Easter changes everything for a Jesus-follower. It impacts our present as well as our future, our relationships as well as our religion. Easter sets followers on a road of discovery with Jesus that takes an eternity to experience.

As Jesus faces arrest and execution, He finds Himself utterly alone, abandoned sadly even by His closest followers. This critical moment in Gethsemane is marked by betrayal, rebellion, and fear. In contrast, following Jesus requires acceptance, obedience, and trust.

“It’s not that Americans no longer believe anything,” says George Gallup. “It’s that they believe everything.” In a generation when people simultaneously hold to contradictory ideas, the concept of objective truth is radical. Anyone proposing the existence of truth is considered intolerant and hateful. Such is our day. How then do we live?

This New Testament postcard is written to believers regarding the insidious threat of apostates. The danger is serious and each generation must take up the challenge of preserving the Faith unblemished for those who follow. Jude speaks to Christ followers in 2025 every bit as much as he spoke to the Church of the first century.

Contending for the faith is not the most pleasant of spiritual duties, but it is action required of particular generations of believers at moments of intense spiritual warfare. Jude writes at just such an historical moment. His words are disturbingly relevant for our time.

Paul Billheimer asserts, “Prayer is not primarily God’s way of getting things done. It is God’s way of giving the Church ‘on-the-job’ training in overcoming the forces hostile to God. This world is a laboratory in which those who are destined for the throne are learning, by actual practice in the prayer closet, how to overcome Satan and his hierarchy.”

The earthly ministry of Jesus foreshadows Satan’s ultimate defeat. In Acts and beyond, Jesus extends His power over the demonic by giving His Word as a weapon to His disciples. With Word, witness, and authority, the invasion of hostile territory ravages the forces of evil.

Spiritual warfare in the New Testament is never presented as an esoteric activity reserved for specialists. Rather, spiritual warfare encompasses not only the dramatically supernatural, but also the mundane realities of “normal” life. We are consecrated for the ordinary no less than for the exceptional.