When a man (or woman) of God is in the making, enemy forces will come at him with great fury.

Are you tasting a bitter cup of pain, enduring a terrifying hour of isolation and confusion? If so, I urge you to take a stand in faith: “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12).

Your soul may not be flooded with joy and peace at this moment. In fact, you may still have turmoil in your soul. If that is the case, stay rooted firmly in his Word and stop trying to think your way through it all.

Jesus said at Gethsemane, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38). Can you imagine the Son of God enduring a night of confusion? Didn’t he know he was about to claim all victory over hell and death? Didn’t he have an innate sense of guidance and destiny, knowing the Father was with him?

It has been said by generations of Christians that the hardest part of faith is the last half hour. I want to add a word here that the night of confusion often comes just before the victory, right before the darkness breaks and light begins to dawn.

When I speak of total trust in Christ, I mean not only in his saving power but also in his keeping power. We have to trust his Spirit to keep us and conform us to the likeness of Christ.

At one time you were alienated, cut off from God by wicked works. What good work did you do to make things right with him? None! Nobody has ever been able to make or keep himself holy. We are brought into Christ's holiness by faith alone, as we trust in what God's Word says: "If you are in Christ, you are holy as he is holy."

We know that God supernaturally delivered Israel. At the burning bush Moses was being prepared to trust God to bring about that glorious work. He would learn something about God's nature that would later help him trust the Lord to bring it all to pass. What was that aspect of God's nature? His holiness!

Moses was all alone on Mount Horeb herding his father-in-law's sheep when a strange sight grabbed his attention — a bush was on fire. As he stepped forward to get a closer look, God called to him out of the bush.

"Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn. So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush" (Exodus 3:3–4).

God was present in the bush and that’s why it was burning, yet was not consumed. It was a visual representation of God's holiness.

Jesus Christ, our Savior, stands alone in perfect holiness. Because only Jesus is holy and perfect, God does not recognize any other person. Therefore, if we are ever to be received by the heavenly Father, we must be in Christ, solely by the grace of Christ and through no merit of our own.

The love of God is conveyed to us only through Jesus Christ. According to John, all of God's love dwells in Jesus: "Of His fullness we have all we received" (John 1:16). You may ask, "What's so important about knowing that God's love is conveyed to us through Christ? How does this affect our everyday lives?"

When will God stop loving you? He'll stop only if he stops loving his own Son, which is impossible. Christ says, "The Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end" (John 13:1). This helps us to better understand what Jude is saying when he instructs, "Keep yourselves in the love of God" (Jude verse 21). He is telling us, "Keep this truth. Lay hold of it and never let it go. The knowledge of God's love is meant for your comfort, your strength. It will set you free and keep you free."

According to Jesus, in the Father's eyes Christ and his Church are one. Paul illustrates this with the analogy of a human body. He says Christ is the head, and we are his body – bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. "[God] put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Ephesians 1:22-23). "We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones" (Ephesians 5:30).

"You, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life" (Jude 20–21).

As I read these verses in Jude, I heard the Spirit quietly whisper: "David, I want you to enter the fullness and joy of my love. You have the theology right. But you have not yet experienced the true rest of soul that comes with keeping yourself in my love. Up to now, you've only been in it up to your ankles. There is a whole ocean for you to swim in."