Job LV

 I overslept. It happens rarely, but it does happen on occasion. I am only human, after all. Blessings.

The presence of God makes the most unbearable of situations bearable. As children of God, our attitude and disposition are not dictated by our circumstances but by His living presence in our hearts. Paul and Silas were in the inner prison, with their feet fastened in stocks, yet they sang hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

It’s not as though they live during a time when three hots and a cot were guaranteed if you happened to be incarcerated. They were likely sitting on the ground, unable to move, muscle aches and sore backs getting worse with each passing minute, with no respite in sight as they had not even been tried yet, but their hearts were full of the peace and joy of the Lord, to the point that they sang hymns to Him.

I’ll be the first to confess that I like my freedom, a warm blanket, and the ability to move my legs at will. By any metric, comparatively speaking, I live a pampered life when considering others who came before me. If I cannot bring myself to sing hymns to God in my comfort, with a roof over my head and heat to keep me warm, how will I be able to justify my apathy and indifferent attitude toward His blessings when standing shoulder to shoulder with those who in the midst of being brutalized had the wherewithal to praise God?

When our focus is on Him, the circumstances we find ourselves in don’t influence us or affect our state of mind. It’s not that we don’t feel pain or loss, privation or hunger. Job himself was unrecognizable to his three friends, but we don’t fixate on our problems; we focus on the One who is the solution to all our problems. God is where hope originates and resides. In Him, we can look at the present and know with certainty and no shadow of turning that He is already into tomorrow, making a way when there seems to be no way.

We serve, obey, and follow because it is our heart’s desire to do so, not because we’re looking for something other than the bond of friendship and intimacy that can only come about by spending time in His presence. If my service to God is conditional on Him blessing me by way of the material, then it is stained and done with ulterior motives. All I do in His name amounts to nothing more than Cain’s sacrifice, something done out of rigidity and tradition rather than true desire.

We serve God because we want to serve Him, not because we have to out of fear of Him taking away our creature comforts or the toys we spend more time with than with Him. 

In the era of the participation trophy, even believers who should know better seem to demand praise from on high for doing the bare minimum as far as spending time with God, praising Him, and declaring that He is worthy.

Neither God’s expectations nor His standard of servanthood have changed from generation to generation. A good and faithful servant was deemed such two thousand years ago as they are today. We go back and forth and round and round as to why we’re not seeing the presence and power of God in our day and age as those who came before us did, and we find ever more inventive ways to remove ourselves from the equation and bypass accountability altogether. Well, you see, the reason we’re not seeing the manifest power of God is because God just doesn’t do that anymore. So much of His power was poured out during the early church that God needed to take a break and recharge His batteries.

We dread to consider the possibility that in order for God to pour out, He must have a vessel to pour into, and He won’t pour into just any vessel. It must be a vessel of honor, once that has been washed and made clean without and within, for only in this way can what has been poured in remain pure and untainted.

Once that consideration comes to the fore, we’d have to deal with the reality that many claiming to be prophets, apostles, and men of spiritual acclaim are only playing at it, never having received what only God could give because the desire of their heart is personal acclaim, popularity, and self-serving mindset that always seems to have the individual as the pinnacle of purpose. Your job is to bring glory to God, not to man. Every time you fail to do so, you’ve failed in your mission.

God’s hand is not short, nor have His promises ceased to be true in our modern age. The problem isn’t with God; it’s never been. The problem lies at the feet of those claiming to be His because words are only words until they are put into action, and the fruit of that action determines whether we are a good tree bearing good fruit or otherwise.

Your spiritual well-being is not a tertiary issue, something to get around to when all else is done. It is primary and paramount, the single most important thing you have to nurture and grow while you walk this earth. Throughout the millennia, men who prioritized God over all else saw His presence and power manifest themselves in their daily lives to the point that they’ve become legendary men of renown, whom we look to as examples of faithfulness and steadfastness. They were no different than you or I. They had responsibilities, jobs, friends, and families, but they prioritized God and their relationship with Him over all else. The desire of their hearts was neither fame nor fortune; it was not to rub elbows with the powerful or influential of their day but to do the work to which they were called consistently and without the thought of whether it would lead to something more consuming their minds. Be satisfied with where God has placed you, doing the work He has called you to do, because it’s the obedience that He rewards and not the scope of the work itself, for it is better to obey the Lord than to offer sacrifices to Him.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.