A New Endeavor

With Friends Like These...

There is a marked difference between stabbing someone in the back, and premeditated, coordinated betrayal. One is an act of cowardice, the other is slimy and off-putting, and reveals evil intent in a way that leaves you speechless, and wondering how some men can sink so low.

There is doing someone dirty, then there’s doing someone low down dirty, as the kids like to say. What we did to Israel at the United Nations recently was low down dirty. If you could blend the worst of Judas, Brutus, and Benedict Arnold and somehow produce a singular action, it would likely be the action the United States undertook regarding Israel and its vote for UN resolution.

It’s one thing to feel a knife plunge into your back, it’s quite another when the person stabbing you is kissing your cheek, shaking your hand, and calling you brother while twisting the knife. We have done an awful, awful thing, and if there was any doubt as to this current administration’s feelings towards the nation of Israel, no shadow of doubt ought to exist any longer.

What’s worse, is that they won’t even own up to their actions, like some overgrown toddler who kicks a puppy in full view of seven billion people, then vociferously denies having done it.

If this is the way we treat our allies, why would anyone want to be our ally? If this is the way we treat supposed friends and partners in a uniting cause, what assurance is there that we will step up and do the hard thing when we chose betrayal over fidelity when no one was holding a gun to our head, or putting pressure on us?

What we have to understand here if we have a hope of processing just how nefarious this resolution is, is the fact that this is a war against the God of Israel Himself, and the Jewish people are simply collateral damage. The issue was never the settlements, it was the temple mount and wailing wall, essentially Judaism’s most sacred religious sites.

Hatred for the one true God and anything that would remind the world of Him will only continue to grow, and this latest shot across the bow ought to remind us all just what these last days will look like, and allow us to wrap our minds around the fact that the whole world will be against Israel at some point in the near future.

Although I know many of you who read my writings count yourselves among those who stand with Israel, there are some of you who would simply shrug at what I have written, and wonder to yourself what it has to do with us. We are, after all in America, so how could our betrayal of Israel possibly affect us here in any way?

In order to unravel that yarn, we must first understand that within the pages of the Pentateuch there are traditionally contextual passages, ceremonially contextual passages, then there are general proclamations by God Himself which amount to nothing less than covenants, that are neither geographically contextual, nor have an expiration date.

Among God’s many proclamations, there is one which is covenantal that applies to this recent event more than any other and it is neither ceremonial nor traditional, but rather a covenant He made for all time, for all peoples, and for all circumstances which had the seed of Abraham as its primary and singular focus.

Genesis 12:1-3, “Now the Lord had said to Abraham: ‘Get out of your country, from your kindred and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”

 What we have done is nothing less than provoke the wrath of God by our actions, and though we might readily forget many a thing – even who our friends are and who are enemies are – God does not forget. God keeps His covenants and this ought to be a reason for great concern and trepidation for this nation. God keeps His covenants, He does it from a position of omnipotence rather than one of impotence, and so there is nothing standing in His way, nothing that can stop Him, nothing that can keep Him from carrying out His promise.

Deuteronomy 7:9-11, “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr. 

Merry Christmas!

For the past few weeks I’ve been buried under an avalanche of hyperbole, baseless supposition, and borderline hysteria. Oddly enough, contrary to what one might expect, these suppositions had less to do with the electoral college, or the election, and more to do with Christmas, the validity of Christmas, or whether or not we as Christians should even make mention of it.

With titles so grim and dire as to make any clickbait site salivate at the potential of hits, I was bombarded with warnings ranging from being physically punished to having my salvation stripped from me if I were to commit the seemingly unpardonable sin of saying Merry Christmas.

If such hysteria were contained, if it was only a handful of people forwarding the e-mails declaring that if you say Merry Christmas you are unknowingly and unwittingly pledging fealty to Satan, then I’d let it go, and move on to other matters. It does, however, become a problem when I get the ‘is this true?’ e-mails along with the convoluted ramblings of lonely men who have nothing better to do than to create an issue where no issue exists.

As such, here I go making friends again: First, I do not care what day Jesus was born on! It could have been March 12, June 17, August 9, or yes, even December 25. I am not celebrating a day; I am celebrating an event. It is the reality of the birth of God’s son that we are remembering and reminiscing over. It is the reality of God’s love made manifest and the hope of mankind being born in a manger in Bethlehem.

It matters not a whit what day this took place. All that matters is that it did. Jesus was born of a virgin, in a manger, in Bethlehem, and the angels declared “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

The reality of Christ’s birth is not something we remember on one day during the calendar year, it is a reality that we live every day of our lives. It is something upon which we meditate and reflect because it was the embodiment of God’s love for mankind made manifest in the living, breathing, animated reality of Jesus Christ the Lord.

So, to answer publicly the questions I’ve received privately throughout the past few weeks, I do not believe saying Merry Christmas is akin to taking the mark of the beast, nor do I believe that reflecting upon the birth of the Son of God is a sin, whether you do it on December 25^th, or on January 22.

As long as we remember that Christmas is not about glut and gifts, or trees and treats, as long as we remember that we are celebrating an event and not a day, and that this singularly history making event made a way for us to be reconciled unto God, then Merry Christmas to you!

With love in Christ, 

Michael Boldea Jr.