Jude 14-16: “Enoch, who lived in the seventh generation after Adam, prophesied about these people. He said, ‘Listen! The Lord is coming with countless thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on the people of the world. He will convict every person of all the ungodly things they have done and for all the insults that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’ These people are grumblers and complainers, living only to satisfy their desires. They brag loudly about themselves, and they flatter others to get what they want.”
God will come to judge all of us for ungodliness one day. Some red flags in your life to watch out for that results in ungodliness:
1. Selfishness– as a root sin, selfishness is the antithesis of a God-filled, holy life. It will deviate all of your motivations and blind you to, make you apathetic towards, and cause you to outright neglect God’s will. This will not bring glory to God, which should be the prevailing purpose of all Christians. Life without God is fleeting, empty, temporary, and essentially meaningless.
2. Grumbling and complaining– critical cynicism is cancer to a person, a group, a community, a city, a nation, or the world. Wherever it is allowed to infect, it will. Rooted in distrust, laziness, self- righteousness/pride, etc., the only real thing that complaining and grumbling accomplish is disunity.
3. Bragging– glorifying yourself is me-centric leadership driven by insecurity that desires to receive truth and love the way we want it in order to build up ourselves. Humble, servant leadership that Jesus exemplified was driven by a God-centric understanding of truth and love and a desire to give it to the world in order to build up Christ and His body of believers.
4. Flattery– at its root, is manipulation and a lie. Integrity and honesty are held in honor and can be trusted. Manipulation and lies will be found out and defame character.
LMM
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Scott Maxon 