Jude

Kim Blenkhorn

Jude Is concerned about those within the body of believers stumbling. “I felt it necessary to write to you to contend for the faith.” Judes words feel urgent. It is the last hour and something is going on amidst the churches and believers that prompts Jude’s desperate plea -contend! Jude is a short book of only 24 verses, but it is bursting with timely truths, modern day themes and information that is relevant today. It is somewhat an enigma; how could a book written thousands of years ago hit a target that seems custom made in the 21st century? Yet it does, and every words counts.. Jude is the last book before the book of revelations, why was it put at the end, perhaps because it is a book for the end. No one can read Jude and deny its significance in today’s culture and world. Jude mentions false teachers and prophets, sexual sins, immorality, perversion of grace, rebellion, greed and calls our attention to specific people in the scriptures who fell hard and were judged harshly. Jude reminds us, God has predetermined men’s fate and judgment is inevitable. Jude gets right to the point.

Jude comforts us by reminding us it is Jesus’ ultimate responsibility in choosing and preserving us; he says we are called, and kept. Jesus alone is able to keep you from stumbling. Jesus keeps us, but we also keep ourselves in the love of God.. Jesus is responsible for us, we are responsible for our faith. We can either live this life faithful or not; faith will keep us focused on the mercy of God, bringing us peace and hope; but doubt will keep us focused on ourselves and create misery and discomfort. How do we want to go through life? We can rest assure Jesus has us, but we are called to remain steadfast and diligent if we want to experience the peace here he has to offer. That doesn’t mean having a life of prosperity , perfection, health and happiness; it means that in the midst of the lack of all those things we still ought to have peace when we choose to stay with Jesus and fight to keep our faith.  

Jude appeals to believers to contend in two regards: one, be aware of those who are false believers; and self discipline. Just because someone is in the church doesn’t mean their faith is authentic or they belong to the family of God. And it is our responsibility to pray, wait and have mercy. We must stay alert in order to perservere.

When we talk about contending for our faith, we are talking about fighting a battle. In every battle we have to know who the enemies are, Jude gives us a good working description of what to look for; we must make sure we are fighting for our faith; not against God. We are fighting to stay with Jesus to believe what he says, and not fall into sin which destroys our lives here on earth and our testimony.

We are seeing a lot of “godly” leaders falling because of sin and we may be wondering who do I trust? Who do I listen to and believe? There have been so many disappointments and frustrations within the church, Jude is addressing those within the church, not those outside the church. Our enemies are not the unbelievers, but those pretending to be believers.

I cannot wait to dig in and verse by verse eat up all Jude is teaching us for today!