Job CLXXXVIII

 I recently had a protracted conversation with a brother about Christ’s warning to His followers to take heed that they not be deceived, and whether the current state of the contemporary church is due to catastrophic failure to heed His admonition on this matter. It was not a lighthearted or easy conversation to have because the first words out of my mouth were that what the church is currently experiencing isn’t deception but willful, open rebellion against the truth of the gospel. Deception and willfully disregarding what you know to be the truth of Scripture are two different things. Unless it’s self-deception, to be deceived requires a third party and an ignorance of the truth. 

When you know what the Bible says on a given topic, but you choose to disregard it, or do the opposite of what it says, it isn’t that you were deceived; you chose to reject the truth. What is happening isn’t deception due to the absence of the knowledge of truth, but a conscious choice to reject it and embrace the lie because they delight in wickedness.

If a preacher tasked with rightly dividing the word of truth delivers messages contrary to it, in opposition to it, and denouncing it, then by their actions, they unmask their true heart and are confirmed to be servants of their father, the devil. It’s not an oopsie. It’s not as though they didn’t see a pair of dark socks in a load of white laundry. It is a concerted, ongoing, deliberate effort to abandon truth, preach lies, and deceive those of the household of faith.

Unless someone can honestly say that the thousands of people sitting in the pews listening to someone preaching heresy never once cracked open their Bibles, never once read Scripture, never once happened upon the countless verses that contradict the words of the lauded man behind the crystal pulpit, then they’re willful participants in being led astray, and not innocent victims of deception.

Back in the day, shortly after communism fell and tourists began flocking to Romania because it was cheap and its geography had broad appeal, attracting both those who prefer the mountains and those who enjoy the sea, three-card monte became all the rage. For those with quick hands and no moral core, it was the sort of ‘business’ that required no upfront investment save for a cardboard box and a deck of cards. When something requires no barrier to entry and the upside potential has no ceiling, it will attract the worst society has to offer, and Romania was no exception.

The premise of the hustle is simple enough: you have three cards, usually two jacks and a queen, or two kings and a queen, facing down, and after the individual shows you the placement, he shuffles them around, and if you can pick the queen you win whatever money you were willing to bet that your eye was quicker than their hand.

You can honestly say that the first few people were deceived because they’d never happened upon anything of the sort; it seemed easy enough, and they were already counting their winnings before they walked away with empty pockets. After the first few, when those who had been tricked, deceived, and separated from their hard-earned money stuck around pleading with passersby not to participate because it was a trick, it was no longer deception but willful ignorance.

The promise of easy money was too tempting, and one after the other, people would sidle up and lose time and again, always justifying the loss as something other than what it was, an in-your-face, unapologetic con.

The same is true for those who having read, and having heard that you must walk circumspectly, be sober-minded, humble yourself, pick up your cross, crucify the old man, and deny your flesh, happen upon a peddler of sloppy grace, cheap salvation, and perpetual fire insurance. Even though they know the Bible says different, even though they’ve heard sermons on righteousness and holiness unto the Lord, the idea that they can have the best of both worlds and still be welcomed to the marriage supper of the Lamb is just too tempting a proposition to discount outright.

They talk themselves into believing that they can do what no one else has: have a divided heart, ride the fence, dip their toe into the mire without getting any mud on their feet, and still be in right standing with God. The promise of everything the world has to offer, and everything God has to offer, without there ever being a conflict of interest, is just too good to pass up, and that’s when the devil sees his opening.

I’ve known men who have gone down the slippery slope of just a little here and a little there that ended up being husks of their former selves, so far removed from truth, so resentful toward Scripture, so acrimonious toward God, that their new mission in life is to prove God wrong about something, anything, thinking if they can get one through the net they open up the possibility of Him being wrong about other things as well.

Just as no one who gets entangled with a con man dealing three-card monte ever walks away a winner, no man who sets himself against God and resists the truth will come out ahead. They may prosper for a season, their congregation may balloon, and money will flow like it was nothing more than printed paper, but in the end, it is destined to crumble for nothing that is built upon a lie, nothing that sustains itself with deception and deceit can hope to survive in the long run.

The cracks are already starting to show. Angry congregants are already beginning to shout down their supposed shepherds for not seeing the thousand-fold return in their bank account, for not seeing their breakthrough, or the infusion of prosperity promised to them if they helped pay off the ministry jet, or buy their bishop the watch that cost more than their entire house. It hasn’t even gotten bad yet, at least not if we believe what the Bible says about the last days.

How do you think these shepherds will fare when true famine sweeps across the land, and the just will live by faith? You spent decades selling people on a pipe dream, on fanciful tales, and vain imaginings, while you could have been preparing them for what the Word says is to come. Now that they have neither prosperity nor faith, now that the Father they claim as theirs, the Father you insisted will take them as they are for the low price of a hand wave, will not acknowledge them as His own because He never knew them, how will you be able to stand under those bright lights and stare them in the face?

Truth is lasting. It has permanence, and while others flounder in their rebellion and self-deception, grasping at straws, looking at yet another date upon which they will be disappointed and their hopes crushed, those who stand firm on the foundation of Scripture will weather the storms, look up, and see their redemption drawing near.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXXVII

 Generally, men react in one of two ways when confronted with wisdom beyond their capacity to process and understand. The first way is to pause, consider, and acknowledge that their understanding is limited, and that, within that limited knowledge, they are unable to grasp the full breadth of what is being said. They’re humble enough to admit that they don’t know everything, and there is still wisdom to be learned. So they ask follow-up questions, clarification, and detail, as was the case with Nicodemus when he came to Jesus by night.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He was no fool, nor one for whom wisdom was out of reach, yet the first words that Jesus spoke to him left him scratching his head, all his amassed wisdom no more than a ruin, because he could not wrap his mind around the idea of being born again.

The other way is to condescend, demean, brush off, and patronize, slinging insults as was the case with Festus upon hearing the wisdom of Paul.

Rather than admit to their own ignorance, those who think highly of themselves would rather react with scorn and ridicule because it keeps the image they have of themselves intact, even if it’s empty words and make-believe.

Hundreds of years after Job’s interaction with Bildad, Paul faced a similar retort after passionately detailing his conversion and the sacrifice, resurrection, and Lordship of Christ Jesus, before King Agrippa. A man named Festus spoke up and loudly said, “Paul, you are beside yourself! Much learning is driving you mad!”

What sparked Festus’s outburst wasn’t the concern that too much learning was driving Paul mad, but that what Paul was saying could not be found in the tomes he, too, had studied. This was wisdom and knowledge on another level, and it made Festus feel small and inferior. He had to save face. He was, after all, in the presence of the king, and it seemed as though Paul was making headway. That could not stand. If anyone were to be seen as a man of wisdom, it would be him, and if you can’t surpass another on merit and skill, you drag them down to your level because it’s the only option afforded to you.

It was the same spirit, just in a different context. There are only so many ways you can call a man a fool, a madman, someone who’s had a break from reality and is now in the throes of madness. Neither Job nor Paul was mad. Neither had lost their mind nor had they broken from reality. Their understanding of the spiritual, the supernatural, or God’s faithfulness in a given situation was simply beyond the level of those they addressed. As a universal defense mechanism, the spiritually inferior parties went on the attack, insisting that what they were saying could not be so because they did not concur or see it in a similar light.

