Imagine meeting with your minister at church. The minister places a number of envelopes in front of you and says, “We can talk about anything you want. But here are some envelopes with questions written on them. Go ahead and pick one.”

The topics range from faith to spiritual growth to fellowship, but you choose the envelope on prayer. The question on the envelope reads: “How would you describe your prayer life?” and inside there are a number of cards with various words—some positive, some negative.

You choose two cards to describe your prayer life: “Irregular” and “Aimless.” Many Christians today would agree, and say, “I’m doing okay in the Christian life, but I’d have to admit—I’m out of shape when it comes to prayer.”

Sooner or later, you will come to a situation in which you will want to call on God to help you. The first question is “Which God?” If you say, “There is only one God,” who is He? And how can we know Him?

Until you’ve settled this matter, your praying will not get very far off the ground. Here’s the reason: If God is whoever you imagine Him to be, then when you go to pray, you are just talking to yourself, or to a figment of your imagination, and that’s not much help.

There is one God, and we can know Him and pray to Him, because He has made Himself known to us through Abraham, Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and supremely in Jesus Christ.

How would you describe your prayer life? (Aimless? Vibrant? Irregular? Consistent? Shallow? Growing? Other?)

Faith grows by looking at Jesus. Faith becomes strong as you fill your mind and soul with how trustworthy He is.

Imagine yourself as a younger child, attending a professional sporting event with your family. Your parents get tickets about twenty-five rows from the game. The people are packed in like sardines, and they’re standing in front of you, so you find it very difficult to see.

You eventually find a solution. Instead of sitting in your chair, you stand on it. It’s a bit shaky, but it’s the best way to get a glimpse of your favourite players in all their glory.

That’s how you must read the Scriptures and come to worship if you want your faith to grow. You must come looking for a glimpse of Jesus and asking the Holy Spirit to open up the Word to give a fresh glimpse of Him to your soul.

Some of us come to church, and to the Bible, like a little boy or girl standing behind a crowd of taller adults. We never see anything, and we no longer expect to see anything. Other people are catching a glimpse of Jesus, but we don’t see it.

If you will come to worship and to the Word with great expectation, you will move from reading about Jesus to knowing Him. You will find yourself feeding on Him, and your faith will grow.

On a scale of 1 (very low) to 10 (very high) what is your expectation of “catching a glimpse of Jesus” in worship? How about in your Bible reading?

Faith is like a muscle. It grows strong when it is used. If you want to develop a particular muscle, you pull or push against a weight. Faith grows when it has to push against a great burden.

That’s what happens when God allows trials in your life. You lose your job, a relationship ends, or the bottom line of your business is the wrong colour, and suddenly you’re in the gym. This is the moment. God is handing you the weights.

When God allows you to face difficulties, He is calling you to exercise faith. This is how faith grows, by being exercised under pressure. When you find yourself saying, “I don’t know how I’m going to get through this,” this is the moment to exercise your faith in God. This is the moment to walk by faith and not by sight.

You will not grow in faith if every time God puts you in the gym, you just sit there until the session is over. If you don’t pray and you don’t exercise the muscle of faith, when you come out of the trial your faith won’t be any stronger than when you went in. You went through the trial, but you missed the opportunity for growth.

When God puts you in the gym again, ask Him for eyes to see when it happens, and seize the moment. Come to God and say, “This time, I am going to trust you. Strengthen my faith and cause me to grow.”

When was the last time God put you in the gym? Did you exercise the muscle of faith? If so, how? Or do you feel as if you missed an opportunity for growth?

Jude is talking about the same faith here that he mentions in verse 3: “The faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” You can build up your faith by affirming what you believe. That’s why Christians throughout the centuries have recited creeds in their worship: “I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth…”

C.H. Spurgeon preached to vast crowds in London over a hundred years ago. When the time came for him to enter the pulpit, he often felt completely overwhelmed. So, as he climbed the steps into his pulpit, he would say to himself, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”

You might want to say that when you go into a job interview or another situation that you find overwhelming. Maybe Satan keeps reminding you of some failure in your life. You have confessed this. You have repented. But the enemy keeps bringing it to your memory. Affirm your faith: “The blood of Jesus cleanses me from every sin. I believe in the blood of Jesus.”

The Psalms are full of affirmations of faith in God. He has given us these affirmations to help us build ourselves up in the faith. The world, the flesh, and the devil are constantly assaulting our minds with lies, doubts, and questions.

So feed your mind with affirmations of what you believe: “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Ps. 107:1). Affirming your faith by confessing what God has revealed will cause your faith to grow. It is like fresh air to the soul.

What are some Bible passages that you keep going back to? Which verses have helped you over the years to affirm your faith?

