Nature

 We tend to see our heroes through rose-tinted glasses. The same goes for the heroes of the faith. Whether it’s someone in the Old Testament, someone in the New Testament, or an individual of our modern era who possessed the uncompromising faithfulness to endure persecution and even martyrdom for the sake of Christ, we view them as being superhuman, somehow superior in their nature, and able to accomplish what we dare not dream.

Other than the Christ, who is the exception to the rule, all who came before us were fully human, flesh and bone, with a nature like ours. They were not born with any superior aptitude or ability but simply willing to press in and forfeit their all for the great high calling to which they were called. There are no supermen. There isn’t anyone, nor has there ever been anyone within the household of faith, that walks about as a mild-mannered elder only to run into a phone booth and come out in a super Christian costume a moment later. To the last, they were men, are men, and will be men, but some of them stand out because obedience and steadfastness are never ignored, and God gives grace to the humble, whatever circumstance they may find themselves in.

James 5:17-18, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.”

The same man who prayed, and it did not rain for three years and six months, was so despondent that he prayed that he might die. There’s a lot to unpack in Elijah's life, but for the sake of brevity, I want to focus on only two points.

First, God answered the one prayer but not the other. The same man who prayed for the rain to cease and for the rain to commence and received an answer to his prayers prayed that he might die, yet God did not answer that particular prayer.

One prayer was according to God’s will; the other was not. This is a lesson the modern-day church is learning ever so grudgingly that if we pray for something not within the scope of God’s will, He is not obliged to answer the prayer. Even if we demand it and threaten to hold our breath until He does as we will, God will not do something on our behalf that is contrary to His nature. Can we entreat God? Can we petition Him? Can we stir Him to compassion? Most assuredly, but it’s one thing to beg for mercy and get it, another to ask for something contrary to God’s nature and expect to receive it.

It was not yet Elijah’s time, and though he might have prayed a hundred prayers for his life to cease, God would not have honored them because they were not according to His will and purpose. Elijah still had work to do, even if he felt tired, run-down, alone, and on the run. Instead of taking his life, God sent an angel to encourage him, bring him some food, and reveal to him that he was not alone but that there were others who remained as obedient and faithful as he. Not just a handful or a baker’s dozen, but seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee to Baal.

The second takeaway we must consider, and I would be remiss if I didn’t point it out, is that James points back to the God of Elijah and insists He is the same God. He is the same God who hears His servants, with the same power and ability to do the seemingly impossible. Unchanging means unchanging. What God could do four thousand years ago and two thousand years ago, He can do today, just as readily, just as effortlessly, just as powerfully.

God doesn’t age like men do. He is eternal and everlasting. His power is not diminished with the passing of time, nor is His willingness to show His power and might to those who believe and walk in righteousness. God didn’t just get bored with His creation one day and put it on autopilot. He didn’t find something else to do, and so decided to leave humanity on the back burner.

The saddest thing the church has been duped into believing today is that they serve a distant, disinterested, and impotent God. As to who duped the church, it was a mutually agreed-upon deception between the faux-shepherds who had no desire to live the righteousness required of them and the sheep who agreed to finance their lifestyles as long as no attention was brought to bear on their duplicity and worldly pursuits.

2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”

Whenever someone insists that God can’t do such and such a thing anymore, my one question is, why? On who’s say so, and by who’s authority? If God changes, not if His power does not diminish from age to age, why can’t God do what He did in the past? Why can’t His power be made manifest today as it was yesterday? Why can’t His servants walk in the authority rightly theirs as they did before? Who are you, oh wicked man, to place limitations on a limitless God?

If ever you allow doubt to worm its way into your heart, if ever you look at a situation and believe it to be insurmountable, remember what God has done and that He remains the same. There is nothing our God cannot do. There is no situation that God will look upon and deem impossible. He is God. He is good, and He is able.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.