Thankfully, in our day and age, we have a standard for the truth, a standard for godly wisdom, and a standard for knowledge, and though those who are perishing might still see it as foolishness, it is nothing less than the power of God. It’s not access to truth that transforms a man; it is the knowledge thereof, coupled with action, wherein once we know the truth, we are accountable to live it, submit to it, and follow its precepts.

The Bible is the only thing in existence whose widespread availability does not diminish its inherent value. Usually, the rarer something is, the more valuable it becomes, and the more of something you can find at your local five-and-dime, the less value it holds. While you can get a pair of decent sneakers for the price of a not-so-gourmet meal at Olive Garden, people are paying five and six figures for rare pairs of Jordans.

The same cannot be said for the Word of God. Whether, as is the case in certain parts of the world, it’s rare to the point that people will write entire books of the Bible by hand, as individual pages get passed through the community so that they can be copied, or you find one in the nightstand of every motel you spend the night in, the value inherent in Scripture remains constant, undiminished, and priceless.

Men who understood the true worth of the Bible sacrificed livelihoods, freedom, and even their very lives for its sake, making it their mission in life to get as many Bibles into the hands of as many hungry souls as they could. Some spent years in prison, others were not so fortunate and succumbed to the torture and privation they underwent for the high crime of being branded a Bible smuggler.

They were tireless in their endeavor, and no sacrifice was too big. It wasn’t because they treated the gospel as any other book, but because they understood that there was no other book in the world that came close to equaling the power it held, and the wisdom it contained.

To this day, men and women in certain parts of the world are laying down their lives to spread the message of the cross to any who would hear, as well as those who risk a life sentence or worse just to possess a copy of the book that many in the West treat so flippantly.  

That we would spend more time arguing endlessly over things that hold no eternal weight rather than studying the Word of God isn’t just telling but tragic. That we would ignore, dismiss, or disregard the Word for which so many have suffered in lieu of feelings, opinions, fanciful tales, fables, and vain imaginings is simply criminal.

This generation has much to answer for, for it was given much, far more than any other generation that came before it, yet they did nothing with all that they’ve been given. We have encyclopedic amounts of wisdom at our fingertips, everything from the Bible itself to Greek and Hebrew translations, to a glut of commentaries for every book of the Bible. Yet, we’re more confused, lukewarm, undecided, duplicitous, hypocritical, and situational about the faith than any generation to come before us.

We are reticent to obey, unwilling to sacrifice, and have come to believe that humbling ourselves at the foot of the cross is somehow beneath us. Yet, we’re always first in line when it comes to claiming blessings, prosperity, and insisting that we will be caught up first, before any untoward event could impress upon us the need to endure and overcome. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXXVI

 Job 18:1-4, “Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said: ‘How long till you put an end to words? Gain understanding, and afterward we will speak. Why are we counted as beasts, and regarded as stupid in your sight? You who tear yourself in anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you? Or shall the rock be removed from its place?’”

Few things in life are more off-putting than being gaslit, and knowing it’s the case. Although not all may know the proper name for it, it’s likely that all of us have experienced it at one time or another. Gaslighting, for those unaware of the term, is a psychological manipulation technique in which a person tries to convince someone that their reality is untrue. It’s a more mature and refined version of don’t believe your lying eyes, or the ever-popular are you going to believe what you know to be true, or what I’m telling you is the truth? It’s a control mechanism, often used by those in power, with influence, and even by friends or family to gain control not only of the narrative but also of their intended target.

People who employ it will often play the victim, even though they are the victimizer, and insist that they have been wronged, misheard, and misinterpreted to the point that their victim becomes apologetic about being unjustly condemned for something they didn’t do. It’s no less than emotional abuse, and it is highly effective, especially with those who find themselves at a low point, are suffering, or have suffered some kind of recent loss.

Even after all three of Job’s friends had taken turns treating him like a human piñata, taking swings they hoped would connect and finally make the man burst open, Bildad takes up the charge anew and accuses Job of being a bully.

Come on now, buddy. I know we said all kinds of horrible things about you, accused you of being in sin so deplorable as to deserve being covered in oozing boils, sitting in the ashes of what was once your fiefdom, if not an outright entrepreneurial empire, but that doesn’t give you the right to hurt our feelings. I mean, you’re being kind of mean; isn’t he, guys? It’s almost like we aren’t even friends. Would a friend really call another friend stupid? That’s what you’re inferring, isn’t it? That we’re stupid? That we don’t know what we’re talking about?

I mean, if anyone’s stupid in this situation. It’s three against one, and even your wife agrees with us, so maybe be a bit humble and gain some understanding. Afterward, we will speak. How does that sound? Maybe use this time to repent for hurting our feelings, that would be swell. Can you believe this guy? You’ve got some gull buddy. All we’re trying to do is help you here. We’ve decided that the best course of action is for you to give up hope and admit to your sin. Why can’t you see that’s the best thing for you?

It’s rare to find another chapter in the entirety of scripture that is as grim, dark, absent of hope, arrogant, and self-assured as Bildad the Shuhite’s second attempt at convincing Job that he is in the wrong for clinging to hope and not confessing to sins he had not committed. If anyone was on the fence about his likability, this second diatribe should settle the matter once and for all.

You may think you’re special, but I’m here to tell you, you’re not! What? Do you now expect the earth to be forsaken for you? Are you so deluded as to believe the rules don’t apply to you? It’s always been a matter of course, going as far back as our fathers’ fathers. The wicked is punished for his wickedness; ergo, if you are being punished, it is because you committed wickedness. Let’s put an end to this charade. Just admit what you did, and we can all get on with our lives, and you can lie here in the dust until you breathe your last, which is nothing less than you deserve.

If ever Bildad had shown the inclination to reason, or extend grace, if ever he’d desired to hear Job out and accept his friend’s words at face value, all that was now gone. He begins his monologue with insults, and just gets worse from there.

Before we can have any meaningful dialogue, you have to come to your senses. You’re talking like a crazy person, and someone has to call you out on it. Gain understanding first, then, perhaps, if you’re willing to acknowledge the brilliance of our arguments and admit wrongdoing, we can have a starting point.

How someone reacts to being challenged is telling in ways mere words could never convey. Job had suffered through three diatribes, always able to state his case, pleading with God, pleading with his friends, and insisting upon his innocence, but once he called them miserable comforters, once he challenged their accusations, all pretense of friendship or kindness went the way of the dodo bird.

It wasn’t that Bildad was interested in Job’s side of the story, or open to an explanation different than what he had concluded. He wanted confirmation bias and wouldn’t let something as silly as facts stand in the way.

You can hear someone without hearing them. Sure enough, the words coming from their lips make a sound in a language you are familiar with; those words construct sentences, but as far as really hearing them, listening, and allowing their words to have an impact on a preconception or a particular worldview, not so much.

I can’t say I’m proud of it, but there are times when I’m in my office, clicking away, so focused on the task at hand that the wife will have been talking to me from the kitchen for a good minute before the ever dreaded “are you hearing me?” breaks through and I acknowledge her asking her to repeat what she’d said. Thankfully, she does, even if it’s with the requisite eye roll, but we’ve been married for twenty-five years, so we know each other well enough by now to extend grace in such matters. The difference between Job’s friends and me is that my not hearing my wife and acknowledging her is not intentional on my part. Their unwillingness of Job’s friends to listen to him and hear what he’d said had intentionality behind it.               

