<p>1:21 <i>Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life</i>- The work of the Spirit in keeping us in Christ must be responded to by our freewill efforts to likewise keep or remain in Him. We are to 'keep' the Lord's ways and commandments, and yet He keeps us by the Spirit. &quot;They have kept Your word... keep s.w. them by Your own Name... I kept them in Your Name... keep them from the evil&quot; (Jn. 17). Jude will conclude by glorying in the fact that the Lord is able to keep us from falling in spiritual terms (:24). We are &quot;looking&quot;, in utter confidence, to receive mercy and eternal life at the Lord's return. The parallel in 2 Peter is &quot;looking for... the coming of the day of God&quot; (2 Pet. 3:12). This again suggests that we should be able to be certain that if we die now or the Lord returns now, we will certainly be saved. But we must &quot;keep&quot; or abide in that status.</p><p>Jude 20,21 exhorts us: &ldquo;building up yourselves... keep yourselves in the love of God&rdquo;. The use of the plural &lsquo;yourselves&rsquo; rather than a singular &lsquo;thyself&rsquo; suggests that we are to understand this as meaning that we should build up our community, keep each other in the love of God. Jude had begun by exalting that we are &ldquo;sanctified by God the Father, and preserved s.w. &ldquo;keep yourselves&rdquo; by God in Jesus Christ&rdquo;. His conclusion is that we are kept / preserved by God in Christ <i>insofar as </i>we, the ministers of Christ, keep /&nbsp; preserve each other. The Greek for &lsquo;building up&rsquo; occurs in Eph. 4:16: &ldquo;From Christ the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, <i>maketh increase</i> builds up of the body unto the edifying of itself in love&rdquo;. The body builds itself up, <i>if</i> each part contributes. If they don&rsquo;t, then there is no building up. Using the same figure, 1 Cor. 3:10-14 speak of us building up God&rsquo;s house, the believers, on the foundation of Christ. And we will be judged for the quality of what is built- our final judgment will be a reflection of the quality of our brethren, in that their spirituality is partly determined by our efforts for them. But Col. 2:4 uses the same word to say that we are built up &ldquo;in Christ... as according as ye have been taught... beware lest any man spoil you through false teaching. The life of fellowship with our brethren in Christ is what builds us up, if we teach each other the right things. But false teaching means that the house of believers will not be built up. This would have been especially so in ecclesias of largely illiterate members. The point is, we are all builders, each part has something to contribute, and the doing of every ecclesial service must be consciously to the end of building up one another.</p>