The Parlay

How is it that men with the charisma of bird droppings on a hot tin roof get multi-million-dollar contributor contracts on major news outlets simply because they were a one or two term senator or member of Congress? How is it that even before they’ve finished out their term, the contracts are penned and signed, bonuses deposited in bank accounts, and suits picked out at the local tailor?

One question that few seem to ask is, does their new job influence or shape their worldview in any way? Does the fact that they are about to be employed by a corporation at odds with the current administration compel them to frame their narrative? These are questions I’ve been wrestling with of late, seeing the glut of former senators and congressmen who have become television personalities, and some who have gone on to sit on boards of multinational corporations, having no other talent than having been in government, briefly.

 It used to be that able, driven men got into politics because they wanted to serve the nation largely responsible for their good fortune. To them, being born into this land of plenty was blessing enough, and if by tenacity, foresight, work ethic, or one moment of brilliance they turned into a means of generating income they managed to succeed, they felt they owed the country, and desired to give back.

For the most part, that sort of mindset is dead and buried. I’m not saying there aren’t exceptions, I’m not saying there aren’t individuals who stand head and shoulders above the panderers, the lickspittles, and those whose only desire is to use their time in elected office to parlay it into a career once they’re done. It’s because they are so rare that such people stand out. It is because such a mindset is commendable that such individuals so readily garner the esteem and admiration of their fellow man that you can pick them out from a distance.

Generally speaking, if things were still how they used to be perhaps those in government would be about the people's business rather than trying to position themselves for a job once their term was done. There is something insidious about using one's time in government, getting paid by taxpayer money, all the while working against the selfsame taxpayer who is financing your current lifestyle to garner yourself a future employer.

Do you honestly believe that any rational, sane human being would champion being invaded by citizens of other nations if there was nothing in it for them? Do you really think that the whole push for open borders and cheap labor is just empathy on display from people who would otherwise harvest organs from their own grandmothers if there was a dime in it for them?

The bleeding heart and a handful of useful idiots are what these vultures use as a distraction while filling their wallets and garnering the goodwill of influential individuals they hope will employ them once their term in office is concluded.

If a majority of those in government are there for self-serving purposes, then their own wants will consistently be prioritized over what is best for those who elected them into office. That is a recipe for disaster and a sure path toward ruination. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.

Since It All Began

As of this writing, the number of dead has climbed to over 300. I pray there are no more, I fear there will be. It's not as though I haven't heard of the bombings in Sri Lanka, I just didn't have anything new to add. I’d rather just sit and let the sadness wash over me, pray for the families of those whose lives were taken from them, and contemplate the world we are living in, then be an echo of an echo.

For two thousand years, Christians have been brutalized, martyred, slaughtered, and murdered. The only thing that has changed over the course of two millennia is that you can kill a lot more people with a lot less effort today than you could two thousand years ago.

It would take an entire Roman legion to make 300 crosses, and nail three hundred Christians to them. In Sri Lanka, it took eight determined people. The means of our demise may have changed over the centuries, but the underlying motivation has not. 

Christians are no longer being fed to lions, made to fight wild beasts, dipped in tar and lit aflame come dusk. Instead, they are being massacred in their houses of worship, turned into mincemeat and bone fragments with the press of a button.

Yes, the means have changed, but the motivation is still hate. The motivation is still an all-consuming desire to destroy Christianity by any means necessary. How much hate must one have in their heart for his fellow man to be willing to die in order to maim and murder others?

We are seeing the fable of the scorpion and the turtle play out in real life, wherein even though the scorpion knows it too will die if it stings the turtle midway across the pond, its sense of self-preservation is overridden by its nature. Yes, the scorpion could have survived, but to do so he would have had to let the turtle live as well, and his nature just could not abide that.

Cheetahs don’t change their spots, zebras don’t change their stripes, and some ideologies will never fully embrace the 21^st century because their nihilistic nature is antithetical to coexistence. When the only three options one’s holy books give for the rest of humanity is to either convert, die, or be subjugated, there really isn’t much room for dialogue. The only one that comes close to peaceful coexistence is the subjugation. I don't know about you, but if I could help it, I'd rather not be the subject of a death cult that finds strapping a brick of C-4 to a twelve-year-old and sending them out to play in the park with the infidels an honorable and praiseworthy thing.

There was nothing coincidental about the date of these attacks, or the locations wherein they were carried out. They were methodically thought out not only to cause mass casualties but to leave an open wound remembered every year for decades to come. They were intended to shake men’s faith. They were intended to make men question where God was in all the carnage.

And that's the one thing the death cultists, and their acolytes will never understand about Christians and Christianity. We do not live for God in the hope of getting seventy virgins somewhere down the line if we're willing to get our hands bloody and forfeit our humanity.

