(Decided to do meditations through Jude instead of praying through Jude.)
“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you our common salvation, I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.”
There comes a time, indeed, for fellowship. We cannot deny the admonition of the New Testament to come together as the local church and fellowship with one another in Truth and Grace and Love. There are times to discuss glorious theologies and wrestle with theological issues concerning the millinium, the nature between the “soul” and the “spirit” and so on. Yet, there comes a time for war and such a time is all around us even now. There are “non-essentials” to discuss, but the very bases of the faith once for all delivered to the saints is under attack by those in the Word of Faith Movement, those who, like Oprah, take Christian terms and rape them of their true meaning and so many others.
Along with this we see in this verse the implicit need to know the foundational truths of the Christian faith. For how does one contend, how does one fight for what they do not know? We cannot contend in ignorance, thus there must be a foundational knowledge, a foundational understanding of essential Christian doctrines. We must contend for the life of Christ as presented in the Gospels, the inerrant nature of the word of God, the nature of the Triune God and other blessed doctrines found in the word. Failure to do so will lead us into times of vast darkness and spiritual apathy. The true faith once for all delivered to the saints is only, in a human sense, only one generation away from being lost to the world.
Is this not what happened in the days of the Judges? The book states that the generation who was to conquer the land passed away and that the new generation did not know the Lord, nor what the Lord had done for the people of Israel. What happened next was the logical consequence of their ignorance as learn throughout the rest of the book. Only a sliver of faithful witness remained throughout all the Israelites. If we do not struggle for, contend for, fight for the essentials of the Christian faith it can be lost to us. What we do not contend for we will most likely lose.
God, as we see hordes of false teachers and false prophets on the some of the most center stages of Christianity in America, please help us to contend for the true faith delivered by Your called Prophets and Apostles. May we not shrink back from teaching that which is sound doctrine to one another and teh chilren in our homes and churches. It seems that darker days are coming still, Heavenly Father, and contending for Biblical Truth becomes less and less politically correct. In the midst of this remind us that we are to enter into the Kingdom through many trials and tribulations. If Truth is worth singing about and preaching about it is Truth that is worth contending for in our day.