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXXV

 Being a son or daughter of God, not just in name but in deed, is the highest attainable ideal in the universe. It matters not how high you’ve climbed, how much you’ve squirreled away, how many people know your name or recognize your face, if you are not redeemed, blood-bought, and reconciled to God, it’s all for naught.

Tragically, there are many within Christendom today who insist that you should retake the baggage you laid at the foot of the cross, stack those chips on your shoulders until you have enough to build a cottage, and insist upon being seen, known, and perceived as something more, different, or other than a child of the Almighty. Whether it’s the lineage of one’s bloodline, their pedigree, upbringing, social standing, perceived influence, or self-assigned title, to focus on any of these things rather than being a saved and sanctified believer, knowing Jesus as your Lord and King, is both folly and vanity.

We are constantly bombarded with thoughts, feelings, emotions, feedback, criticisms, for the singular purpose of distracting us from walking humbly with our Lord and being about the work of the Kingdom. I’ve had numerous heart-to-heart conversations with pastors, evangelists, and elders, whose main complaint was that they felt unappreciated or that the work they were doing felt little more than spinning their wheels.

Those feelings then translated into their excitement and willingness to walk in the calling to which they’d been called, being dampened to the point that some were just going through the motions, not really engaged, or running their race in such a way as to obtain the prize.

In such instances, my question was always the same: are you doing what you’re doing for accolades or to be appreciated, or because it’s what God called you to do? Are you being obedient for the sake of obedience, or for something other than faithful service to God?

Throughout my years of ministry, I’ve been called aloof more times than I can count, because those passing judgment didn’t understand that I do what I do because God called me to do it, and for no other reason. It’s not to build something, grow something, or with the vested interest of seeing my name up in lights. It’s not about me, it never has been, and it never will be. Once we make it about ourselves, once we see ourselves as the commodity, as something indispensable, as something the Kingdom of God itself can’t do without, we’re operating from pride rather than obedience, and that’s a recipe for disaster.

Are you doing what God called you to do to the best of your ability? If so, then it matters not what people say, how they perceive you, or how they malign you. Don’t let it get under your skin. Don’t let the noise deter you from walking in obedience because that’s what the enemy wants.

The devil doesn’t care what tool he uses to detour you from the narrow path. If he can use pride and the praise of men, he will do so. If he can use temptation and greed, he will use those as well. If he can use discouragement and men’s barbed words, he will likewise have no qualms about employing them. It’s not about the means; it’s about the ends. Whatever means he can use that are at his disposal, he will do so without pity because his goal is all-consuming.

The devil has one purpose, and he is single-minded in it. He doesn’t have a job, he doesn’t have a mortgage, he doesn’t have hobbies, and he’s not looking for a significant other. The only thing on his mind all day, every day, is your destruction. He hates all of God’s creation, but not equally so. Those who pose no threat to him and his plans, those who have not learned to put on the whole armor of God and stand, those who are still playing games and have not fully submitted themselves to God, those who do not resist him and force him to flee, are still loathed and hated, but not nearly as much as those who know what it is to walk in the authority of the Almighty.

What started as an attempt to prove God wrong regarding Job’s uprightness turned into something more personal to the devil because his nature is to be petty and vindictive and attempt to hurt those clinging to hope just for the sake of doing it.

By this point, Satan likely knew Job would be a tougher nut to crack than he had previously thought, even allowing for the possibility that it wasn’t going to happen, but that did not deter him from continuing his onslaught. All he really needed was a crack, a moment of doubt, some intrusive thought that he could exploit and use to further his objective.

Depending on where we place our trust, suffering and trials can either shatter us or ennoble us. They can either break our will or exalt our faith upon seeing the plan of God at work, and feeling His comforting hand upon us as we journey through the valley. Job’s faith and full assurance were in the God he served. His faith rested in the sovereignty of the One who spoke the universe into being, and he saw no other way but to continue clinging to Him.

Job did not hope that his Redeemer lived. He knew that his Redeemer lived. The certainty of the presence of God gives us strength when we are weak and hope when we are at our lowest. With God on our side, all things are possible. Without Him, even the simplest of plans and most probable outcomes fall short and fall apart because all things are within His purview and control. Job knew this and refused to budge. He would not surrender his hope, no matter how much his friends insisted he should.

To abandon one’s hope is a choice. To cling to one’s hope is likewise a choice, and between the two, holding strong to the faith we have in God is by far the better one.        

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXXIV

Our titles, positions, possessions, or fame do not justify us. Nothing the world values, as far as prominence is concerned, moves the needle when it comes to whether God sees us as a son or daughter He knows as one of His own, or someone He’s never known. We are justified by faith through Christ’s sacrifice, and His shed blood washes us and makes us clean in the sight of God.

How others see us, view us, or perceive us is irrelevant. How others judge us, whether for good or ill, should not affect our countenance in the least, because the opinions of men are wholly irrelevant, as long as God sees us as redeemed and reconciled to Him.

Many are quick to label themselves as good people because they think of themselves as such for some act of kindness they performed, a charity they gave to, or for adopting a cat from the shelter that one time. They assess themselves and decide on their goodness in a vacuum, using anecdotal acts of kindness and self-serving judgment to reach this conclusion. Even if they were to compare themselves to others, it’s never someone they deem more virtuous or noble than themselves, but always someone so far removed from humanity, kindness, empathy, or goodness that the contrast makes them out to be a saint of the highest order.

Because they deem it foolishness, they never come to understand that the Word is the standard by which all will be judged, and though in the eyes of men, be they few or many, they are deemed as virtuous and good, if held to the standard of the gospel, they fall short every time. We do not stand in our own righteousness, but are made righteous through the salvific work of Christ.  

The words of Job’s friends had gotten under his skin, and he didn’t like it. He’d been affected by something he knew full well ought not to have affected him. He realized it wasn’t productive, uplifting, or positive for his spiritual man to dwell on their words, when their words were akin to a battering ram, bruising his heart, insisting that not only should he abandon hope, but that any hope he still retained was illusory.

We all know that one person in our life who can’t say an encouraging word to save their life. Job happened to know three, and his wife didn’t do much to lift his spirits either. Whatever the situation may be, there’s always that one individual whom you love dearly but know in your heart that if you happen to run into them on a day when everything is falling apart, they’ll end up putting the final nail in the coffin. It’s not even that they’re intentionally cruel. Whether it’s their inability to read the room or sense the level of turmoil coming off you in waves, they always seem to say the wrong thing at the worst possible time, then continue the conversation as though they didn’t just metaphorically gut-punch you.

Somehow, they always tend to lean toward the letter of the law rather than the spirit thereof, and like Job’s friends, interpret what they see through the prism of intellect without allowing for the possibility that something different and heretofore unseen is taking place that would upend their conclusions in a heartbeat. Yes, more often than not, causality is a viable theory, as is the consequence of choice, but there are instances, as was the case with Job, where something bigger is at work, something that the human mind cannot properly rationalize.

You got the diabetes because all you eat day in and day out are candies, cookies, Twinkies, and cheesecakes. But I never touch the stuff. My diet consists of chicken breast and rice, you retort. Nope, that can’t be, and the fact that you have it proves that you aren’t being truthful!

