v. 11b – ….and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion.

Devotional:

Jude connects 3 events in verse 11, the way of Cain (Gen 4), Balaam’s error (Numbers 22-24), and Korah’s rebellion (Numbers 16). We can be sure Jude wasn’t pulling any punches in battling against the rampant false teaching and teachers of his day because the people he is comparing them to are beyond shameful in the history of Israel. “Them are fighting words” is how we would’ve said it where I grew up.

Something very interesting stands out to me in the second half of verse 11 when Jude says, “…and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain…”. What does it mean to abandon yourself? And more so to do it for the sake of gain?

You are complex. There is no one like you and never has been. You are uniquely designed by God for His glory and your joy. You won’t ever be repeated; you are you and no one else can be you. God created you in His image with dignity, honor, self- respect, and purpose. This means to abandon yourself means to leave all the reasons God created you along with the uniqueness you bring to the world.

What would ever make someone want to abandon all that beauty and quality craftsmanship? The allure of power would. The desire for power is so subtle. In all 3 of Jude’s examples, you see men grabbing for the immediate satisfaction of power, and all of them – and many others – suffer the consequences.

I’ve never met someone who just outright says, “I want more power,” but I have seen and lived the behavior that being power-hungry produces, which is control. We want control of the situations in our lives because on some subconscious or maybe even conscious level, it makes us feel better. The truth is we want to be God, not over everything, just over what we think are our things.

This struggle for control is often what makes marriage and parenting so difficult. We find ourselves in power struggles against ourselves and other sinners like us and we don’t recognize it for what it is – a tactic of the enemy to leave us grasping for whatever we can take or manufacture on our own. And the true deceit of power is we actually get convinced in our minds that we are doing the right thing. The gain we are after in these situations is to be right in our mind as Proverbs 21:2-3 says: “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.”

To walk in the way of Jesus is to open our hands and let go of control by putting our trust in Him. This is truly surrendering our control to the one who actually has it in all things at all times. This is a daily, willful, practice that its gains are wisdom, maturity, and unexplainable peace.

REFLECTION:

In what ways have you been guilty of being “right in your own eyes”? Where do you need to let go of control today?