Jude 1:20,21

Jude 1:20-21. But ye (strongly emphatic), beloved, as against those dividers of the Church who are pulling it down stone by stone, ever building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, awaiting the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Every clause is antithetic and suggestive: the overthrow of the Church and of each of its members, and Divine edification; grace turned into licentiousness, and holy character built on faith; swelling words of self-sufficiency, no Spirit; and praying in the Spirit; murmuring, complaining, and denying the Lord that bought them; and keeping yourselves in the love of God, and awaiting the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ; for whom the blackness of darkness is kept for ever, and waiting for Christ's mercy unto eternal life. Our safety depends on growth in the faith, on prayer in the Spirit, and, after all is done, on receiving the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hereby we keep ourselves, and are kept, in the love which God bears to us, and in the love which we are to bear to Him. The love of God to us, however, is the true origin of all, though not to the exclusion of the Spirit and of Christ, who have each His own part in the great work of our redemption. ‘Looking for' may mislead. ‘Looking for' is the word found in 2 Peter 3:12-13, and in 1 Thessalonians 1:10, where it is translated ‘waiting for,' and is applied to what after all may never come. The word here really means, especially in the present tense, ‘waiting to receive,' and even ‘receiving' itself (Hebrews 10:34; Hebrews 11:35). It occurs again in Titus 2:13, in the same sense as here, ‘expecting to receive.'