Your suffering is a direct result of your sin! This was the conclusion all three of Job’s friends had come to, even though he insisted time and again that his prayer was pure, his hands were clean, and he had not done anything to displease the Lord. If you hadn’t sinned, you wouldn’t be suffering, and because you’re suffering, you’ve obviously sinned. Circular logic? Sure, but we can’t let that get in the way of winning an argument, can we?

My youngest has a notebook she brings home from school, and every morning, I have to sign off on whether she read for fifteen minutes the previous day as part of her curriculum. Serendipitously, she loves to read, so she’s always doing it for more than the required fifteen minutes. Sometimes I’ll grab the notebook from her backpack and sign it even before she asks. The other morning, I’d failed to sign her notebook, and after telling her as much, she went rummaging through her backpack to get me to sign it. After going through a couple of the pockets and coming up short, she came into the office with a sour look on her face and said, “Daddy, where’s my notebook?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, “I didn’t touch it.”

“Well, it’s not in my backpack, so you must have taken it.”

“Look again,” I said, “I promise I didn’t take it, so it must be where you last had it.”

With an incredulous look on her face as though it were some grand conspiracy, she went back to her backpack, and wouldn’t you know it, the notebook was on the bottom of her book bag, under piles of papers, books, and other sundries she carries as though she were training for some lifting competition. She’d made an assumption based on previous experiences, and it turned out to be wrong. It’s the same thing Job’s friends did, only on a much grander scale.   

Believing that he had sinned and not trusting their friend’s word wasn’t the worst of it. It was insisting that he relinquish the hope he clung to in the God he served that was the icing on the cake. They prescribed a remedy to a situation they’d concluded must be the truth as it lies, when it would have been the worst possible thing Job could have done.       

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXXIII

 Shortly after we were married and my wife and I moved to America, I got a job shoveling wet concrete for an outfit that paved driveways. It was honest work for an honest wage, and contrary to the notion that preachers and evangelists not only deserve but should expect to be nosediving into pools of greenbacks like Scrooge McDuck, we weren’t really flush with cash at the time. I needed the work, the pay was decent, and I wasn’t about to sell my soul and start preaching prosperity for a few extra shekels in my pocket. It’s not that I wouldn’t have if it were biblical, but it’s not, so I didn’t, still don’t, and never will. Why sell people on false hope when true hope exists? Why sell people on material possessions when you can point the way to the virtues, attributes, and gifts exclusively reserved for the children of God?

The first few days were brutal. Even with the work gloves, by the time the day was done, my hands were blistered and raw, and it was all I could do to unclench my fingers. The pain in my hands and fingers was so pronounced that I barely noticed the back spasms. Quitting was not an option. I had a wife to provide for, and rent to pay, so every morning I took to shoveling concrete with gusto.  

After the first week, I realized the pain was beginning to ebb. The blisters had calloused over, my skin was rougher, and my body was getting used to holding a shovel for eight hours per day. The temporary pain had made me stronger. Before my skin could toughen up, it had to first break down and bring on a feeling of discomfort and heretofore unexperienced pain. One cannot become physically stronger without going through the process of putting stress on a muscle, working it to failure, and breaking down the tissue so that when it rebuilds, it does so improved.

The same is true of our spiritual man. Trials are not purposeless. Hardships are not purposeless. Tribulations are not purposeless. They all serve to put stress on the spiritual man so that he might grow stronger through them. Hindsight is a powerful teacher when it comes to gauging spiritual progress. I know without equivocation that had I endured some of the more recent trials of life twenty or thirty years ago, it would have taken me much longer to recover, and I would have likely suffered far more scars and bruises to boot.

It’s not hyperbole or positive thinking that led Job to conclude that he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger; it was a conclusion he reached based on observation and personal experience. He knew that his own strength had long since failed him. He couldn’t lie to himself about the condition he was in or pretend as though he wasn’t scratching at his oozing boils with a potsherd. He realized he was stronger than he ought to be, even in his current condition, and based his declaration that indeed, he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger, on what he knew to be an irrefutable truth.

Job 17:10-16, “But please, come back again, all of you, for I shall not find one wise man among you. My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart. They change the night into day; ‘The light is near,’ they say, in the face of darkness. If I wait for the grave as my house, if I make my bed in the darkness, if I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘You are my mother and my sister,’ where then is my hope? As for my hope, who can see it? Will they go down to the gates of Sheol? Shall we have rest together in the dust?”

Groupthink and the madness of the crowd are not new inventions. It started long before the crowd cried for Barabbas rather than Jesus, and even before the people demanded that Aaron build them an idol to worship. The only difference is the size of the crowd. In our modern era, with the benefits of connectivity, you can get a sea of people agreeing on the most asinine of things, because the wider the net you cast, the more fish you're liable to catch.

I’ve even watched interviews during protests where individuals in the crowd had no idea what they were protesting on that day, simply being drawn by the group of screaming people and joining in because they seemed so passionate about it. Who’d have thought so many people were so passionate about the government providing free wood to woodchucks, because though they may not be human, free wood should be a human right. It’s the deforestation that caused a decrease in available wood, after all, and that led to the woodchuck’s inability to find the one thing that gives them purpose.

The same people protesting for the right to murder babies are all aflutter about saving the Sprague’s pipit, even if it means leaving millions of people without potable water. Sacrifices must be made! The Sprague’s pipit must survive; babies, not so much.

Job had weighed the words of his friends and found that they parroted each other. He understood they fed off each other’s ideas, drawing the same conclusion, and in an almost acerbic manner said, Take a breath, collect your thoughts, and come back with new arguments. Not in so many words, but that was the undertone. Even so, I shall not find one wise man among you because you are insisting that I surrender the one thing that keeps me alive, present, and engaged, which is hope.

I have nothing left but that one thing, and you, my friends, are insisting that I give up on it, abandon it, simply to validate your preconceptions about my life up until this point. Granted, Job’s friends had said some of the things Job himself had stated, but the intent with which they spoke the words was to tear down rather than build up, and to dispirit rather than encourage.

I find it telling that the only one of those who appear in the book of Job to have addressed God directly, to have prayed repeatedly, and cried out to the heavens consistently, was Job. Neither his three friends, his wife, nor the yet-to-be-revealed individuals in this book bothered to cry out to God or to pray for wisdom, understanding, or clarity in this situation. Only Job had, because unlike his friends, he understood that only He had the answers. God knew the truth of it. Everyone else was just guessing.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXXII

 The devil can’t force you to give up. He can’t make you capitulate. His power is limited, and you have the choice to remain faithful and endure to the end, or be crushed under the weight of trials and tribulations. Our faith is tested not because God’s desire is for us to lose faith, but because His desire is for us to grow from faith to faith, ever more anchored in His promises, His word, and His sovereignty. If we are shattered, it’s only because He wants to rebuild us, stronger, bolder, and more resilient than we once were.

Just as it would be an odd thing to see an adult riding a bicycle with training wheels still attached, it ought to be an oddity to see someone who claims to have been in the faith for decades not having grown or matured. Faith is meant to grow. It is meant to stretch. It is intended to increase with each passing day rather than remain static. At some point, God takes off the training wheels, then he takes away the handlebars, and all we have to do is pedal. Just pedal. He knows the way, He’ll make a way, He will keep us upright and moving forward, as long as we keep pedaling. Our duty is to pick up our crosses and follow after Him, not be dragged behind Him against our will.  

