There are a handful of things my wife is perpetually obsessive about. The girls brushing their teeth before bed is one, cleaning the kitchen before calling it a night is another, and making sure all the doors are locked before we turn out the lights is a third. It’s not that we live in an unsafe neighborhood or have problems with break-ins, but every night, without fail, she’ll check the front door and the garage door to make sure the tumbler is turned and we are secure in our abode. If, perchance, she didn’t check the doors on a given night, she’ll wake up from a dead sleep, go downstairs, and check. Otherwise, she’ll be tossing and turning until sunrise.
We take precautions not because we expect the worst possible
thing to happen but because there is a chance that, at some point, something
might. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. One
small act, such as turning the lock on the door, may prevent having to deal
with someone who stumbled into your house for whatever reason, whether with
malicious intent or because they thought it was their home.
Your home is your castle, and you should feel safe within its
confines. Often, we have the same mindset when it comes to church or
fellowship. We let down our guard and take none of the preventative measures
the Bible instructs us to take because we believe nothing bad could ever happen
as long as we are within the walls of the citadel rather than without. It’s one
of the reasons deception from within the body is so effective and why it takes
so long to ferret out once it begins to spread. We don’t want to believe that
some agent of destruction made it past the front door. We don’t want to
acknowledge that there are those who have crept in with destructive heresies,
even though the Bible warns that such people exist and will only multiply as
the end draws near.
Vigilance is never a waste of time. Some people tend to think
that it is because by being vigilant one avoids certain situations before they
can escalate, and wrongly assume that had they not taken the time to be
vigilant, nothing untoward would have happened anyway.
On one of the rare occasions I got the flu, a friend
suggested that I take high doses of cayenne pepper to mitigate the symptoms. I
did as he insisted but still went through all the travails of coughing,
sneezing, cold sweats, and body aches. When later asked how it had gone, and
after being informed that it had done nothing for me, his response was, imagine
how much worse it would have been if you hadn’t taken the pepper. It’s circular
logic, to be sure, but I could neither confirm nor deny his statement.
It is because the Word commands us to be watchful and sober,
guarding our hearts and being aware of the dangers that we do so, not to wonder
in hindsight whether or not there was any benefit to it.
In my life, I’ve traveled to what have been deemed some of
the most dangerous regions in the world and never had any issues to speak of
because I am constantly aware of my environment and don’t ignore danger signs
when they arise. I’ve traveled to Muslim countries during Ramadan, some of the
most violent cities in South America, and even make regular trips to the south
side of Chicago without ever once being in an altercation. Why? Because I am
situationally aware and understand the dynamics of a place before I set foot in
it.
During my travels, I’ve also encountered naïve and wholly
unaware individuals who could just as easily have had ‘victim’ tattooed on
their forehead and painted a bullseye on their back the moment they stepped off
the plane. Usually, they were tourists who didn’t bother to take into account
that they were in a different country, on a different continent, well outside
the safety of their gated communities, still wearing the Rolex on their wrist
and flashing wads of cash as though it was burning a hole in their pockets.
If you let the wolf in among the sheep, the wolf is going to
eat. The wolf does not look upon sheep as something cute and cuddly but as
food. There are no feelings of warmth or empathy, nor is there an inherent
desire to protect it but to devour it and satiate its hunger. It’s his nature,
and as any predator, he is constantly on the lookout for prey.
Conversely, if you let a deceiver in among the children of
God, he will attempt to deceive because that is likewise his nature. There is
no love in the heart of a deceiver. They have no interest in growing anyone
spiritually but rather making individuals dependent upon them as a person, then
exploiting them for as long as they can for as much as they can. Deceptive
practices in religious communities can range from financial exploitation to
emotional manipulation. Once all the wool has been sheared, and there is
nothing left to take, they’ll leave the sheep where they found them, wounded
and bleeding, or worse still, try to sell them to another who will, in turn,
attempt to exploit them if at all possible.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing might look like a sheep, but its
nature remains that of a wolf. Are they trying to pull you away from Jesus or
bring you closer to Him? Are they sowing life, or are they disseminating a way
that leads unto death? Are they encouraging true and undefiled worship of God,
which involves genuine reverence, humility, and love for God, or insisting on
some formulaic practice that becomes nothing more than muscle memory if
repeated often enough?
We’ve all run across someone, whether at a cash register in a
grocery store or a bank teller, who asks how you are, and you can give them the
most out-of-this-world, improbable answer, and they’ll plaster on a fake smile
and say, that’s nice. It’s not like they heard you or processed the words you
said; their response is automated and instinctual because they do it a hundred
times a day. That’s what worship has become for some people. Because they’ve
never felt true intimacy with God, because they never had that life-altering
moment wherein His presence was so overwhelming that it destroyed the fabric of
their reality, they go through the motions week in and week out, singing along,
clapping along, closing their eyes when everyone else does, and nodding in
unison with the rest.
If being in God's presence and having fellowship with Him is
no more impactful than grabbing a grilled cheese at your favorite gas station,
then what you define as being in God's presence isn’t really so. One true
encounter with Jesus transforms a life utterly. It will turn your entire world
upside down and inside out because the old you must be put to the cross in
order for the new you to thrive. It’s not painless or as easy as saying a
prayer in front of your television; it is life-altering to the utmost.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
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