My parents are pillars in my life. My father has always exemplified integrity, morals, and will power; my mother is articulate, beautiful, loving, and well-read. The daughter of a Baptist minister in country churches a century ago, she once urged my father to give up the occasional beer he’d drink because it might have a bad influence on the children. He stopped immediately. When a friend at work suggested they both quit smoking, he put down his cigarettes and never picked them up again. My parents’ solid virtue and lifetime of overflowing dedication to us kids inspire me.
But as a grown man, nothing could outdo my joy in my father as when he, much later in life, became a Christian and then asked me to baptize him. He was, as Paul says, “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Jude urges us in his short letter to contend for the faith. You could spend a lifetime struggling to keep up perfect morals and exemplary integrity, but when you contend for the faith, you have fought for something truly worth keeping.