Jude 24-25
24 Now to the one who is able to protect you from stumbling and make you to stand before his glory blameless with exultation, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time and now and for all eternity. Amen.
make you to stand before his glory blameless with exultation
The ultimate hope of the one called to Jesus - to be made blameless.
Those who are blameless are those who are free. When we are in debt we are limited - this feels like a pretty natural thing. I owe money on my house, so there's about $1000/mo that I have to put towards that, no options. Worse than a necessity (cause a place to live is a foundational need for humans) is unnecessary debt - debt for free choices.
pay as you go
Have you seen these pay-as-you-go services? Affirm and Klarna, etc.... You can finance (go into debt) your door dash orders, uber rides, amazon cart all usually with just a few clicks! They want you poor. Jesus doesn't exactly want you rich with earthly wealth, but we make ourselves spiritually poor in the same manner and it's that poverty that he saves us from.
So on one hand I'm "born a sinner" (take this as my mortgage) and on the other hand I make choices that dishonor my Lord - my heart gets worrisome or filled with lust, I abandon my faith for anxiety over my future... In this reflection I'm not debating original-sin, for me today it's moot... I do sin, I will sin, and Jesus has saved me yesterday, today, and tomorrow. So the hope is a blessed gift from Jesus - that I will be made to stand before him blameless with exultation.
To stand before the face of God is perhaps the most terrifying thing imaginable, or it should be for anyone in a wretched state. Ultimate goodness has a way of making anyone less very uncomfortable. We even have a taste of this truth on earth - consider this example. If you were at the gym or somewhere having a conversation with someone who was a pastor and you let a curse word fly, often people's follow-up is to apologize to the pastor... why? My personal conviction is that cuss-words are just words, and most pastors aren't offended by them. But we all generally recognize pastors as "good men" (not all, mind you - don't come at me with horror stories of abuse in the Church, I know it's there, I hate it too, and those demons aren't who I'm talking about). So when we are face to face with "goodness" we recognize that some behavior isn't appropriate, if only for a second. So we apologize... But a pastor is just a man - to come face to face with the Lord Almighty, the very definer of Good, should horrify anyone not perfectly good themselves. A scary thing to have anything bad in me present before the Judge of the universe.
And yet to the one who is able to protect you from stumbling and make you to stand before his glory blameless with exultation... Who is Jesus? The one who makes me blameless. To be blameless is to be able to come face to face with goodness. This is my hope, that in Christ alone for his glory and sake alone, am I made new and blameless.
But hope isn't only in the future
This ultimate hope isn't the only hope though, it's not the only thing Jesus does... He saves us from more than just hell, and for more than just an ethereal idea of goodness. He saves me to be free to choose goodness today as he works in me to align my will with his
Hebrews 13:20-21
20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with every good thing to do his will, carrying out in us what is pleasing before him through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever. Amen.
Jesus left us a helper, the Holy Spirit. This person is the conduit through which Yahweh works in us to equip {me} with every good thing to do his will, carrying out in {me} what is pleasing before him
Hope is for tomorrow, but it's also for today. Jesus makes us free today as new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17) to align with his will. You can't choose him until he frees you to make the choice, and then in that freedom what else can you do? Say "no thanks"... lol. His call is the mighty arm of Yahweh reaching into the ocean of chaos and death to raise the corpse of your soul to new life, to breath air for the first time, to walk on God's green earth with new feet and new purpose.
Praise the freaking Lord for salvation - for tomorrow and today. May my choices today reflect the goodness of my King, and if you're reading this reflection, may God bless you with this blessed hope of salvation.