As I was thinking about a few related topics, I remembered these verses:

What are your thoughts when reading these verses? Perhaps they are like mine. "What exactly is praying in the Holy Spirit?" is one thought. While I've considered that question some and have things to say in answering it, there is a more basic reaction to the passage that I have had---one that is worth considering more carefully. That thought is "I am being commanded to keep myself in the love of God by building myself up in my faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, etc." My theology has changed over the years (I have not always been a Lutheran), and I have begun to realize how there is a basic error in this reaction to these verses.

Perhaps because of my personal Bible reading, perhaps because I'm an American, perhaps because of certain theological presuppositions I have held, or (at its worst) perhaps because of my self-centeredness, it's easy for me to unconsciously slip into a mode of thinking that immediately assumes that in a given passage God is speaking to me as an individual. More precisely, I can think that when a passage is addressed to a group of people that God is saying "this is true of each of you individually" or "each of you need to do this individually," and I therefore try to apply it straightforwardly to myself individually. Sometimes this works, e.g., "Husbands, love your wives..." (Ephesians 5:25, ESV) is such a passage, since I am a husband and since Paul goes on to say "let each one of you love his wife as himself..." (v. 33, ESV) But, sometimes this quite obviously doesn't work, e.g., "You are the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14, ESV) does not mean that Christ is calling me the light of world, but rather it means that His disciples---of whom I am one---are together the light of the world. And, as everyone who has wrestled with the Scriptures understands, sometimes it's difficult for me to determine not only what a particular passage says but also what it means for me.

Now, most of the letters of the New Testament are written to churches and groups of people, not individuals. Jude is such a letter: "To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ" (v. 1, ESV). OK, I am one of the "called." Thus, when I read Jude I am reading something that both is addressed to me and can be applied to me (as an aside, many letters of Paul are addressed to specific churches and individuals in history, but each of us today can, of course, find great benefit in reading those letters).

So, what about Jude vv. 20-21? They contain a command that is addressed to me. How do they apply to me? Here's the point (finally, you might say!): this command is given to me to obey in the context of the church, i.e., all of us in the church together are to keep ourselves in the love of God, and each of us---myself included---plays a specific God-designed and God-empowered role in keeping the rest of us in the love of God. It's not about me keeping myself in God's love, but rather it is about God keeping me in His love through the service of my Christian brothers and sisters, and God keeping my family in Christ in His love through my service to them.

Consider this larger portion of the letter:

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints... But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, "In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions." It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude vv. 3,17-25, ESV)

God is the one who saved us, and God is the one who is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy. He has done and will do this through the means of people. The Son came down from heaven and became man and was our substitute in His death on the cross. And, God saved us and will keep us through the work of the church, i.e., God has given us "the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes." (Ephesians 4:11-14, ESV) In particular, God "breathed out" His Word through Jude as an exhortation to both the original recipients of the letter as well as to us today. He reminds us of the apostles' predictions---warning us about "scoffers" who would come. He tells us to contend for the faith. He tells us to keep ourselves in His love through certain means: without exhausting all of the possibilities, these means include the reading of the Scriptures (through which God speaks to us in the words of various saints of old) and the services of local assemblies of believers gathered around the Word and the Sacraments. He tells us to save the doubting and the imperiled. And, all of the praise belongs to Him.

For further consideration and application, see the discussion about spiritual gifts and the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12; also see 2 Corinthians 8-9, Galatians 6:1-10, Philippians 2:1-18, Hebrews 12:1-2, Hebrews 12:12-16.