But what if I want to take another route? What if I want to make a pit stop? What if I’d planned on going in another direction than the one God is taking me in? Those are the inflection points in one’s life that the enemy tries to exploit every time they arise. It is then that we, as individuals, must choose to go our way or His way. To blaze our own trail, or trust that God will lead us to our destination even though it may not be via the route we’d envisioned.

We can’t blame God for where we end up if we didn’t follow where He led. We can’t grow bitter in our hearts when everything unravels if, all the while, we were kicking against the goads and allowing our hearts and feelings to dictate our course rather than trusting God to guide us.

The sooner we come to terms with the reality that we control nothing, He controls everything, and our duty is to trust and have faith in Him, no matter what our senses may infer, the sooner we will know true joy and peace that surpasses understanding. When we resist the plan of God, believing we know of a better path, the way becomes cumbersome and difficult; a perpetual struggle to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down again. When we submit to His will, however, even the grimmest of times and the darkest of days will be deemed a momentary, light affliction in hindsight.

Job 17:9, “Yet the righteous will hold to his way, and he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger.”

Job’s conclusion wasn’t based on theory but on lived experience. He wasn’t guessing at what the righteous would do; he had been hammered, battered, bruised, deflated, his entire life upended, yet he held to his way.

There’s a saying that those who can’t do teach. There are, however, instances when those who have done feel obligated to teach so that when others encounter similar circumstances, they can learn from the experiences of others who traversed similar valleys.

Job knew that if God had seen him as his friends did, if he was the man his friends believed him to be, he would have given up long ago. If truly he had committed wickedness deserving of worse than he was enduring, then he would not have placed his trust in God to the point he had, nor would he have held to his integrity after his own wife not so subtly suggested that he should curse God and die.

Even when his name becomes a byword, when his eyes grow dim because of sorrow and all his members are like shadows, even when he finds no comfort in the words of those closest to him, the righteous will hold to his way. It’s not because he’s stubborn or unwilling to face reality, but because he knows the God he serves. Not tangentially or superficially, not via a surrogate or a third party, but personally, intimately, and deeply.

True knowledge of God and being in fellowship with Him chases away fear, doubt, and uncertainty about tomorrow, and gives us peace and assurance in the present. It’s when our focus is on things rather than on God that we get rattled by external pressure or unexpected situations.

The righteous holds to his way, not because the way is easy, not because it is absent hardships, trials, and tribulations, but because he knows that his strength does not come from himself but rather the God he serves. They understand the sovereignty of the God they serve, having full faith and assurance that He can do all things. There are no limitations or restrictions as to what God can do. He spoke the universe into being without breaking a sweat, yet we find ourselves contemplating whether He can remedy a situation we find ourselves in. He can. It is a certainty. The only question is, do we trust Him enough to submit to His will and concede that if He wills it, there is resolution in His time, in His way, for His purpose.

2 Corinthians 7:10, “For godly sorrow produces repentance, leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

Even in his current state, Job understood the marked difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. While one has the benefit of producing repentance leading to salvation, wherein even in the midst of trials, those with clean hands will grow from strength to strength, the other produces death.

Sorrow is not exclusive to the world. The righteous, however, having godly sorrow, produce fruit, grow stronger, learn trust, and increase their faith, drawing ever closer to God, clinging to Him, and becoming dependent upon Him all the more.       

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXXI

 Job 17:1-8, “My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, the grave is ready for me. Are not mockers with me? And does not my eye dwell on their provocation? Now put down a pledge for me with Yourself. Who is he who will shake hands with me? For you have hidden their heart from understanding; therefore You will not exalt them. He who speaks flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children will fail. But He has made me a byword of the people, and I have become one in whose face men spit. My eye has also grown dim because of sorrow, and all my members are like shadows. Upright men are astonished at this, and the innocent stirs himself up against the hypocrite.”

Contrary to what my eyes see, counter to what my senses perceive, put down a pledge for me with Yourself, and I will be at peace. This was Job’s attitude. Even though he confessed that his spirit was broken, his days extinguished, and felt as though the grave was ready for him, Job still clung to the sovereignty, omniscience, and omnipotence of the God he worshiped, and now prayed to. This was his heart cry, and it was not directed toward men, but to the God he’d served all his days. Fair-weather friends are useless to me, but You I trust.

This is the essence of faith. This is what Job exhibited even at his lowest point. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around me; it doesn’t matter what I am currently enduring. If you put down a pledge for me with Yourself, I will persevere, I will persist, I will endure, because I know you will keep your word.

Job only needed one character witness, and it was God. He admitted that his eye dwelt on the provocations of his friends, and that their mockery was negatively impacting him, but even so, he clung to faith because it was the only thing left for him to cling to. It’s what he knew, what he’d done through the ups and downs of life, and faith had never once failed him.

Had he suffered loss? Most assuredly, perhaps more than most in the history of mankind, but his faith remained intact due to the faithfulness of the God he served. Job understood that God was reliable, unlike his friends, acquaintances, and those who once broke bread with him. It is to God that Job made his plea, understanding that only God had the power and authority to intervene and affect his current lot.

Job saw in part, and understood in part, just as Paul would later echo in his first letter to the Corinthians. Although Job had been kept from seeing the whole picture, he had enough wisdom to realize that God had hidden his friends’ hearts from understanding. He realized that his friends were not judging him based on the evidence, but contrary to the evidence he had presented regarding his innocence.

There is only One in the entire universe that can dispense true justice, and that is God. We can’t count on justice from anyone else, including friends, or family, never mind those of the world, because none of them possesses complete knowledge the way God does. We’ve all seen instances where the justice system itself was so perverted as to condemn the innocent and let the guilty go free, but not so with God.

Since the Word tells us that one of His attributes is omniscience, which is defined as all-knowing, when we stand before God, we are fully assured that He knows every detail of our situation to the smallest, most minute element, to the extent that nothing we can say will surprise Him, and nothing is hidden from His eye.

Rather than repent before God when they know they’ve fallen short, some tend to try to explain why they did so to He who knows all things. Well, Lord, you see, you have to understand the situation. I have to make you privy to the circumstances. If you’d been there, you’d get it. He was there. He is everywhere. Omnipresence has its advantages, and one of those advantages is that not one second of your life goes unobserved, and not one choice you make is absent context to God.

It’s the reason Job asked God to put down a pledge for him with Himself. If I’m going to hope for true justice, then I will appeal to the only One who can dispense it. If I am to be judged, I prefer to be judged by the righteous judge of the universe, and not my friends, or those who once knew me in my glory days.

Job knew he had become a cautionary tale for those around him. He had now become a byword among the people, being used as a negative example of what can happen to someone who displeases God or falls out of favor with Him. If you don’t live right, you’ll end up like Job. If you don’t bring alms and burnt offerings, you’ll suffer Job’s fate. Little did they know he had done all those things and more; he had been a virtuous, blameless, and upright man, alone among his generation to have been singled out by God Himself.

It’s one thing to have never been someone of prominence, someone who had garnered respect, someone who others looked up to, and quite another to have been all those things, to have been the greatest of all the people of the East, and fall so far as to have beggars pity you, and men of no acclaim spit in your face.