Yes, future glory is baked into the cake, but what sets Christianity apart is that we feel the presence of our God in the present. We are not promised the prize at the bottom of a cracker jack box only once we’ve died in jihad, and not a moment before. Our God is with us now. We feel His presence now. We know His love now, and one day we will see Him face to face as we are welcomed into His Kingdom. His peace, His joy, His lovingkindness, are all things we experience in the present, and this is why we will continue to carry on as we have for the last two millennia.

May God comfort the mourning. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.

A god In Every Cupboard

When the god you worship is a god of your own making and design, the liberties he will afford you are limitless. When men create the gods they worship, the gods they worship are subject to them, to their flesh, to their lusts and desires, and whatever it is they desire to do, their god gives them the freedom to do, because he must abide by their dictates.

If you can stomach being your own god, it’s a worthwhile racket. It eliminates the need for a middle man like in Catholicism, and you don’t have to pony up the big bucks to purchase an indulgence like they did in the good old days. You just do whatever you want, when you want it, and if perchance anyone objects, you just tell them your god is okay with it. You have his permission, he has given you his seal of approval, and anyone who questions the absurdity of your stance, anyone who points out the inconsistency or fallacy of your argument is just a legalistic hater.

How dare you imply that the feelings I feel are not legitimate and do not outweigh whatever you think the Bibles says about it? I can do all things! It’s there somewhere, I heard it once on television from a preacher up in Houston. Are you just trying to keep me in bondage by implying that there are some things I can’t do or shouldn’t do?

We are seeing this more and more, especially when someone is trying to defend a lifestyle or a pet sin that they are unwilling to part with. Suddenly, not only were they born that way, but their god is more than willing to embrace their abomination, validate it, and yes, even celebrate it for its uniqueness.

The only fly in the ointment is that if you claim to serve the God of the Bible, yet say He is permissive of things He called abominations in His own Word, you are either wrong, or the God of the Bible is schizophrenic, and has multiple personalities.

God will not condone in one breath what He condemned in another. He is not double-tongued, He is not double-minded, and He will not change His mind or alter His worldview just because you hold your breath and stomp your feet. God is not impressed by temper tantrums, and He is not influenced by individuals who insist that they know what He meant, rather than what He said.

If the god you serve does not require submission, if the god you serve does not require obedience, if the god you serve does not require renunciation of your old ways, if the god you serve requires nothing of you but your acknowledgment, you may just be serving a god of your own making.

What's worse, is that honest individuals are seeking the truth, seeking direction, seeking Biblical doctrine, and for fear of offense and stepping on toes, men whose sole purpose is to be shepherds fail at it time and again by not being clear as to what the Word of God says.

If you love your sin more than you love God, then you are not worthy of Him! Whatever that sin might be, whatever appearance those shackles might take, if you do not choose freedom in Christ over bondage to sin, you are not really Christ’s.

Just speak the truth! What people do with the truth you sow into their lives is up to them. You are not responsible for their actions once they have been shown the way, nor will their blood be required of you.

You can either believe that there is a god in every cupboard, and each one of these gods has a different set of rules depending on who they are addressing at the time, or you can believe that there is One God, eternal, everlasting, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. The one true God who transforms men that He may inhabit them, and who will not suffer anything wicked or defiled to enter His Kingdom. 

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Who Art Thou?

Do you know who you are? Simple enough question, isn’t it? I’m not asking if you know your name, that would be silly. Unless you suffer from amnesia, you probably know your name, but I didn’t ask what your name is. I asked if you know who you are.

How do you define yourself? How do you see yourself when you look in the mirror of your soul? Do you define yourself as a husband, father, mother, daughter, brother, sister? Do you define yourself as affable, empathetic, giving, serving, faithful, obedient?

What about who you are in Christ? Have you given that much thought lately? Although philosophically speaking it is good to know ourselves as being fathers, mothers, brothers or sister, as is likewise useful to know ourselves as giving serving, and empathetic, who we are in Christ has eternal ramifications, yet is likely the thing we think about least.

In the opening lines of what is arguably his greatest epistle, Paul affirms who he is in Christ. He is not shy about who he is, nor is he uncertain regarding himself.

In fact, in the first verse, of the first chapter of Romans Paul lays out three distinct traits which he now possesses, something he is painfully aware he didn’t always possess.

You see, it's as essential to know who you were without Christ, as it is to know who you are in Christ because if you remember from whence you came, you know that it was only God and His grace that brought you where you are.

Paul knew the transformation he had gone through better than any other man. He knew he once was Saul, the man who consented to the murder of Stephen and even held the tunics of the men who stoned him. Paul knew this! It wasn't as though it was wiped from his memory, but he also knew he'd been forgiven, transformed, and made a new creature in Christ.

It is because Paul knew who he had become, who he was in the present that he could unequivocally write to the church in Rome, and introduce himself as first, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, second, called to be an apostle, and third, separated to the gospel of God.

This is who he now was. This is who he had now become, but Paul is also very candid about who he had been, and what he had done in the past, in his epistle to the Romans, as well as all of his other writings.

