”. By writing what was so overwhelming on his mind/heart/life, Jude is telling us how the TRUTHS of The Gospel of Christ/The TRUTH/God’s Word had profoundly transformed his mind/heart/life. If this same transformation is not happening in my life, then I am susceptible to the wavering faith that Jude mentions, or worse yet dangerously vulnerable to veering away from the TRUTHS of The Gospel of Christ/The TRUTH/God’s Word and toward sin that begs for someone to come rescue me as Jude says in verse 23. Dear Lord Jesus, reading Jude’s letter to me makes me realize that I have not been transformed by the TRUTHS of Your Gospel to the extent that Jude was when he wrote his letter. I pray for the transformation that You began in me when I trusted You only for my eternal salvation to go into all areas of my mind/heart/life so that I may not veer from continuing Your process of sanctification in all of me. And Lord, I pray for those around me to be bold enough about the TRUTHS of The Gospel of Christ/The TRUTH/God’s Word in their lives, that their heart/mind/life be not timid about mercifully snatching me away from anything that may cause me to wander away from sincerely loving YOU with all that I am....and by Your Grace may I become one that can be used by YOU to contend for the faith in the lives of those around me.

After Jude says that he was compelled to strongly encourage us to contend for RIGHT&TRUE Faith in The Lord,In Jude 5-13 he gives several examples of how people did not contend for RIGHT&TRUE Faith,and how self centeredness;lust;perversion;arrogance;insolence;grumbling;impatience;& lack of REVERENCE/RESPECT/TRUST FOR the Lord & His Word are the core viruses that we need to BATTLE/CONTEND AGAINST in our hearts/minds/lives. Jude summarizes what happens when we do not contend for RIGHT&TRUE Faith in Jude 16 -> “These men are grumblers and faultfinders;they follow their own evil desires;they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.” Then Jude tells us -> “But you, dear friends, building yourselves up on your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit (seeking to be sensitive to God’s Word enabled by trusting in Jesus alone for our salvation), keep yourselves in The Love of God, looking for (dependent on) the mercy of Christ unto eternal life (with all perseverance!).Many of the people Jude mentions in 5-13 as examples of what NOT to do let worldly contentions/challenges; discomfort; temptations; impatience; pride; ego; arrogance; insolence..., win the Battle for their RIGHT&TRUE Faith in Christ. Jude says that the only way to avoid these contentions is to consistently “build yourselves up in your most holy faith..”!->Be Prepared to Contend for our faith by spending regular diligent time/persevering with The Lord in prayer and remembering His Word & studying what God Truly Says about Himself and us! Dear Lord, I fail miserably at being prepared to contend for my RIGHT&TRUE Faith in You so much...but Your Grace has never failed to lift me out of this before I fall to far. I pray for Your Help to remind me of my need to be much better prepared to contend for all that is The RIGHT&TRUE Faith in You… all that will bless me with RIGHT&TRUE perseverance all my days.

Evidently when Jude sat down to write his letter, he was going to write about the The Gospel of Christ...& basically give a regular “Sunday Sermon” that we might typically here in Church! But when he sat down to write he “had to write” something else! Jude3,”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 God’s holy people.” Jude was writing to Christians, those that had turned to Christ in total trust for Salvation & Eternal Life. Jude, the half brother of Jesus, had himself became 100% convinced that Jesus is the Son of God after he watched & heard Jesus during his ministry on Earth, then saw Him die on the Cross, and then watched Him after he was resurrected from the dead, and then watched Him ascend into Heaven. THEN Jude became fervent in his personal faith in Christ, & fervently committed to every Word that God gave through His Word/through Jesus Christ. It is because of this that Jude “had to write & urge us to contend for THIS FAITH” that Jude was so fervently committed to himself! If we do not have this same fervor in our life, then we will not prepare ourselves “to contend for the faith”,as Jude is pleading for us...! In the time Jude is writing there are many people going around with false messages, claiming to be accurately representing God’s Word,& The Life of Christ...while veering away from The Truth and leading people away from a RIGHT&TRUE Living Relationship with The Lord! We must have the same FERVOR that Jude had in his heart/mind/life if we are indeed going to be equipped to contend for our personal faith against such efforts...and keep our personal faith based on all that is RIGHT&TRUE. This is the only way that our heart/mind/life will have the perseverance; persistence; patience; purposefulness; resolve; application; steadfastness; diligence; tirelessness; stamina; resolve; tenacity; conscientiousness; rigor; zeal, etc., that the Hero’s of the Faith had to have as they faced all the things that CONTENDED for their personal RIGHT&TRUE faith in the Lord..as they CONTENDED FOR THE RIGHT&TRUE FAITH in and around their lives. The fact that so many early followers of Christ were prepared to contend for RIGHT&TRUE FAITH, is what shook the world around the first century followers for The Sake Of The Gospel and saw the Evil Roman Empire become increasingly numbered with Fervent Christians, to the point that the Evil Roman Empire imploded on itself, & and began having a growing influence for a RIGHT&TRUE Faith in Christ. Today, the opposite seems to be happening, as false religions are contending for all that is a RIGHT&TRUE faith in Almighty God. We are not “contending for the faith that was once entrusted to the saints”! The purpose for Jude being compelled to write are probably twofold! The first reason being that if we are not prepared to contend for the faith in our personal life,then our hearts/minds/lives will suffer at least some consequences of not contending for the faith-> a loss of perseverance; persistence; patience; purposefulness; resolve; application; steadfastness; diligence; tirelessness; stamina; resolve; tenacity; conscientiousness; rigor; zeal, etc.,that the Hero’s of the Faith had to have as they faced all the things that CONTENDED for their personal RIGHT&TRUE faith in the Lord! A loss of any of these will lead to a waning of the Joy that RIGHT&TRUE FAITH in Jesus & God’s Word promises (Psalm16:7-11”I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.I keep my eyes always on the LORD. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure,because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”) And when this contending against our personal faith begins to happen, we begin to lose our sense of Eternal Purpose, and a “lostfulness” begins to settle into our lives that makes us vulnerable to all the strategies that those contending AGAINST all that is RIGHT&TRUE will muster against us to rob us of our RIGHT&TRUE FERVOR for The Lord. The SECOND REASON is to wage war against Satan’s  underground warfare against The Gospel of Christ being the Only Way that all people may have The Only RIGHT&TRUE HOPE in The Promises that are GUARANTEED by The Gospel of Christ, & nothing else! We Christians have been “entrusted” with THE FAITH...we have been “entrusted” as defenders for all that is RIGHT&TRUE! And all that is RIGHT&TRUE begins with RIGHT&TRUE respect & reverence for Almighty God & His Word->Proverbs1:7, ”The fear of the Lord (Awesome Reverence for The Lord )is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Looking around the World today, even in America, there is a growing battle for all that is RIGHT&TRUE that God tells us in His Word and proves through Christ! We are not preparing our hearts/minds/lives “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people”! Dear Lord...I pray for You to bring Jude’s message to the very core of my heart/mind/life as an instrument of great change in all of me...to give me the same fervor that Jude had...so with Your Help I may prepare to be a contender for the faith that was once entrusted to God’s holy people!