"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.
For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ."
Jude 1:3-4
The idea of earnestly contending for the faith is important here, because I think, just like it was in Jude's day, there are many, even including ourselves sometimes, that turn God's grace into something that it isn't, because we either don't understand God's gospel or are actively working against it. Hopefully the former of course, because actively opposing God is risking our souls, while just misunderstanding God can be more easily rectified. :)
When it talks about "turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness" I think that gets into one of the basic fundamentals of the gospel that we often stray away from. God wants us to have bodies, but also learn to tame them... and when we (as we too often do) start talking about how we evolved this way, or were born with these desires, as though that is an excuse or even an argument for a certain behavior, then we're getting well off track in terms of what God has taught us. Learning to deny some of our desires or satisfy them in righteous ways... that isn't going against our own souls, but rather choosing our deeper and higher selves over our animal selves, which are part of us now and which we love, but which we also need to help grow up into appropriate and glorious vessels for our spirits.
Bodies are gifts, but they are tools for our Spirits to lead, not blind carnality for our spirits to get lost in. As we tame our bodies they can become our greatest assets, but if we instead allow them to lead us, then we become the "brute beasts" that Jude refers to in verse 10.
Today, let's make sure that we aren't mixing things into the gospel from the world, but instead are really following God's plan. Let's team with God who can teach us to triumph over the flesh rather than slipping further and further into the flesh until that is all we are, having supressed our higher nature and become only the beast within. With God we can become whole, the flesh and the spirit perfectly united and working towards the same goals. Let's contend for that higher self, and have faith in that, and so much else that God offers us, as we believe in and are willing to walk God's path.
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