Paul never let who he had been define who he would become in Christ. By the same token, he never took whom he had been transformed into for granted, or felt as though it was in any way his doing.

Be sure of who you are. Not who you think you might be, not who others say you are, not who your spouse insists you are, but who you are in Christ must be an unshakable certainty in your life.

Know who you are in Christ, and be ever thankful for the transformation He made in your life. Know who you are in Christ, and walk humbly with your Lord, giving Him the glory for who you are, and thanking Him for forgiving all that you once were. 

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Loving People Into Hell!

I overestimated Brian Houston of Hillsong fame. It won’t happen again. I just assumed he was your garden variety coward with no spine, keeping silent when he should be outspoken regarding biblical truth. What he is, is something far, far worse.

No sooner had I pointed out that church figures in Australia including he of the fiddler gang, Brian Houston, had not stood up for this rugby player who did nothing more than quote the Bible than he decides to show his true colors by attacking him instead. 

That’s right, rather than defend truth, Brian Houston has gone out of his way to reprimand Israel Folau, the aforementioned rugby player, for doing something so monstrous, egregious, and unforgivable as quoting the Bible.

I’ve got to say, given Brian Houston’s stance on the matter, it may just be that he didn’t know the rugby player was quoting the Bible.

This is the new face of the accuser of the brethren, who cloak themselves in the most admirable of virtues, loving people into hell because they are more concerned with the world accepting them, than being in harmony with the word of God.

If you’ve ever wondered how brother would turn against brother, and fathers would persecute their sons in the last days, wonder no longer. This is just the beginning of the beginning.

What Brian Houston did was beyond foul, beyond cowardly, and if ever he called himself a pastor he should nevermore refer to himself as such. A true shepherd protects the sheep from the wolves. He doesn’t spoon feed the sheep to them.

The entire article begins with ‘while expressing his admiration for Folau’s conviction,' and you know two things are about to happen. First, Brian Houston will make sure that everyone understands he does not share the same conviction, and second, he will do his best to tell a man whose only crime was quoting scripture how wrong he was. 

One distinction needs to be made crystal clear here, and that is, it was not Folau’s conviction, it is Biblical conviction. The man was quoting the Bible!

1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God.”

There you go, Brian! Plain as day! The man was quoting the selfsame scripture you claim to be an ambassador of, and you condemned him for it. Bravo! Well done! Your father, the devil, must be proud.

One man risked his career and livelihood to stand up for Biblical truth, while another whose job it is to stand up for Biblical truth, threw the first man under the bus without batting an eye, all under the guise of love.

But see, Brian, when you do not tell a man that lest he repents of his sin, he will not inherit the kingdom of God, it isn't loving, it isn't kind, it isn't noble and benevolent. What it is, is shortsighted to the point of being myopic, wherein to spare someone's temporary feelings, you sentence them to eternal torment. 

There is no love in watching someone march off a cliff into an active volcano, and not saying anything.

Sin is death. Whether that sin is idolatry, fornication, homosexuality, covetousness or sodomy, it’s still death. No matter how liberal your definition of love, there is no love in not telling someone how they can escape death.

If you applied the same ludicrous metrics to anything else, people would think you insane. Imagine if you went to the doctor, and for fear of offending you, he didn't tell you about your heart disease, or tumor, or cancer, or any of a thousand different diagnosis. 

Sin has a 100% mortality rate unless it is repented of, and the individual is made clean by the blood of Christ. There isn’t some chance that sin is death. Ten out of ten times, sin will kill you given half the chance.

Why would someone who touts himself as a shepherd of God’s people not speak this truth boldly and succinctly? Why would someone who boasts of being a leader of the elect attack, belittle, and condescend to someone who is?

Are you mad that Israel Folau is doing your job for you Brian?

I’m sorry, but providing the soundtrack to humanity’s march into the abyss just isn’t worthy of admiration. That is essentially what Brian Houston and the Hillsong troubadours are doing by not standing up for truth. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr. 

Worth The Wait!

There are certain truths we choose to gloss over because they dismantle our narrative. There are certain truths we choose to disregard because we either think we know better or because we're just not willing to accept them at face value and acknowledge that we were wrong.

It's hard for a man to admit he is wrong even when all the evidence points to it. Undeniable as the mountain of evidence might be, we still balk, we still kick against the goads, because rather than the truth, we have come to embrace our own individual truth. We give credence to inanities dreamt up by Oprah on a bad burrito trip, and have come to believe that your truth may differ from my truth because everything is relative and nothing is absolute.

It’s appealing, isn’t it? My truth tells me I can cut to the front of the line, while all the other mopes wait patiently. My truth tells me I don’t need to be aged, I don’t need to be seasoned, I don’t need to be matured, I can just go and do and preach and yell and never mind that I’m doing more harm than good, or bringing shame to the house of God.