There will be times when you seem to be making little progress, and you wonder, “What’s wrong with me? Am I a Christian at all?” Jude says, “You need to build up your faith.” How do you do that?

Satan loves to point out how puny, pathetic, and embarrassingly small your faith is. You should counter by recognising that the faith you have—however small—is a miracle, a gift from God, and by giving thanks for it.

When you begin to thank God for what He’s done and for what He’s doing, you’ll find that the cloud lifts and your faith begins to grow. If you cannot see anything God is doing—in your life or in the lives of other believers—the problem is not with God, the problem is with your eyesight: “My Father is working until now” (John 5:17).

Faith is like a bulb that is planted in the ground and then gets a pile of dirt dumped on it. You’d think that would be the end of its life, but the miracle is that it survives and grows. Think of everything arrayed against your faith. How did your faith survive all the unanswered questions, all the bitter disappointments, and all the exhausting struggles of your life?

The amazing thing about your faith is not that it is weak, but that it exists at all. There is only one explanation: The faith that you have, however weak, is the work of Almighty God. Thank God for that miracle. Recognise what God has done, and your faith will begin to grow.

What is God doing in your life? If you can’t see anything right now, try to identify a few unanswered questions, disappointments, or struggles your faith has survived.

Evangelicals often emphasise spiritual life and the importance of the new birth. We rejoice when people give testimonies of how they came to faith in Christ. But spiritual life is no guarantee of spiritual health. You may be spiritually alive, but are you spiritually fit?

We know what it’s like to be out of shape physically. What does it look like when we’re out of shape spiritually? Here are some symptoms:

• Loss of vigour and vision: Lethargy creeps in.
• Loss of enjoyment of God, the Word, and worship: Your experience of the nearness of God or of brokenness of soul is a memory, but it is no longer a living experience.
• Loss of gratitude: You worry about what God has not given you, rather than rejoicing in what He has given.
• Loss of spiritual hunger and thirst: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God” (Ps. 42:1). This is a soul that is in good shape.
• Loss of compassion: The needs of others are a burden to you; you become impatient with their faults, and you feel frustrated at their lack of progress.

These are some of the symptoms of a soul that is out of shape. There is only one way to deal with the problem and that is to get into God’s exercise room.

Rank these symptoms on a scale from 1 to 10: “1” means you see no signs, “5” means you see regular signs, “10” means you see signs of this symptom on a daily basis.

Jude’s message is very simple: Keep yourself in spiritual shape. It is also very practical, because Jude breaks this down into seven workouts for a healthy Christian life.

You may be committed to some kind of fitness programme. You may work out with a coach or a personal trainer who gives you an exercise routine to help you get in shape.

A good exercise routine will get you working on different muscle groups: “This one is for your abs. This one is for the quads,” etc. In any routine we’ll be drawn to some exercises, and we’ll be tempted to skip others that we don’t like doing. Remember, it’s usually the ones that you tend to skip that you most need to do.

As with any good coach, Jude’s instructions are simple. Imagine yourself standing in the middle of a field with Jude as your coach. He’s been telling us what we’re up against. Then he says to the team, “But you…”

1. Build yourself up in the faith.
2. Pray in the Holy Spirit.
3. Keep yourself in God’s love.
4. Learn to wait.
5. Reach out to others.
6. Watch yourself.
7. Rest in the triumph of God.

These verses are a gold mine of how to live the Christian life in a world of doctrinal confusion and moral compromise. Let’s work with this trainer, Jude, to get ourselves into spiritual shape.

Of the seven workouts Jude has for us, which one is your strongest area, and which one is your weakest area?

The book of Jude was written to a group of believers who were discouraged because of a growing number of church leaders who were marked by moral compromise and doctrinal error. Jude describes the quality of leadership (verse 12) in many churches:

• Shepherds who feed only themselves. These pastors were trusted to care for God’s flock, but they were more interested in their careers.
• Clouds without rain. These leaders seemed to be walking with God, but they were spiritually dry. A conversation with one of them would leave you with nothing for your thirsty soul.
• Blown along by the wind. These leaders took their direction from culture. Their minds were filled with marketing and management, but devoid of a living communion with Jesus Christ.
• Without fruit and uprooted. These pastors’ lives were filled with fruitless activity. The reason it was fruitless is that it was not deeply rooted in the work of God’s Spirit.

This is a powerful description of how ministry gets compromised. Jude is writing late in the first century. The first generation of Christians is almost gone. The torch is being passed to a new generation. Jude says: Even in “church world,” faith is being eroded, reshaped, and repackaged.

You are going to have to decide: Are you going to contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3)? Or are you going to settle for a faith that is shaped to suit your lifestyle and culture?

What are some characteristics you would expect to find in the person who is “contending for the faith?” How about the person who is “settling for a faith?”