Jude 24,25 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless 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.” I know this verse because of a song. Whenever I begin to read it, I end up singing it in my head. It’s a wonderful promise. As we are redeemed from the world, our old way of life, we often stuggle. It’s almost like a dieting person who is around food that shouldn’t be eaten. We want to avoid those things. Our God can keep us from stumbling. As we continue on in the faith and stay in the bible and good teaching, we learn many hints to stay out of trouble. We learn to focus on the right things. Phillipians 4:8 says, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” By thinking on these things, we aren’t focusing on the bad. This is taking away the fuel for the bad. Starving the bad cravings is primary. Let them wither and die. Scripture teaches another way to avoid sin. Stay away. Proverbs 4:14,15 says, “Do not enter the path of the wicked And do not proceed in the way of evil men. Avoid it, do not pass by it; Turn away from it and pass on.” The person seeking to diet avoids the donut counter. Don’t hesitate. That’s the battle. Avoid it or if not possible, walk quickly by. Even though we starve our bad tendencies and they may appear to be dead. Just like an apparently dead plant responds to the scent of water, so does our old flesh. Just as the earlier passage said to fill the mind with good thoughts, we should fill our lives with good things. This is easy for parents. Being involved with the family activites can dominate the schedule. Work also takes a large chunk of time. We should also be involved in ministry. In Matthew 10:8, Jesus was sending the apostles out to minsiter. Here’s what He said, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.” We have received so much from God. He generally graces the world with beautiful nature. We have good friends and family that are supportive. We have good churches with good teaching. His Holy Spirit guides us and fills us with Joy. I’m sure we aren’t aware of 98% of His blessings. Nor is He needful of getting credit for everything. He just likes to bless us. He wants us to be generous as well. A biproduct of giving our time and energy to Him is to get even more blessings. God talks about this in the context of giving money in Malachi 3:10,11 ‘”Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. “Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes,” says the LORD of hosts.’ God will not be outgiven. It’s not an ego thing. He wants to fill our lives with His fulness. It’s not like a rich parent spoiling a child. We will have material needs met and they may be nice. However, the greatest blessings are a fullness in our souls. David says in Psalm 23, “My cup runneth over.” He does much more than keep us from stumbling. He fills us with great purpose and joy. The devil will try to trip us up. We can’t get cauky with evil and forget we have our weak body which is very susceptible to falling. Thank You, Lord for filling us up and keeping us from stumbling. We pray that You would keep our children and loved ones safe. Thank You.