Between his experience on the road to Damascus, wherein God blinded him, and the first sermon Paul ever preached there were fourteen years that no one wants to talk about. Everyone conveniently ignores the fact that Paul spent fourteen years in the desert, being seasoned, matured, emptied out and filled anew before he had the wherewithal to stand before men and declare the grace, goodness, and severity of God.

I know, I know, everything’s moving at the speed of sound nowadays. Who’s got fourteen days, never mind fourteen years?

The painful yet straightforward answer is that the obedient do. The obedient, the servants, those whose desire is to please their Master rather than build their own kingdoms have fourteen years to wait patiently for the Lord to sow into them that which they must speak forth, because to them, it is not a wasted season, it is a season of grown and fellowship with the one true God.

I can promise you this: if you wait on the Lord to mature you and go forth when He sends you, you will do more for the Kingdom in three days than those who go forth on their own will do in thirty years. 

How so? Because when you wait to be sent, you go out not in your own strength, not in your own authority, but in His power and His authority.

When you are sent, you walk in and possess the authority of the one who sent you. Power is vested in you by God, just as power is vested in an individual in the employ of a state or nation. You are not there merely on your own, but with the power with which you have been imbued by the one who sent you.

I don’t know who this is meant for, but I felt urged to write it, and to encourage you to wait on the Lord, and patiently so. The time will come, it always does, and it is then that He will send you where He needs you, to do what He commands you to do. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.

Assimilation!

It used to be, in the not so distant past, that if you were good at your chosen profession, whatever that profession might be, it was good enough for you to succeed. If you were an outstanding runner, swimmer, basketball player, or even rugby player, if you were an impeccable surgeon, lawyer, mathematician, or economist, your work spoke for you, you stood on your own merit, and you succeeded in our field.

In the year of our Lord 2019, it is no longer the case. You can be great in your chosen field, you can even be the best at whatever sport you choose to practice, and if your worldview is contrary to the groupthink, if you refuse to assimilate, if you perchance continue to uphold principles and beliefs that have stood the test of time, then you will be summarily fired, let go, or otherwise demoted to the point that you will choose to walk away.

There are corporations, sports teams, networks, and other multi-national businesses that are ever willing to lose out on profit for the sake of toeing the line of political correctness. Not long ago Gillette shot themselves in the foot, then when that didn't hurt bad enough they shot themselves in the face, by essentially calling the bulk of their customer base knuckle draggers who exhibited toxic masculinity by merely being men. If you're still producing testosterone as a male, you are toxic, and you should know it. That was Gillette's message to its customers.

Never mind the fact that to have facial hair that requires the use of razors which Gillette produces, you need to produce testosterone. They didn't care! Why would they? They figure they'd get in good with the limp-wristed genderless waifs, and the knuckle draggers would be too dumb to notice that they were being scorned and belittled for being men.

The message is clear from those who see themselves as overlords of culture: assimilate, say as we do, or you’ll never work in this town again!

What frustrates me is that there is no pushback to any of this lunacy. No sane people are standing up and pointing out the fact that giving hormone blockers to a five-year-old is tantamount to child abuse. Or, that putting your nine-year-old son in a tutu, smearing some lipstick on him, and taking him to a gay pride parade for old perverts to ogle him because he said he was gay once, might be grounds to have you stripped of your parental rights.  

Recently one of the best rugby players in the world posted a Bible verse on his Twitter page, wherein he lists the sin of the flesh, homosexuality being one of them, then proceeds to say that those who do not repent of these things will end up in hell. Everything he said was within biblical bounds, there was nothing outlandish about his tweet, but it offended the protected class. It offended the pederasts and perverts, the homosexual and the sodomite, and because of this, he is set to have his contract terminated.

You are free to think what you want as long as you think what we tell you! That is the message to Christians, and what turns the stomach is that for the most part, the church is going along with it.

This particular incident is happening in Australia. Where pray tell is Brian Houston and his merry band of Hillsong fiddlers defending the biblical truth this rugby player stood up for? Why has every prominent Australian preacher distanced themselves from this young man as though he had rabies?

For fear of being targeted themselves, people who know they ought to be standing up for truth are biting their tongues and keeping silent. What they do not yet realize is that their turn in the meat grinder will come soon enough. It’s only a matter of time. There can be on dissent. Everyone must assimilate. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.

Butler Bellman Bodyguard

Apathy is enticing. It appeals to our base nature and draws many into a deep slumber with its siren song. Because of how much of the church today sees, defines and presents Christ, apathy within Christendom has become the norm rather than the exception.

To hear some preachers describe what it means to be a believer, one would think they are being read a script from a cringe 90’s sitcom, where you are no more than a man-child, and Jesus is your butler, your bellman, and your bodyguard.

Jesus takes the wheel, He opens your doors, He carries your bags, He fights your battles, and the only thing that you're responsible for is to tip Him 10 percent of your earnings, and maybe say thank you once in a while if you're not too busy, or if you don't forget.

