This is the fifth blog in my series, The Jude Appeal; written with the hope that we will be a renewed generation of Christians who turn their hearts to pen stories with God!

The apostle Jude turns our focus from our personal faith and relationship with God to how we act and build up the faith of others.

“Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire to save them” (Jude 22-23a).

These two responses build off each other. Mercy is patient. It’s tender and compassionate. Snatching requires urgency, sacrifice, and zeal.

In researching this powerful Greek sentence, I discovered there is no need to define anything. The meaning in plain.

If someone were to pick up your book, would the words powerfully pull them away from sin and the devil, toward Christ and righteousness?

The alternative is to stand back and watch. Or, even worse, to applaud them on their way to hell. Friend, will you – having been rescued – not care that others perish?

Paul the apostle was willing to give up his salvation for the Jews to be saved by Christ (Romans 9:3). We should be willing to give up our reputation, ambition, or happiness in writing to pen with the purpose to save souls!

(Although, as one who loves to pen redemption stories and implore people through the stories to come to Christ, I can attest that it is joyful work!)

The only way to ensure this snatching away from the fire is effective is to use the very words of Christ. Our descriptions, dialogue, and character arcs are good steps. Apart from the Word and the Spirit, however, where is the power to save?

Consider the example in Dear Olive (by Amy LeFeuvre).

Eddie once says, “I’m a swimmer in a strong current; it has got the better of me, and all you can do is to stand on the bank and tell me to make an effort. You don’t fling me a rope or give me anything to catch hold of.”

One hundred and eleven pages later, when Olive had found the truth herself, she wrote to him, “I am going to fling you the rope from the banks…Christ is in the world now, in close touch with every one of His people, and He is the Force that can deliver any one of us from our weaknesses and temptations. He is willing to be by our side every minute of the day, reminding, keeping, saving. He works independantly of circumstances. He is beyond and above them all, and He enables us to be so too. I know this as a fact in my own experience. He is the Rope. Will you take hold and be pulled out of all your sins and temptations to the shore?”

Eddie nearly tore the letter. Nearly burned it. Anything not to read through those disappointing lines again. Yet, he kept the letter…and its message snatched him from the fire at his lowest moment.

Dear friends, there is no time to be less than fervent in our appeal to a people walking in darkness. Snatch them quickly from the fire with the very words of God, for His word never returns void (Isaiah 55:11).

Is your book snatching people from the fire to save them?