40 Days of PEACE

Dr Jim Brown's TruNorth Devotional
40 Days of PEACE
Day 24 | MERCY, PEACE, AND LOVE |  Jude 1:2

MERCY, PEACE, AND LOVE

Jude 1:2
“Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.”

The apostle Paul often started his letters to churches with “grace and peace unto you.” Jude is doing similarly here.

“Mercy and peace” was a common Jewish greeting. Adding LOVE to the greeting made it even more distinctively Christian. Only here in the New Testament do all three of these qualities appear together.

It’s worth noting that, although this is a one-chapter, one-page book in the New Testament, it was written by Jude, a half-brother of our Lord Jesus, just as James was. And up until the resurrection, the brothers did NOT believe Jesus was WHO He said He was.  (And yet, they both went on to be church leaders and they both wrote BIBLE!)

The Amplified puts it this way: “May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you [filling your heart with the spiritual well-being and serenity experienced by those who walk closely with God].”

I got to pondering: Do WE bless people today with our greetings?  With the short texts, emails, and phone answering machines… do we greet people at all anymore?  It’s funny… our technology has improved so that we can literally talk to friends anywhere in the world. And yet, we often offer them a more sterile communication than we see here from Jude to God’s people.

What if Jude had said that directly to YOU?  Would you have received it as a blessing? Maybe a wish, or perhaps a prayer – for YOU?  (I think I would have!)

Maybe we should expand our vocabulary to include a blessing or prayer like the one Jude shared here.

And the flip side is this: If someone blesses YOU with words like this, just accept it in the spirit in which it is given and perhaps just say “Thank you.”  (Don’t let your pride shut down someone else who is trying to bless you in line with God’s Word.)

Prayer: LORD, help me this week to share this kind of blessing with someone who could use it AND will understand my heart in the sharing. Amen.