It is because we are always told that we are not responsible for doing anything but wave a hand at a crusade that many have taken to wallowing in spiritual infancy for decades. It is because we are told we are peachy keen just the way we are that many are without any drive or desire to grow, mature, or otherwise know more about the God they purport to serve than that we celebrate His birthday in December and His resurrection in April.

He is the help. You don’t get to know the help if you can help it, because you don’t hire help to make friends, you hire help to do on your behalf that which you are unwilling to do on your own. When you think about it, 10% is a steal of a deal given all that we are told Jesus is mandated to do for us once we sign on the dotted line and say the sinner’s prayer.

We hire Jesus, so we don't have to get our hands dirty. He takes our crusty, filthy garments, makes them minty fresh and clean, and no matter how many times we take those clean garments and cannonball into the mud willfully, purposefully, He is contractually obligated to clean them anew.

What do you mean you can’t keep doing what you’ve been doing? What’s this ‘go and sin no more’ thing all about? Is that from some fortune cookie or something? What is this repentance you speak of? 

Nobody ever told us about that! That would cut into my fun time. It would cut into what my flesh wants to do. How dare you imply works, sir? How dare you?

I just wanted the fire insurance. That was the deal. Fire insurance for 10% of my take home. That’s what the grinning man on television said. You can’t change the terms of service midstream, it’s just not fair.

You don’t really expect me to surrender my will, to lay down my life, to humble myself, and give 10% of my earnings on top of all that. That’s just ludicrous. The guys in the yellow robes with the tambourines and incense just want me to meditate for a few minutes every morning. If you want my business, you have to be competitive. You have to make it worth my while, and entice me, and that whole thing about righteousness and holiness unto God is just a nonstarter, let me tell you.

What we are seeing in the modern day church is the direct consequence of having presented Christ not as Lord and King, but as some beggarly fellow just looking to grant us favors, clean up our messes, intervene on our behalf, and be the all-around go to when we need something.

Mister Fix It in a tunic and sandals. That's the picture of Jesus many of today's believers have firmly cemented in their mind's eye, and it's a difficult task indeed to equate reverence, worship, and sovereignty to someone like that.

If, on the other hand you see Jesus as He is, for who He is, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Son of the living God who lived, and died, and rose again and now sits at the right hand of the Father, you can't help but be humbled to the point of tears for the love He shows you every day. If you see Him as He is, and not as He has been rebranded by modern-day vultures who are more interested in your tithe than your eternal soul, you can't help but be overwhelmed by His mercy and grace.

It is when we see Jesus as He is in glory and majesty, high and lifted up, that we bow before Him, obedient and faithful, ready to stand firm against the darkness and do great exploits in His name. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.

Seeing Is Believing

Isaiah 5:20, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

Recently the state legislature of Georgia did a noble, and honorable thing. They passed bill HB 481, known as the heartbeat bill, which, once all the legalese is removed, restricts abortion after six weeks, when a fetal heartbeat is detected. That’s right, not a clump of cells, not a zygote, an actual, verifiable, demonstrable heartbeat.

Ask any sane, rational human being, and they will tell you that one of the defining characteristics of a living being is a pulse A heartbeat! It is what doctors check for first with trauma victims or people who have had some sort of episode, because if there is no heartbeat detected, then they must either restart the heart or pronounce the individual in question dead. 

The heartbeat! Whether or not it exists is the determining factor between something living and something dead. I recently had to counsel a couple who suffered through a miscarriage, and you know how they determined the baby was no longer alive? There was no heartbeat detected!

One would think that unless an individual reveled in Marquis De Sade levels of cruelty, they would applaud this bill. It protects a helpless, defenseless human being. It protects a human baby from being butchered inside its mother’s womb then vacuumed out as though it were some lint in the corner that needed to be disposed of.

Who could possibly have anything bad to say about protecting the most vulnerable among us?

You’d be surprised! Not only is all of Hollywood up in arms over HB 481, but the failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams called the bill both abominable and evil. If you didn’t think you’d see people calling evil good, and good evil in your lifetime, well, here you are! Hopefully, seeing is believing.

Stacy Abrams is a vile, wretched human being, not because of who she is on the outside, but because of who she is on the inside. I have no problem with the fact that she looks like the last time she missed a meal was when bellbottoms were all the rage, or that you can drive a semi through the gap in her front teeth. What I do have a problem with is her saying that attempting to limit abortion after a heartbeat is detected is bad for our humanity and morality.

If that is her position, then she knows nothing of morality, and I am highly skeptical of her humanity.

When baby butchers and those advocating for the wholesale butchering of babies make such absurd and demonstrably illogical comments, not only must they be called out for what they said, but must be so thoroughly shamed for their inability to feel human emotion, that they slink back under their rocks or in their caves, and commence with ripping the wings off flies, or making quilts out of kitten hides. Whatever they do, their ability to be taken seriously in public must be thoroughly compromised, to the point that no one will ever more give them the time of day.

