We are Called, Consigned, and Conserved

Jude 1:1

This little book, which consists of only one chapter, is a composite of challenges to serve and confirmations of strength to serve.

Like Jude, we are called to be a servant. (Vs. 1)

The Greek word translated “servant” is DOULOS.  It was the word for a servant who is the prized purchased possession of his master.  That is us. 

To such we are “called” as servants.  That’s our role.

The master also had a responsibility for the servant.  

Like Jude, we are consigned. (Vs. 1b)

The Greek text uses a word that can appropriately be translated “sanctified.”  It can and is translated in some version “beloved.”  We are His beloved.

If you have a long-range goal, it keeps you from being frustrated by short-range failures. In Jesus you are consigned to heaven. Live like it.

In England some years ago, an illiterate couple was saved through the witness of some street witnesses.  Their symbol was red sweaters with slogans of testimony sewn on them.

The illiterate couple were reluctant to admit their inability to read or write, yet they wanted to fit in. The wife saw a slogan in a window a few days later that seemed easy to duplicate, so she sewed it on their sweaters without knowing what it said.  The group was so approving that the couple finally gave way to their pride and asked what the slogan said.  Their friends replied with delight: “Under New Management.”  That is true of every believer.

Like Jude, we are also conserved. (1c) A synonym for the Greek word translated “preserved” is simply “kept.”  You are “kept” by God. This is a fact to be enjoyed.

In the Greek this is in the perfect tense, meaning we are “continually kept.”  Even when it may seem you aren’t — you are.

The word “kept” means to continually give close attention.

Man, mere mortal man, through his spectrograph has learned the constituent elements of the remote astral bodies.

By means of the telescope, man has looked into the infinitely large universe, learned the schedule of the planets, and viewed the landscape of heavenly bodies millions of miles distant.

By means of the microscope, man has looked into the infinitely smaller world and seen in the atoms in a particle of dust on a moth’s wing, electrons, protons, and neutrons whirling like bees around a hive.

God gives you even closer attention.  He does it continually. He loves you and awaits your loving response.