Jude 1:3 is possibly one of the most misunderstood and neglected verses today. The attitude of the many preachers and other professors of the word of God today is that they have no real desire to contend for anything. Many would rather have a large congregation and concentrate on growing that large congregation than to take the necessary steps defend the faith.
In the Bible God commands us to "...earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." In Jude 1:3 it is written: "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."
To properly defend the faith, there are several key things we must do. Remember that the faith is the Word of God, we must contend for this faith. God does not mention to only contend for major things of faith and not the minor things. So many people today want to focus on the major things of the Word of God and they stop focusing on the minor issues. According to the verse above, all of the Words in the Scriptures are major issues to God for they are the faith. You can not ever determine which part of the Scriptures are minor and should not be defended. All the words of the Bible are worthy of being cherished and preserved in the Name of God.
Read this phrase, "...which was once delivered unto the saints." What you should always remember is that faith never changes, it is, it was and it shall forever be. We make the mistake of thinking that both sides need to compromise in order to get along. We need to understand if faith is compromised in the least; it no longer is considered the faith. Watered down faith is no longer a strength, it becomes weak and solvent. When you distort the faith, then what was the faith discontinues being the faith. Your belief in the Faith must continue to be strong and this belief must be taught to our children and also to their children and so on.
When God says to us “earnestly contend for the faith..." He is saying to us that we must earnestly, passionately and zealously, fight for the faith. We can not be passive about our defense of the faith; doing so is disobeying His Word and His Commandment.
God is utilizing the word "contend" to show us what we are to be impassioned about. God commands us to be passionate about contending for the faith. If you contend for something you are striving for it. By contending for something, you become spirited by it. By contending for something, you will lambaste those you are contending against. By contending for something you will vehemently defend others over the faith. This is what contending for the faith means.
Remember you are commanded to defend the faith. It is never to be supplanted or it is no longer is the faith. By protecting the faith there will come some instances whereby you will not get along with some, which is a condition of contention for something. The contention becomes worth it because the faith is at risk. Some people my feel hurt contending for the faith, but remember that God never tells us to stop contending for the faith just because someone’s feelings may get hurt. He tells us to defend it zealously.
Are you protecting the faith? Are you allowing the faith to be changed by your lack of involvement? Are you allowing others to weaken your resolve in the faith? As Christians we must zealously defend the faith. If we should lose the faith we have lost everything. God gave us the Faith; Let it not be destroyed!
This is my explosion of thought! This is a brief recap inspired by the Word of God and taken from words spoken by the evangelist Allen Domelle
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