We are at war! If you fight by gentlemen rules while they're straight up medieval, the best we can ever hope for is a draw. Sorry, not willing to settle for a draw or a stalemate. This battle is worth fighting and worth winning. The tide is turning, headway is being made, but as long as ghouls like Stacy Abrams can spew their lunacy unchecked, the headwinds will just grow stronger and stronger.

In case anyone missed it, we are commanded to put on the whole armor. It's not to attend a renaissance fair, it's not to play dress up, or take part in a reenactment. It's to go to war!

To paraphrase the Bible, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem!

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

The Crazy Train

For all intents and purposes, it would seem that the Democrat party is a slow rolling crazy train, with no less than 19 people vying for the position of conductor. Every day, the entire purpose of these nineteen is to out-crazy each other, and if it were not for the scores of people applauding the lunacy, it would merely be something to laugh at, scorn, deride and make fun of.

No matter the position, it seems everyone is intent on one-upping everyone else. If one person said that ex-felons should regain their right to vote at some point, another comes along who thinks they should be able to vote even while incarcerated and in prison. I’m just waiting for yet another to up the ante and say that if you own an Ouija board, you should be able to vote on behalf of your dead relatives if they happened to expire within the last ten years.

That most of them are in lockstep about allowing individuals who are in this country illegally to vote, is just the icing on the crazy cake.

Another hot button topic seems to be reparations, even though no one has conclusively laid out any sort of blueprint as to who should get what and from whom. My family, going back a few generations were likely slaves to Romans. Who do I go to for my reparations?

Not to be outdone, from the latest that has been making its way on the internet, there has even been actual talk by people vying for the presidential nomination of their party, regarding white people giving up their homes to people of a certain level of melanin in their skin, because it’s just the right thing to do.

 Never mind the fact that none of them are willing to set the example, and be the first to do it. Never mind the fact that not one has volunteered to follow their own advice, and give up home and hearth to someone just because of their skin tone. Do you realize how racist that is on its face? I know, to some who just like free stuff it sounds really good, but for an entire political party to so condescend to a whole race insisting that the only way they have a shot at succeeding in this country is to take from someone else is galling to me.

This entire thing reminds me of an asylum for the mentally insane I once visited while my grandfather was still alive. It was right after the Romanian revolution, and the place looked exactly as one would expect it to look given the sort of individuals inhabiting it. If not for the sunny day we chose to go, you would have thought it was a movie set, replete with moss covered brick walls, rusty iron gates, and hooting owls in the trees.

Their funding had been cut in half by the state, and they needed help with food, linens, clothing, and anything else we could provide.

The doctor in charge came to give us the tour and informed us that there were four tiers to the asylum. Tier one was for the nonviolent patients, those who'd just had psychotic breaks, and thought themselves to be Napoleon or Nefertiti, the second tier were those who hurt themselves, the third, those who lashed out occasionally, and the fourth tier were those who were full-blown psychotics, dangerous and violent.

We got to tier two before we decided we’d seen enough. I think the last straw was watching someone calmly, and very judiciously painting a window with their own feces. I didn’t have to see tier three to realize that yes, these people were deeply disturbed, perhaps through no fault of their own, but that the facility needed our help.

What scares me is that I think we’ve only just hit tier two when it comes to the Democrat party contenders for the presidential nomination. I think we have yet to see the truly off the wall ideas, but they are coming, because all of them know they have to do something, anything, to separate themselves from the pack.

If you don’t believe we are living in a dangerous time for this nation, then you’re not looking hard enough. Take a tour, why don’t you, and see what these candidates have already declared as their definitive positions. Once you’ve done that, consider that there are still eighteen months to go until the election.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Making the Sausage

Everybody wants to eat the sausage. Nobody wants to know how the sausage is made. I heard that somewhere once, and it stuck with me. Not so much because it was funny, although at the time, within the context of the conversation it was, but because it was true.

We all like a nice steak once in a while, but we don't want to see the butchering process that needed to take place to create that marbled ribeye. Same goes for a hamburger or anything else that needs killing before it can be brought to the dinner table.

The same can be said of men and women who desire to know the fullness of the power of God, but never took the time to figure out what it takes to achieve said goal. Sure, there are indicators in Scripture, there is talk of transformation, renunciation, repentance, righteousness, holiness, purity, prayer, fasting, submission, and obedience, but that was for people who didn’t have hobbies and Netflix.

Nowadays, in thirty minutes or less, depending on how long the line is, the guy in the shiny suit with the slicked-back hair and a glimmer in his eye will blow the Holy Spirit replete with all the gifts right into you. If it doesn't take the first time, he'll even throw his coat on you to make it stick.

If the demand is there, the supplier will appear, but since the Word does not hint at a shortcut, or some mystical way of bypassing maturing, seasoning, prayer, fasting, and the emptying out of oneself, the best you can say about these suppliers is that they are snake oil salesmen. Some are just that. Others are more ruthless, more cunning, they are the wolves the Word warned you about, but you chose not to heed because they made a difficult thing painless and easy and let’s be honest: who has fifty days to devote to prayer in an upper room waiting for the promise to come down?

