THE BOOK OF JUDE
I just got to know that there is a gospel of Jude, I mean it has always been in my subconscious cause i was taught as a child but I think this is the first time I am reading the book of Jude and the way he began his message “Jude the servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James” wow! Imagine if we all introduced or saw ourselves that way, Anita the Servant of Jesus Christ and the sister to Nita or Ahmed the servant of Allah and the brother to Buhari.
What bought my attention to this Book is a video of Jackie Hill Perry, if you don’t know her you can use Google, you won’t regret it.
The first time I heard Jackie speak was in a YouTube video where she talked about her struggles as a former gay and accepting Jesus, getting married and having kids and I was moved yunno.
She went ahead to talk about having compassion as a Christian and not condemning people who we think are non-christains or not deserving of God’s love because even Arch Angel Micheal didn’t condemn the devil when they were debating on who to have the body of Moses instead he said “God rebuke you” which brings into perspective that condemnation is not our responsibility, when we condemn we move away from God’s plan for us and may push people away from joining the fellowship of Jesus Christ because to be realistic no one loves being judged even when they are obviously doing something wrong.
Also, just because we preach to someone x number of time doesn’t mean they will or should repent, no one knows God’s timeline for their repentance, no one knows what God intend on doing with them or for them, so as christians we can only show compassion by praying for them genuinely, preaching to them and loving them regardless.
Jude also talked about those who have perverted the Christiandom by disguising themselves, altering the word of God to suit them and their predicament, take for example some gay people who believe that God loves everyone regardless of who or what you are which I agree with but then again the bible made it explicitly clear that God abhors sin and Apostle Paul said “shall we continue in sin that grace may abide? God forbid" It is without doubt that God loves us but that’s not a ticket to hurting him, we need to understand that our number one purpose in this life is to love and serve God and that’s above any sentiment, intuition or gut feeling we have.
God’s purpose for us is above being gay, it’s above greed, it’s above sexual sin of any kind, it’s above our feelings of superiority over others or our feelings of entitlement, it’s above our desires and wants and that’s why we need to submit all we are to him, flaws and all, we need to abide in his love because when we do, we understand that it’s not about us but about him,not our will but his will, not our understanding but his understanding, we let the Holy Spirit lead us.