If all one has ever known is poverty and lack, being poor and destitute won’t affect them nearly as much as it will someone who, having once enjoyed prominence and wealth, is brought low to the point of a handful of ashes and a potsherd being his only possession. For those without the robust, all-encompassing relationship Job had with God, the loss of their possessions is enough to make them crumble and lose heart. It’s the reason Satan started his campaign to break Job with the removal of the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the servants. He understood human nature well enough to conclude that most of the time, that would have been enough to break someone. When it didn’t work, he went on to decimate Job’s family, then destroy his body, and when that didn’t work, he used his wife and his friends to demoralize him and encourage him to curse God and die.

The enemy of your soul does not give up after one try, two tries, or five tries. He ratchets up the pressure, hoping that at some point you forget who you are, who God is, and what you have become in Him and through Him.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXX

 There will always be a difference in attitude between those who stand before God in their own righteousness and those who stand before Him in His righteousness. Between those who acknowledge their frailty and say, as Isaiah did, “Woe is me, for I am undone!” when standing in the presence of God, and those who feel as though they are on equal footing with Him.

Those who stand before God in their own righteousness boast of their works, their accomplishments, their rigid, ritualistic, performative genuflections, as though these things ought to impress God to no end. Although they may not come out and say it, they feel entitled to more in this life because of what they deem as impeccable service, not realizing that their righteousness is as filthy rags before a holy God.

Those who’ve come to believe the sun rises and sets with them, that they are indispensable to the Kingdom and the work thereof, also share the commonality of thinking themselves spiritually superior to everyone else, looking down on those who acknowledge their frailty, their need for forgiveness, and their dependence on the grace of God. Like the Pharisee in Christ’s parable, they believe they saved themselves from themselves by themselves, and well, that just makes them better than everyone else, doesn’t it?

If you or I could do it on our own, there would have been no need for Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. If there were no need for Jesus to die, then God allowing it to proceed even when, weeping tears of blood, Jesus asked that the cup pass from Him, would have been needlessly cruel and unnecessary. It’s because there was no other way for man to be reconciled to the Father that the Son had to endure being scourged, mocked and ridiculed, nailed to a cross, pierced in His side with a spear, and die between two thieves.

It’s difficult to contextualize what Jesus endured, given that we’ll whine about a hangnail nowadays, but a modicum of research into the practices of that time is enough to humble us into the dust and bring on tears of gratitude for the love He exhibited for mankind. Yes, Jesus died for you and me, but there was much He had to endure until that fateful moment arrived when the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth quaked, and the Son of God expired.

Jesus suffered. He suffered to such extremes that, try as we might, we cannot fathom. Do you know what it was to be scourged during Roman times? It wasn’t just getting lashed with a leather whip or a sturdy stick. The lashes were administered with a flagellum, which was a whip embedded with shards of bone, metal, or glass, its only purpose being to rip flesh from bone.

I had a handful of intimate encounters with the switch growing up, and although it smarted, and there were often welts, it wasn’t the end of the world. Whenever my brothers and I misbehaved, my grandmother would make us go into the orchard, pick the tool of our demise, and bring it back to her so she could administer the discipline.

The secret was getting the right kind of switch. If it was too dry and brittle, it would break on impact, and she’d just have us get another one. If it was too green, it stung far worse than it should, so the secret was getting a stick that wasn’t long enough to get a nice swing, and just the right level of dry where it wouldn’t break, but wouldn’t sting as much either. It’s incredible the things you figure out as a child when you know you’re about to get a whipping. Jesus didn’t get to pick the tool that would be used for His lashes. It was standard. It was a flagellum, and by the time the Roman soldiers were done, He was likely unrecognizable.

Even with all that Job endured, his suffering is eclipsed by what Jesus suffered, not because He was guilty of anything, but because he willingly paid the debt we owed. The just suffered for the unjust that He might bring us to God, yet men keep telling themselves that they can attain what Jesus died for mankind to accomplish by their own self-righteous hubris.     

Luke 18:9-14, “Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

I guess that’s the part of the Bible we don’t concern ourselves with. We’ll just add it to the rest of the mounting pile of Scripture passages we ignore because they’re uncomfortable and challenge our preconceptions. Just because we ignore them, it doesn’t mean they cease to exist.

The sad reality is that the Pharisee paled in comparison to the antics of some within Christendom nowadays. They no longer itemize their accomplishments to God in prayer alone; they post them on social media for likes, inflating any small act of kindness to the point that one would think they solved world hunger.

If they water fasted for half a day, by the time they talk about it, it’s a three-day dry fast. If they prayed over their meal four days out of seven the past week, they’re suddenly prayer warriors.

God sees not only the prayer, the fast, the charity, or the kindness, but also the intent with which these things were performed. If the intent was to seem more magnanimous than others rather than to feed the hungry, God knows. If the purpose was to elevate one’s spiritual status in the eyes of others rather than the sincere desire to spend time with God, He knows. God knew Job. Not only his faithfulness, commitment, and integrity, but also the intent of his heart while doing these things.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXIX

 The fleeting nature of life, possessions, friends, acquaintances, positions, and the world as a whole is a topic most refuse to delve into or even acknowledge because of what it all implies. There are currently people who, rather than coming to terms with their mortality and the temporal nature of our existence here on earth, endeavor to find ways and means by which they can attain immortality, optimize their decaying bodies, and cling to this mortal coil with all the tenacity they can muster. These are not unintelligent people if we were to evaluate their intelligence in comparison to their contemporaries, but even intelligent people are no more than mere fools when they refuse to see the futility of their lives absent God.

You can have it all. Wealth, health, prominence, and fame, and absent God, it’s all for naught. It’s an illusion, perhaps even a self-imposed delusion, because try as you might to tell yourself you’re not getting older, the gray hairs and wrinkly skin say otherwise, and though you may insist that you’re as resilient, strong, and overflowing with energy as you were in your twenties, when the fifties come calling, you’ll realize you’re not.

Life is an ever-present tradeoff. When we’re young, most of us have strength, energy, and the vigor of youth, but lack wisdom. As we grow older, the strength, the energy, and the vigor begin to ebb, but in exchange, we grow in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, and focus on the things that truly matter in life, the things that give it meaning and purpose beyond the momentary excitement of acquiring a new toy to add to our ever-expanding collection. That countless souls are growing older but not wiser should be a wake-up call, one that does not bode well for future generations, but we like to lie to ourselves and insist it will all work out, and eventually wisdom will make itself known even though we malign it, demean it, ignore it, reject it, and leave it bloodied in the street.

It is not given to us to know at what age Job attained wisdom, not the wisdom of this world, of a particular trade or ability to see value in what others didn’t, but true and lasting wisdom that echoes through eternity. However, given his integrity, spiritual maturity, and faithfulness, it was likely decades before his hour of testing came. Job had known for some time that the only thing that matters in one’s life, the one thing that is indispensable and you can’t do without, is God.

Possessions come and go, jobs come and go, even friends come and go, but if the one constant in your life is the presence of God, if the one constant is fellowship with Him, then though you may lose everything, you’ve lost nothing.

