Two-Faced Faith

Jude 1:17-19

¹⁷ But you, my dear friends, must remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ predicted. ¹⁸ They told you that in the last times there would be scoffers whose purpose in life is to satisfy their ungodly desires. ¹⁹ These people are the ones who are creating divisions among you. They follow their natural instincts because they do not have God’s Spirit in them.

When I was in school, we had the popular kids who dressed a certain way and acted a certain way. They would show up wearing specific types of shoes and brand-name clothes, and everyone wanted to be like them, even talk like them and crack the same jokes, almost turning their conversations into hashtags in today’s world. (We did not have the internet back then.) I am sure this group of people still exists in schools today. What was shocking about some of these people is how they professed to be Christians and clearly did not live godly lives.

Jude is writing to the church and is calling out some very sinful things happening in the church. He calls out people who pervert the grace of God into a license for immorality and, in turn, deny Christ (vs. 4). You would think they would be easy to recognize, but Jude’s letter seems as if they fit into the church crowd on Sunday, and no one was noticing, kind of like those kids back in high school who lived one way at school and another way in private.

The religious elites in Israel at the time spent all their public time dressed to impress and saying all the right things. They would call out everyone beneath them on details of not following the law, while Jesus called them full of dead men’s bones. Why is this? On the surface, they did the right thing, looked the right way, even talked the right way. They knew the Bible backward and forward and could quote just about all of it. They even had “God is good” stickers on their camels and WWJD bracelets on, but their hearts were not completely sold on God, being wicked and selfish, denying God’s grace.

Jude references the scoffers or mockers who follow their ungodly desires. He calls them people who divide and follow mere natural instincts like animals, and, in turn, they do not have the Spirit. What happens when the Spirit of God is not in the hearts and minds of you or your running buddies? You find yourself mocking and scoffing at other Christians and other people. You look back and notice you caused more division than fellowship. You bend to following your sinful desires more than turning away from sin. You abuse the grace of God and use it to justify your immorality. You become two-faced, and your life is a wasteland of broken friendships and attempts to obtain what only God can give, peace.

Before you call out the sinners among you, ask yourself if you have used the truth of the Word of God as a weapon. John describes Jesus as grace and truth, not only grace, where you let everything walk all over you, or only truth, where you become a legalistic maniac, but both at the same time. Today, call out yourself and pray that you will be grace and truth to those around you, and let Jesus do the changing.

Prayer: Father, I pray that I am grace and truth to those around me. I pray that I would lead with Jesus and finish with Jesus. Father, I pray that I will not use the truth of the Word of God as a weapon upon my fellow man, but as a weapon to defeat the enemy and love those around me, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, in Jesus’ name, amen.