We are busy people, leading busy lives, and if we are honest with ourselves, we would shudder at how low down the list of priorities our relationship with God, and our devotion to seeking the more profound things of the kingdom really are. 

You have not because you ask not! That's what the book says, and if you parse down on the word ask, you realize it's not like ordering a cheeseburger or an order of chicken nuggets. The root of the word likens itself more to yearn, desire, become desperate for, rather than simply look up to heaven and say, “give me two of everything, but hold the persecution!”

We have this tendency of looking up to the men and women God uses in powerful ways, but never wonder what all it took to get them into a place wherein God can use them in such powerful ways.

We want the sausage, but we don’t want to know how it’s made. We want the power, but we don’t want to know what it takes to receive it.

Every time discussion regarding the paramount necessity of crucifying the flesh, laying aside your own aspirations, desires, dreams, and plans arise, there's always going to be one in the crowd, eager to point out that you’re talking about anecdotal experiences.

“That may have been what it took for you, but how do you know it’s what it will take for others? You, sir, are not the benchmark, nor the standard!”

True, I am not the standard, neither are those who came before me who walked the same walk and spilled the same tears to experience the same power. However, when every single person that God used mightily had to go through the same purging, testing, proving, and maturing, anecdotal or not, the pattern is undeniable, and even the most stubborn of souls must acquiesce to this reality.

If you want to get from here to there, this is the road you must travel. For some unexplained reason that is so hard for most pastors, preachers, and leaders to say. No, there is no other way! No, there is no shortcut! No, there are no hacks! You must put in the time, grow in God, mature, die to self, seek His face, then at His choosing, in His time, He will grace you with whatever gift He deems necessary for you to have in order for you to fulfill the calling to which you have been called.

You don’t get to pick and choose, and though you may desire to prophesy as Paul encourages, God may have something else in store for you.

Know what you’re getting yourself into, and be willing to pay the full freight. Eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy, but just remember that the man who wrote these words was later beheaded for his faith in Christ.

You see, I know how the sausage is made. That’s why I was never the one waving my arms, breathless, and flushed, yelling ‘pick me, pick me!’ Nevertheless, here I am. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.

Making Darkness Fear You!

The devil despises what he fears. He attempts to denigrate, disparage, defame, disgrace, and discredit what he knows can do him harm. When you see the devil attacking someone, when you see the devil trying to disprove something, it usually means he is terrified, and he is trying to proactively minimize the impact the teaching or individual might have. 

We all know the devil roams about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour but what we must also understand is that he is more hyena than he is lion. The devil is a scavenger far more than he is the king of this jungle because he knows that there are certain individuals he cannot touch.

In his arrogance and pride, he sees himself as a lion, but when he happens to run across the right kind of Christian, he is reminded of just how impotent he is, and that infuriates him to no end. There is nothing more humiliating for the devil than to be presented with his own impotence.

Certain individuals are beyond the devil's ability to devour. There are certain individuals he downright fears because of what they have tapped into. The devil fears no man because of who the man is, but he fears certain men because of who their Lord is, and the authority they know how to wield in His name.

A powerless Christian is no threat to the devil. We can have Hillsong on repeat until the stars fall from the heavens and still the worst the devil might do is bob his head to the rhythm. There may be an emotional reaction to a Hillsong ballad, but there is no underlying power. It doesn't make the devil flee. It does not compel spirits to come out of those who are oppressed, and it does not strike fear in the heart of our adversary.

Sure, it's nice to listen to, but in the grand scheme of things, it's just nice to listen to.

The devil fears power. Not the power of human will, not the power of the human physique, but the power of God, as manifest through the gifting of the Holy Spirit. Why do you think one of his most ardent campaigns is against the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit? Do you think it’s a coincidence? Do you believe it to be happenstance?

Understand, that though the devil may roam about he is nevertheless purposeful in what he does. We have to find the balance between giving the enemy too much credit, and too little credit, and focus more on his intent rather than his ability or inability to carry out his plans and machinations.

The fact that he wants your destruction ought to be enough of a motivator to get you to discover what he fears, then do your utmost to acquire it to the fullest. If I have a mortal enemy and discover the one thing that can do him harm, the one thing he is terrified of, I will not be dissuaded by naysayers or those who insist it's no longer on the market. I would scour the earth, do my utmost, commit myself to acquire that which can deter my enemy because I want to live.

For the life of me, I can't understand Christians that give up so quickly on seeking out the gifts of the Holy Spirit, knowing that it is the empowering of the Holy Spirit that terrifies the enemy so.

“So and so said it’s no longer attainable, or available.”

“Well, good enough for me. Guess we’d just better play dead and hope the devil passes us by.”

But what about what Jesus said? What about what Paul Said? What about what Peter said? Do we discount all the writings of scripture because one man, two men, ten men, or a whole gaggle of men determined that the Son of God along with his disciples lied?