Whether Abraham, Jacob, Joshua, Moses, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, or Paul, every man who stood out as a hero of the faith, a fearless defender of truth, assigned the appropriate value to the presence of God in their lives. It’s not about your ministry, it’s not about your calling, it’s not about your natural abilities, it’s not even about your vision; it’s about knowing God, walking with Him, feeling He is present, and establishing true intimacy with Him.

Everything in one’s life, especially when it comes to ministry, must flow from the reality that God is preeminent and supreme over one’s existence in its entirety. If our focus shifts from God to something else, no matter how noble the endeavor, no matter how spiritual the pursuit, no matter how much it bears witness with your spirit or how many people cheer you on, it will not end well because your purpose has become something other than His presence in our lives.

It’s the same problem those who will claim to have prophesied in His name, cast out demons in His name, and done many wonders in His name will run into when they stand before Him on that day of days. They may have very well done those things, but they never knew Him; they never knew the Christ; they never had fellowship with Him; and He was never Lord of their lives.

It’s a heady thing to consider that men who exhibited more power than most mega-church pastors do today will be sent away because their purpose was the work, the ministry, or the authority rather than the excellence of the knowledge of Christ.

Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

Job never attempted to highlight his attributes and insist he deserved better because of what he’d done. He didn’t itemize how many hungry he’d fed, how many poor he’d helped, how much time he’d spent in prayer, or how many burnt offerings he’d brought before God. He didn’t offer his relationship with God as proof of his innocence. None of our accomplishments are proof positive that we are in good standing with God; only God declaring that we are makes it so. Only being born again and washed in the blood of the Lamb transforms us, and there exists no substitute. You can’t work your way into heaven, give your way into heaven, preach your way into heaven, or earn your way into heaven.

Men who at one time prophesied, cast out demons, and did many wonders in the name of Jesus will be turned away because, though they may have done these things, Jesus was not on the throne of their hearts; they were not born again, and practiced lawlessness throughout.

Job knew he had no ulterior motives when it came to loving God. There was no violence in his hands, and his prayers were pure. Few today in the higher echelons of Churchianity can say the same.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXVIII

 It is doubtless that by this point, Job had searched his heart countless times to see where he could have displeased the Lord at some point along his journey. It’s worth pondering that, even in his current state, his one constant was to make sure his hands were clean and that he had not sinned. God was the singular priority in Job’s life, and though he could bear the loss of all things, this one thing he could not bear. God is sufficient. He is more than enough, and the sooner we understand this valuable lesson, the easier our journey toward eternity will be.

It wasn’t because he thought that would extend his life; he had already come to terms with his mortality, acknowledging that on his eyelids was the shadow of death, but that he would meet his maker knowing he had run his race faithfully, not having been a hypocrite, or a man who hid his sin so well that those around him hadn’t noticed. Job understood that had he sinned, though men may not have noticed, God would have. It is a comfort and a joy to know that when you stand before God, it will not be in shame or reproach, but as one who walked uprightly, having acknowledged God’s omniscience and lived accordingly.

Job knew himself to be innocent of the accusations leveled against him. Due to his character and uprightness, it would not have been something he wouldn’t have considered and examined himself over time and time again. Each time, up until this point, he’d concluded there was no violence in his hands, and his prayers were pure.

Job wasn’t saying these things just to say them; he was saying them because they were true. His knowledge of God was deep enough and broad enough that he understood there was no point in trying to put on airs or insist upon his innocence when God knew otherwise. If he’d known of sin in his life, he would have confessed to it. If he knew himself to have been guilty of something, he would have repented of it.

Job was no longer trying to convince his friends of anything. They’d made up their minds, they’d chosen to scorn rather than comfort him, and the only place he could appeal to was heaven. God knows the truth of it, Job said, my witness is in heaven and my evidence is on high. It doesn’t matter if you believe me, it doesn’t matter if you think I’m lying, it doesn’t matter that you think I'm deserving of worse than I’m already enduring, God knows the truth of it!

Job was living out what John would later encourage those of the way to pursue in his first epistle.

1 John 3:18-21, “My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.”

You know if you love someone. You don’t have to guess at it or wonder. Some people say it and don’t mean it, others say it and mean it, and others still never say it, but their actions bear out the reality that they love in deed and in truth.

Because so few take the time to think things through, and so many are addicted to the instant dopamine hit of hearing the words, they settle for being told they are loved without ever wondering why there is no action behind it. There is a fundamental difference between telling someone you love them and making the commitment to spend the rest of your life with them. Words are easy to manufacture; actions require active planning, commitment, and execution.

In modern-day parlance, if you’ve been dating for five years and he hasn’t put a ring on it, even though he may say he loves you, his actions suggest otherwise. True love isn’t about enjoying the highs; everyone enjoys a nice vacation, some sand between their toes, and swaying palm trees off in the distance. True love is about being there for the person when things aren’t so rosy, when they’re hurting, when they’re suffering, when the ever-present smile that used to light up their eyes is rare, and all you can do is put on a brave face, hold their hand, and be present.

Job didn’t say he loved God. Job loved God, both in deed and in truth. In deed, presupposes action; consistent, faithful action, coupled with intimacy and fellowship. In truth, presupposes brutal honesty with oneself, and acknowledging when it’s just words passing your lips, or an actual and present reality of one’s heart, mind, and soul. It’s the difference between saying I love you and showing I love you.

When we know we love God, when we conclude this truth with absolute certainty, we can assure our hearts before Him. What this means is simple enough. When we assure our hearts, we convince and persuade them that it is so. When the cry of my heart is I love you, Lord, and that sinister voice rises up and asks, Do you really, though? I can declare with complete assurance that yes, I do, and there is nothing that can sway me from that certainty.

Job’s love of God was not feigned or situational. He didn’t love God only when He blessed him; he didn’t serve God only when things were going his way. He accepted both good and adversity from the hand of God, understanding that though he might not see it, there was a purpose to it.

Through it all, it’s easy to forget Job was still human. He still hurt, felt loss, wept tears, cried out, prayed to God, appealed to his friends for a bit of compassion, and made peace with his own mortality. Job was not a man afraid of death. His only genuine fear was that God had set Himself against him, because he understood that if that had occurred, all was lost, and his fate was sealed. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXVII

 Awareness of one’s own identity in Christ matters. The full assurance that we are sons and daughters of God keeps us at peace even when chaos reigns all around. It’s those who are not, or who harbor doubt as to whether they are sons and daughters of the Most High, that wither in the face of trials, that lose heart seeing the oncoming storm, and that are ill at ease when the enemy rages.

Therein lies the danger of a superficial faith absent true fellowship, intimacy, and relationship with Christ. Those who have not humbled themselves, repented, picked up their crosses, and followed after Christ are constantly wondering whether they truly are what they claim to be, whether saying a handful of words on a given night is enough to claim sonship, and whether God will answer when they call.

When things are going well, and even when, once in a while, life hands you a lemon, you manage to make lemonade, it’s easy to argue that fence-straddling is a perfectly reasonable option, in which you’re not fully committed to the light nor entirely devoted to the darkness. Never mind that the Word insists that existing between two worlds at odds with each other is impossible. Never mind that Scripture states without equivocation that we cannot serve two masters; we’ve found a workaround, a way of ensuring that the flesh gets what it wants and God gets what we can spare.

All well and good until the music stops, the other shoe drops, and we are faced with a situation that requires divine intervention. It is then that men discover the folly of their way, and that what they’ve told themselves was acceptable in the sight of God turns out not to be.

