Beware the Spiritual Cannibals

In the belief that they would appropriate the strength of their enemy, the ancient Aztecs practiced the ritualistic consumption of their felled foe’s heart. In feudal Japan for the same purpose with the same finality, but far less gruesome, warriors used to behead their vanquished adversaries. Brutal, visceral, and overly violent as these cultures might have been, at least one had the opportunity to confront their enemy, and to face them on the battlefield.

Nowadays people prefer to bludgeon their imagined enemies from a thicket, from behind a tree, or from the comfort of their basement-offices which they converted for the specific purpose of being a camouflaged warrior, defending their pet doctrine to the bitter end.

We are no longer content to stand on the shoulders of giants, and as such prefer to stand on their corpses. In our self-righteous zeal, no one is off limits, be they Paul the Apostle, or someone who has gone to their eternal rest.

“They died? They are no longer among us? It matters not, exhume them and unearth them that we may beat their cadavers about the head and shoulders with bamboo sticks. So what if Paul wrote thirteen of the twenty seven books of the New Testament? So what if he suffered unimaginable cruelties for the cause of Christ? Well, no we’ve never suffered for Christ, we’ve never been persecuted, but we have a mandate!

‘From whom might you have said mandate?’

Uh, that’s not important. We were appointed!

‘By whom were you appointed as judge, jury and executioner?’

Uh, by ourselves but that’s not important either.”

Yes, it is far easier to play the scavenger and pick over the corpses of ministries you helped destroy, than to humbly and prayerfully follow God’s guidance and laboriously strive to feed the sheep of His pasture the nourishing truth of the Bible.

Want to grow your ‘ministry’? Pick a fight with another ministry, become the spiritual cannibal the enemy so loves, because if we’re busy backbiting and destroying each other chances are we’ll be too busy to be of any real danger to the devil.

I felt I needed to write and post this essay, because I’ve been getting an inordinate amount of correspondence concerning brewing skirmishes between ministries, and though my perspective might not be new, I felt it was only right that I make my opinion known.

So what are we to do when we get attacked? Are we to go on the offensive; are we to pay back in equal measure; are we to attack those who are attacking us with the same ferocity? I can only speak from personal experience, because we too have been attacked, and unjustly accused, it comes with the territory after all.

A couple years ago there was a super prophetess to the nations, a beacon of light and holy retribution, called, christened, and knighted to fell one and all until only she remained. She went about her task with abandon, sword in one hand, scythe in another, having appropriated God’s own judgment seat, and striking out at one and all. Eventually our ministry settled into her crosshairs, and the vicious attacks began. What she was saying were outright fabrications and lies, but before responding in kind, I went to the Lord in prayer and asked what I should do. The answer I received was simple yet poignant: “It’s not about you, it’s about Me!”

Not a longwinded answer, but one that clarified everything for me.

“You can think the worst of me, but believe the best of Christ!”

That was my position, and it remains so to this day. What we must understand is that God will avenge those who are His, and God will bring about justice. From the last e-mail someone sent me, it seems the super prophetess to the nations is no longer active, having been embroiled in some lawsuits which allege fraud on her part, the drama extending to denial of her identity and a score of other things.

What’s my point in all this? Time will speak to the veracity of a matter like nothing else. In His time God will avenge, in His time God will bring about justice. God will defend His work, God will defend His children. Detractors have come and gone. Those who sharpened their blades for weeks and months and years thinking they would strike the mortal wound saw their blades bend and break, because our Defender is omnipotent, and no weapons formed against us will prosper.

Our only duty is to make certain that our hands are clean before an all knowing God, and that what we teach and what we preach is in accordance with His Word. God will work everything else out.

When we actively pursue our own defense however, when our own reputation is the preeminent issue, then we run the risk of falling into the selfsame snare others have fallen into. Make it about Jesus; let the world think the worst of you, as long as they believe the best of Christ.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.