Job XCIII

 Growing in the knowledge of God necessarily makes you more humble. It is an undeniable reality borne out by true believers throughout time. The knowledge of Christ will not engender pride but rather humility to the utmost. The more you draw closer to Him, your own wretchedness becomes all that much clearer, and as a result, the reality of what Jesus did for us on the cross crystallizes in our hearts and minds. It’s one thing to discover someone paid for a twenty-dollar layaway item at Kmart on your behalf; it’s another to realize that Jesus took your death sentence upon Himself and saved you from eternal torment by His own blood and sacrifice.

Herein lies the majesty of what Jesus did, that while we were yet sinners, He died for us. We stand not in our own righteousness but in His. Because it was not of our own making, we have nothing to boast in, save Him, yet every day, I run across some individual or another who insists that none among the eight billion souls currently living on the earth meet their standards of uprightness. It’s not God’s standard they’re referring to but their own.

If your walk with God does not produce humility but rather a self-righteous, judgmental mindset wherein you sit in judgment of all those around you, insisting that none comes close to achieving your righteousness because they fail to do or practice some extra-biblical thing that you insist has become the salvific issue it isn’t, repent now, while you still have time.

The tendency to jump to conclusions when we don’t have all the relevant information or adopt the mindset of Eliphaz when someone we know is going through a trial is an urge we must resist because it neither comes from God nor does it do anything to bind up the wounds of one who is hurting. There are countless pet doctrines we go to war over within the household of faith, and every day, a new one seems to spring up when the old ones run out of gas or forward momentum.

I’ve been in ministry long enough to see the shifting tides and the new-fangled thing some addle-brained individual came up with, which then spread like wildfire, taking the focus off Jesus and placing it on whether or not we’ve memorized the book of Enoch, whether the giants were fallen angels or aliens, and a glut of other theories with no basis in scripture save for a passing handful of words that some have managed to convert into a cottage industry.

A distraction is still a distraction, even if it is well-meaning. If the enemy can get me to stop focusing on Christ and the cross, if he can get me to look elsewhere save for Jesus, then I will no longer see my wretchedness in light of His glory, nor will I continually consider all that He has done for me. That’s the first step in a spiritual decline that will have me roaming the wilderness looking for something to supplement the relationship and intimacy I had with Him while I remained in Him, and the same enemy that served up the distraction will provide the supplemental shiny new thing, recently unearthed from the papyrus of old that will illuminate me above my contemporaries and give me a heretofore untapped knowledge that will make me spiritually superior to the Apostles of old.

Folly and vanity are what it is, and if you think the enemy is proffering new doctrines because he has your spiritual best interest at heart, you’ve deluded yourself into believing the lie wholesale.

But just Jesus is too boring. We have to give the people something new, less vanilla and more spice, to keep them interested and engaged. If that’s your mindset, then I fear you never knew the real Jesus nor ever took the time to grow a bond with Him. Throughout the ages, countless souls have dedicated themselves to the pursuit of Christ, lost their freedom and even their lives for His name’s sake, yet here we sit, overfed but undernourished, rolling our eyes at the mention of Christ, as though He were some passing fad and not Lord and King of all.

Job and his friends did not have the benefit of Scripture; they did not know the name Christ, nor were they aware of the prophecies that would be spoken of Him thousands of years later, which, in turn, would come to pass centuries after they were delivered. They had a sliver of an understanding of God’s love, no understanding whatsoever of His plan to send His only begotten Son to redeem mankind, yet the little understanding they possessed compelled them to commit their ways unto the Lord and seek Him as the priceless treasure He is.

It’s often been said that if God did not spare Sodom and Gomorrah, He must surely judge this generation for its sin and depravity. Far fewer, however, have insisted that if Job and his friends could know God given the limited resources they had at their disposal concerning Him, then this generation will be without excuse for their ignorance, but that conclusion, even if not so popular, is likewise true.

We are a generation without excuse, both within and without the church, because we’ve squandered the time we were given and gone in search of gurus, mystics, strange fire, and strange doctrines, seemingly anything and everything else except for the risen Savior who gave His life that we might have life. Stop looking for saviors outside of Jesus because there aren’t any. He is the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Him.

This isn’t me belaboring the point. This is me trying to explain why the judgment that is soon to fall upon the house of God is not only justified but sorely needed. When God is done, all that will remain of the false Christs, the false prophets, the false apostles, the false shepherds, the false brethren, and the false church will be dust and ash. It will be very much like what Job experienced with one all-important difference: While Job was being tested by God, these men, institutions, and false deities will be judged by God. They will be under judgment, not under testing, and we will see the marked difference between the two. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.