That Jesus will look upon many who paid Him lip service and conclude He never knew them is not hyperbole or a fear tactic to make us behave. It is a truth that Scripture declares as something sure to occur at some future time when we stand before the great white throne of judgment. The heart of man cannot be Switzerland. It cannot be neutral. It will always belong to one master or the other. Those who have bought into the lie that they can faithfully serve two masters simultaneously have done so because they’ve already chosen which master they will serve, and it is not the God of the Bible.

Had Job not had the relationship with God before his trial commenced, had he not known the goodness of the Lord but only pretended to, he would have given in long ago. There would be no Book of Job, and likely not even a footnote in history as to his existence. Our faith in God, our knowledge of Him, our relationship with Him, and the assurance that He is a good Father carry us through the dark times and difficult seasons of life, while others, without the benefit of knowing God, have long been swept away.

That once we come to the knowledge of truth and are born again, we will nevermore have trials, tribulations, hardships, disappointments, or struggles is a modern-day invention that is an absurd if fanciful lie. It’s not that we will cease to have valleys in life that give us hope and peace; it’s the knowledge that God will be with us every step of the way that buoys our spirits to the point that those observing our hardship question where the strength is coming from.

Job 16:15-22, “I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and laid my head in the dust. My face is flushed from weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; although no violence is in my hands, and my prayer is pure. O earth, do not cover my blood, and let my cry have no resting place! Surely even now my witness is in heaven, and my evidence is on high. My friends scorn me; my eyes pour out tears to God. Oh, that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor! For when a few years are finished, I shall go the way of no return.”

Just because God is silent, it doesn’t mean He isn’t there. Just because He may seem distant, it doesn’t mean He isn’t present. We try to rationalize why something is happening with our own intellect, refusing to acknowledge that our ways are not His ways and our thoughts are not His thoughts, to the point of doubting His presence in our lives when prayer after prayer goes unanswered and when nothing but our groaning breaks the silence.

Although none of us has been where Job was, we’ve likely felt like he felt at times. Although Job meant it literally, we’ve all had seasons where we metaphorically sewed sackcloth over our skin and laid our heads in the dust. Those moments and seasons where everything is dulled, and nothing holds any flavor, where all you can do is fall on your face before God and cry out to Him. I’ve had situations where my face was flushed from weeping, and my eyes poured out tears to God. If that makes me less spiritual in someone’s eyes, so be it. It shouldn’t, though, at least not if we understand that while He makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust, only those who are His sons and daughters will be welcomed into His kingdom. What is this life compared to eternity? What trials may come, we know our destination, our home, is waiting for us. 

I can neither delude myself nor lie to you and say that if you follow Jesus, every day’s a Friday, and you’ll walk around for the rest of your life with a perpetual grin and glazed-over look in your eyes. That is not what the gospel promises, it is not what God promises, and for anyone to insist it is so is to speak contrary to Scripture.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXVI

 So you’re saying all I need to do is trust God in everything, all the time? Sounds a bit reductionist. Don’t you think? If I were trying to sell you a course, perhaps. I couldn’t justify charging fifty bucks for a sentence, could I? Thankfully, I’m not trying to sell you anything. I give what I have as a gift, so I don’t have to needlessly complicate a simple principle in order to make myself seem indispensable.

Even when the way is hard, trust God. Even when there is no obvious path forward, trust God. Even when those around you call you a fool, because they have no eyes of faith by which to see what God has shown you, trust God. Trust, like faith, grows, stretches, and expands with each new iteration of God’s faithfulness in your life. It grows and matures, as is the natural cycle of all living things, but unlike all living things, it need not wither, grow old, and die.

Every day, we trust God more. Every day, we build our faith a little more because there is no limit when it comes to these two virtues. Trust and faith do not plateau; they do not peak, and if you find yourself thinking you have less faith and trust in God today than you did yesterday, it is a symptom of a larger issue that must be identified and dealt with.

Men do not run out of faith and trust; they abandon them. Men do not lose faith and trust like a pair of keys or an old wallet; they forfeit these virtues in an attempt to do what only God can do on their own terms. That there were explicit terms and conditions when it came to following Jesus was general and accepted knowledge by the early church, because not only had the disciples heard it from the lips of Christ Himself, they followed through, and walked by faith, submitting to the process of sanctification, and clearly defining what it means to be saved and born again. They did not shrink back from preaching repentance, regeneration, sanctification, faith in Christ, and the picking up of one’s cross.

If the enemy can convince you to trust in the arm of the flesh, or that there can be a material solution for a spiritual problem, the battle is already leaning heavily in his favor. Satan knows that without the authority of God, without His protection, His presence, and His guidance, the best of us are easy pickings, prey huddling by a campfire waiting to be devoured.    

Job 16:10-14, “They gape at me with their mouth, they strike me reproachfully on the cheek, they gather together against me. God has delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over to the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but He has shattered me; He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces; He has set me up for His target, His archers surround me. He pierces my heart and does not pity; He pours out my gall on the ground. He breaks me with wound upon wound; He runs at me like a warrior.”

Even if Job were to consider placing his hope in friends, family, horses, or chariots, none of these options were available to him. His fortune was gone, his flocks were scattered or stolen, his friends gaped at him with their mouths and verbally struck him reproachfully on his cheek, and to Job it seemed as though God had set Himself against him.

For a man of faith, Job’s biggest fear seemed to have been realized; he concluded that God had delivered him to the ungodly, and turned him over to the hand of the wicked. What hope does a man have when God sets Himself against him? There is nothing he can do, no plans he can hatch up, no paths he can pursue to right his ship because the one who controls the storms is set against him, and just when he gets his head above water, a fresh wave crushes him against the rocks anew.

If not for the grim subject matter, Job could handily have been considered a poet in our day and likely the greatest poet of his day. By his choice of wording, by the interplay between hope and despair, by some of the comparisons he draws in his descriptions, we come to understand that Job was an intelligent man.

Beyond the wisdom that he gained from God and the insights he could glean only from somewhere other than himself, Job was not a simpleton, he wasn’t slow, and he wasn’t dim-witted. By all the things we know of him thus far, and the words he used in response both to his wife, his friends, and in addressing God, we can conclude that he was of above-average intelligence as far as aptitude is concerned.

Why does this matter? It doesn’t, not really, not in the grand scheme of things, but it does take the air out of the blowhards who insist that only the ill-informed, unintelligent, and unmotivated resort to following God. Professing to be wise, they became fools, indeed.

Contrary to the smug, condescending, modern-day dumpster fires that endlessly drone on about how living a life of faithfulness, obedience, and submission is merely a coping mechanism for those who fail at life, knowing God, forming a relationship with Him, and desiring to know more of Him each day is the pinnacle of both intellect and human achievement. Although many a man has tried to leave an indelible mark, strived to be remembered after they were gone by those who forgot them as soon as they returned to the dust of the earth, the handful who walked with God, who lived in obedience to Him, are remembered throughout the generations, never to be forgotten, but more importantly remembered by God Himself.

Does God know you? Do you know Him? Are you His? When you cry out “Abba”, does He address you as son or daughter? These are the things that truly matter in life, no matter the circumstance or situation you may be facing. The world itself is passing away, but he who does the will of God abides forever. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.