If we've read the whole of Jude's letter, we know that he has been making an appeal to Believers to "contend earnestly for the faith" (Jude 3), and contrasting the behavior and attributes of false believers who have been "marked out for this condemnation" (Jude 4) and true Believers who are "waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life". (Jude 21) It's the difference between those that keep to God's path from those that stray, the upright from the fallen. And here Jude provides clear insight that it's not luck or fate that is responsible for the difference, but the choice each individual makes in what to trust.
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In the preceding verses, Jude spoke in detail about the activities and behavior of those that have rejected God to place themselves in His place in one way or the other. Here, Jude contrasts their behavior to Believers' by stating, "keep yourselves in the love of God". The false worshiper seeks to keeps himself in the love of self; the Believer is known by forsaking self to remain in the love of God. Jude further defines this process as "your most holy faith".
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Here are 3 types of apostates—people that abandon their loyalty to God and embrace something else (most often themselves)—which give us some insight to their motivation and attitudes:
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Jude is calling for a fight, a fight to maintain the integrity of the Gospel, to aggressively attack and reject those penetrating the ranks of the church that are trying to redefine it. He's not speaking here of unbelievers that merely scoff at our beliefs, or a world that laughs at or even persecutes Christians; Jude is referring to "certain persons [who] crept in unnoticed"—people attacking the church from within by pretending to be part of the church.
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What Jude is essentially speaking of here is discernment. We are being told that we need to exercise discernment and take a specific course of action in dealing with others that are struggling in their faith based on the nature of their struggle, not to treat everyone the same. He doesn't qualify this by saying that we must first get special wisdom or be in the process of exercising a special gift of the Spirit in order to engage our brothers and sisters in this manner. It's every Believer's obligation to take note of someone struggling, discern the source of the issue, and act. This isn't something reserved just for pastors or elders or professional counselors. This is part of every Christian's basic job description.
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What did the apostles speak beforehand on this subject?
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Let’s play pretend. You’re an Israelite, born a slave of a people that have been slaves for 430 years. (In today’s terms, your family has been in slavery since the year 1575. That’s a long time.) A man comes in the name of God and peforms miracles and signs and wonders completely unheard of. You see each of these signs. You personally live through each of these wonders. And when the government that has enslaved you and your family for over 4 centuries publicly acknowledges the source of these signs as the One True God, you escape that government’s final desperate grasp by walking across the dry ground of a sea bed with the waters held back on either side. You see all this. You live all this. And yet, you don’t believe in God.
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