A Gift to Guard and Cherish

Celebrations come and go – and gifts come and go with them. We get another year older, the tie wears out, the t-shirt with “mom” on it gets a hole, the candle is now an empty jar. The tangibles given with love fade away – but the things that are known as intangible – these remain!

These are gifts to “guard and cherish!”  Jude 1:3 in the Message says it like this: “Dear friends, I’ve dropped everything to write you about this life of salvation that we have in common. I have to write insisting – begging!—that you fight with everything you have in you for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish.”

We live in a temporal world. A world that constantly pushes and pulls to make the tangible things those we reach for, endeavoring to turn our vision to the temporal with its beckoning glisten – only to find out – its fool’s gold. The real gifts, the ones to fight for, to guard and cherish are not necessarily seen with an earthly vision, but caught in the eyes of faith, of family, of freedom.

While reading this passage in Jude, the words seemed to nearly jump off the page! The salvation message, the Gospel truth, the entrusted FAITH is our jewel gift! Something to fight for. Something to guard. Something to cherish.

A faith to guard within the framework of our own minds. How do we guard this within us? Consistent love of His Word – learning and listening to His Holy Spirit as we read and fill our minds with what HE would have us think on. Consistent communion with our Lord – being in love with Him first and foremost. This world is still no friend of grace – which is why we must keep alert, and dressed in the full armor of God. (Eph. 6:10-19)

A faith to guard within our families. Doing this takes time in the Word, time in prayer, and time with them. Families are always growing and changing in the constant movement of living. The pressure of this world would seek to rob the minds of our children – at any age – and destroy their souls. We must GUARD them! Isolate them? Impossible. Guard them? Our responsibility. As we cherish our faith, we teach them to cherish theirs. Within the circle of family, guard and cherish the God given love for each other. This is pure gold.

A freedom to guard within our lives. Faith brings freedom! A freedom of soul, of spirit, of life that nothing else can give. Not a license to abandon the grace of God, but a freedom to live His grace, our lives a testimony of Him. Not a license to sin, a license to serve! Serve Him in love – serve others in His love – there is no price tag high enough to place on this.

We have been ENTRUSTED with this gift of faith. A gift to guard and cherish! How do we fight for it? By walking after the spirit, not after the flesh. (Romans 8) Not with carnal weapons, but those mighty in God to the pulling DOWN of strongholds. (II Corinthians 10:4) “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.” (Zechariah 4:6)

 “Dear friends, I’ve dropped everything to write you about this life of salvation that we have in common. I have to write insisting – begging!—that you fight with everything you have in you for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish.”  Jude 1:3 (The Message)