In Jude 1:3 Jude stresses that he is 'writing'.  Writing.  he says that it was needful for him to write.  He says that he exhorts them to contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints.  He probably felt anxiety that he was far away, that they needed reassurance, and that he couldn't get to them.  He was too far away.  I understand the feeling of being too far away.  I married a Marine fighter pilot.  We had 19 moves in 15 years.  We were always "far away".  From family, from friends, and more than half the time, from each other.  He would jokingly remind me of the old saying, "If the Marine Corps had wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one."

This last week I have been going through letters that I have received through the last 57 years.  I think I kept every piece of paper I ever received.  Most of it  is trash that I wonder why I ever kept.  But occasionally I find a letter from my husband, my mother, my dad, or my grandmother.  They are like time capsules and have been pure joy to read again.  I have been transported backwards in time.

That is what we have with the letters of the New Testament.  Time capsules.  Treasures.  Jude was fearful for the people he was writing to.  Jude 1: 4  " For there are certain men crept in unawares..., ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ."

Grace.  God's grace.  We are hopeless without it.  We can't possibly deserve it.  We need mercy.  And then Jesus steps into time and sheds His blood for us.  Pure, unadulterated grace.  We can't earn it and we can't buy it.  It is a gift.

But Jude was saying that there were men who would pervert it for their own gain.  They would sell us snake oil for something that God has given us for free.  He wanted these people to contend for the faith.  He wanted them to remember that it was delivered to the saints.  It was given to them.