“To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.” Jude 24-25

Jude explains the purpose of his letter, “I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that the Lord has once for all entrusted to us, his people” (verse 3). He concludes the letter with the verse above, “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling.”

There’s an interesting tension between these two verses. Jude is saying we need to contend for our faith and yet it’s God who keeps us, so we are ultimately presented faultless. If God is going to present us faultless why contend for our faith?

Since we know full well we aren’t faultless on our own account, it requires faith to trust God to present us “without fault and with great joy.” If we’re led astray by individuals who “pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality” then we eventually get to the point where we, “deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (verse 4) and we have no faith at all.

However when our faith is in God’s sustaining power then we have no fear of being led astray. We build up our faith by praying and by being open to receiving God’s love (verses 20-21). It’s when we think we are strong in ourselves that we are in danger of being led astray since it’s then we aren’t trusting God.

It’s only from a position of trust in God that we are able to extend mercy and grace to those who are struggling (verses 22-23), without being led astray ourselves.