Let’s be honest. That's what it boils down to. To deny the continued work of the Holy Spirit, to deny the gifting and power of the Holy Spirit is to call Jesus, Peter, and Paul liars. Let's not beat around the bush. We've had enough of that in Christendom for far too long.

To hear some of these guys talk you’d think you were listening to a schizophrenic with multiple personalities.

"Nothing is impossible to our God! Well, except this one thing, this critical thing, this thing He promised would be with us and in us until the end of time! But other than that, nothing is impossible!"

Either you fear the devil, or the devil fears you. There are no other options. Either you believe there is power in the blood of Christ, there is power in His name, and His servants are imbued with power from on high to do battle against the darkness, or you believe yourself to be as powerless as the godless, no more than prey, quarry, game to be taken and disposed of at the devil’s pleasure.

Conqueror, or conquered! These are your only two choices. Whether or not you are in possession of what the devil fears will determine which you will be in the end. 

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.  

You Are What You Eat!

I know exactly how I got fat. It’s not a mystery, it’s not a glandular problem, it’s not aliens abducting me in the middle of the night and force-feeding me chocolate cake and ice cream. I’d always had a predisposition to weight gain, and traveling nine months out of the year while eating truck stop cuisine didn’t help matters much. Couple that with spending most days in a car, in a hotel, or going out to the nearest greasy spoon after evening service, and incrementally, almost imperceptibly the waistline started expanding.

You don’t put on fifty pounds in a week. If we did, I think the alarm bells would start going off much clearer. What happens, is that you put on fifty pounds over the course of three, four years, and it’s such a slow, snail’s pace sort of progress, that it gives most people cover when they refuse to acknowledge what is happening.

No, I was never one of the people that blamed his wife for shrinking his shirts. I knew what was happening. It wasn’t as though a consistent diet of pizza by the slice and gas station corn dogs would make me into an enviable physical specimen.

I kept telling myself that sometimes we make bad choices for the right reasons, because, let’s face it, those 800 miles from Colorado to Wisconsin weren’t going to drive themselves, and actually taking forty-five minutes to sit down and have something resembling a meal was a luxury one could not afford. We were doing the Lord’s work, and that required sacrifice, don’t you know.

Far too often, we have the same attitude toward what we consume spiritually, as I did toward what I consumed physically. We try our hardest to excuse our bad behavior. We come up with justifications, we twist ourselves into pretzels, because we just don't want to admit to ourselves that we are lazy, distracted, and unwilling to take the extra time to make sure that what we are receiving and allowing to provide nourishment to our spiritual man is actually beneficial to our spiritual man.

We can all spot the glaring deceptions when we hear them, like universalism, or Jesus having lied about the reality of hell, at least most of us can. What is harder to pick apart if we are unwilling to take the time and iron it out Biblically, are the small things, the seemingly imperceptible things, that become cumulative over time, and we wake up fifty pounds heavier without realizing it.

Every journey begins with one single, solitary step, and so does deception. As is the case in the physical, spiritual junk food tastes good. That’s just the plain fact of it. Sure, there are aberrations like my daughter who prefers broccoli over chocolate, but for the most part, junk food tastes good, and that’s why it’s a billion-dollar industry.

When someone finally realizes that they’ve been feeding their spiritual man junk food for the longest time, they have to reacquaint themselves with nutritious spiritual food, and that will take some doing. Their spiritual palate has been formed to enjoy unhealthy things, so the first time they get a big helping of truth, it may taste bitter, or wholly unpleasant.

It’s like having a nice big salad, after not having seen anything green on your plate for a year. It’s a shock to the system. Your taste receptors begin to rebel, you feel as though you've been sentenced to hard time in a gulag, and that's when you have to make the conscious choice to keep chewing, and swallowing, and chewing some more. 

For many a soul, the truth is so uncomfortable to stomach once they've given themselves over to deception, that they just shut themselves off to the idea that the truth exists, and is easily accessible. 

The reason truth is so uncomfortable for those living in deception is the same reason diets are so difficult for those who need to drop some serious pounds; they both require permanent change, both in attitude and in actions.

You make the conscious choice to choose wisely every time you are confronted with a choice!

Instead of reaching for ‘Prosperity Explosion 2019, Why YOUR Financial Breakthrough Is Only One Seed Away!', you try to work your way through the first chapter of Romans and understand the depth of it, perhaps for the very first time.

Instead of embracing the notion that no one goes to hell, ever, no matter the depth of their rebellion, you start going through the Word and discovering those uncomfortable passages about men being cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Everything hinges on choice. As I said, I know how I got fat. All I have to do to stop getting fatter is to stop doing the things I know made me fat in the first place.

Most people know how they came to be deceived. All they have to do to stop being fooled is to stop believing the men who deceived them in the first place. In both cases, easier said than done. In both cases, existentially necessary. 

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.