The Principles of Prayer XLVII

Jeremiah 29:13, “And you will search for Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

God wants your heart more than He wants your money. Truth be told, your money doesn’t interest God in the least. Men have taken the principle of giving and twisted it to fuel their greed when in reality, there are plenty of people whose heart belongs to mammon, yet give of their money to various causes and concerns as though they were the epitome of righteousness if a set dollar amount translated into righteousness.

For the sake of argument, however, let’s extrapolate the doctrine of the tithe beyond the monetary and apply it to time. Of all the things man has, time is his most precious resource. It’s not something you can purchase more of, barter for, or trade for. My days are numbered as are yours, and there is nothing anyone can do, no amount of money they can spend, and no prominence they can attain that can extend their time by one second beyond what God has established.

It would be foolhardy to think that although God demands a tithe of one’s paycheck, He does not demand a tithe of their time as well. When we give God our time, we give Him the most valuable commodity we possess, and He receives it as a sweet-smelling sacrifice. There is nothing in this life we can substitute for time spent with God, nor anything that will build our faith so robustly as being in His presence consistently.

You cannot consecrate anything unless you yourself are first consecrated. Whether a house, an altar, a length of time, or a place of worship, whatever we desire to consecrate to God must be done so by one who is themselves consecrated to Him.

For many, it is difficult to set aside and consecrate thirty minutes every morning to spend time with God, because they themselves have yet to be consecrated to Him. As such, there is always something more pressing, seemingly more important to do on a given day, than come before Him in prayer and supplication.

When our hearts are right before God, and they belong to Him, the choices we make will reflect it. Because my singular desire is to be in His presence and spend time with Him, every choice I make will flow from that purity of purpose and lead to that desired result.

Consistent prayer is a matter of discipline. Discipline takes root and grows when we are willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of one thing, and that singular thing we desire above all else becomes preeminent.

There are things some people do that I can’t understand, but nevertheless respect. Whether it’s training to run a marathon or enter a bodybuilding competition, the discipline required for such endeavors is monumental and worthy of one’s consideration. You don’t wake up on a given morning and decide to run 26 miles and change. Nor do you wake up one morning and decide to stand before a crowd in posing trunks at less than seven percent body fat. It takes focus, discipline, diligence, and a willingness to embrace pain and privation for extended periods, leading up to that one day when your endurance is at its peak, or your physical form is at its most impressive.

I can’t say I’ve wanted to complete a marathon badly enough to wake up every morning and run a little more each day for months on end to have a shot at finishing twenty-six miles, but I respect those who do. When it comes to prayer, we must possess the same attitude and mindset.

First, you define your goal; second, you identify your purpose, or why you want to achieve said goal. Third, you determine what is required for you to reach it; and fourth, you devote yourself fully to it until you do. If the goal is spiritual growth and maturing, a deeper and more profound understanding of God, and a well-rooted, reciprocal relationship with Him, the only way to achieve these things is through prayer and time spent in His presence. We have the what, we have the how, now the only thing that remains is to implement the how in order to achieve the what.

With discipline, dedication, and determination, we work toward the goal day by day, understanding that progress is incremental but also exponential. It may be difficult to see the change from one day to the next, but as one brick is placed upon another until a wall is formed, six months, or a year from now you will look back on where you started, and where you are, and be in awe at how far you’ve come.

In an age where men promise you’ll lose fifty pounds in three days if you order their plan, losing two pounds per week, week in and week out, doesn’t seem like a lot. Do it consistently, however, and in one year’s time, you will have lost over a hundred pounds, rather than gained another ten, because the three-day master course on losing fifty pounds in three days didn’t work, and you spiraled into worse eating habits than before.

Prayer is the defining element of a healthy, vibrant, and animated spiritual life; without it, we are cut off from communing with and fellowshipping with God. Without a means and a clear line of communication, we can receive neither instruction, direction, correction, encouragement, or warning.

God engages with His children. He communicates with them. He fellowships with them. He comforts them, instructs them, and yes, corrects them, and prayer is the singularly proven means by which we enter into discourse and fellowship with Him. To forfeit prayer is to forfeit communing with the Creator of all that is, and the God who so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son to reconcile mankind unto Himself.

That we would dismiss, diminish, cheapen, or devalue such a grace as this, while still insisting we are His chosen, His elect, His sons and daughters, and ambassadors of the Kingdom to come, goes beyond tragic, and into the realm of disquieting and off-putting.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Finally Together

 

The Principles of Prayer XLVI

 Decisive and purposeful prayer is what makes for effective prayer. We’ve all heard the adage that those who fail to plan, plan to fail, and this is likewise true when it comes to building up our prayer lives and being disciplined regarding the time we allot to this great and transformative endeavor.

Whether you have two or twenty children, and yes, I know families with twenty children, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility, you will have noticed that they all follow the same path from infancy, to the toddler stages and beyond. Every parent gets excited about that first step, that first time when they stand up on wobbly legs. Whether holding onto something or with hands outstretched as though they were walking an invisible high wire, they gingerly and cautiously take that first step.

It’s one of those momentous occasions that most parents want to capture and immortalize. Soon enough, their focus shifts to baby-proofing the house and ensuring that nothing that can shatter is within arm’s reach of a smiling, giggling bundle of joy that's discovering a whole new world to explore.

We all begin our journey to becoming men and women of prayer tentatively, cautiously, hesitantly, crawling, then trying to get comfortable enough with standing before taking our first steps, but the goal is to make progress daily, and grow in both the quantity and quality of time we spend with God, maturing our spiritual man and discovering the wonder that is fellowship with Him.

It’s true that you have to walk before you run, and you have to crawl before you walk; each stage requires time and perseverance. Prayer warriors are not forged overnight, and there is nothing one can do to bypass the growing stages that lead to the confidence only maturity can bring about.

I know God hears me when I pray. I’ve always known it, at least I knew that He could, but what was a theoretical concept I had no practical, personal experience or understanding of, became a reality, as true as anything I could touch or feel over time. It’s one thing to be told that fire burns. It’s another to stick one’s finger into the flame and watch the hair on your knuckles burn and singe.

Thinking God hears you, hoping He hears you, and knowing without equivocation or shadow of doubt that He hears you are three very distinct mindsets. When we reach full maturity, we no longer think or hope, but we know that when we come before God, He is there, and when we pour our hearts out to Him, He hears.

Most people are quick to leave God a negative Yelp review, insisting that He doesn’t engage, He doesn’t hear, or He doesn’t respond, when they never bothered to cry out to Him, entreat Him, or make time for Him. I will phrase the following as delicately as I can: without a consistent life of prayer, your Christian walk is a self-imposed illusion. We can’t say we serve a God to whom we never speak, or with whom we never spend any time. We can’t say we know the depths of divine wisdom itself when we ignore and avoid the source of all wisdom as though being in His presence were an inconvenience.

We prefer entertainment over stillness, the bombastic over the still, small voice, because it stirs the flesh and compels an emotional reaction. Deep down, we know that were we to come before God in prayer, there may be chastening, reproof, or correction, and you get none of those things lip-singing Hillsong, now do you?

Do you desire to be what God wants you to be, or do you desire to remain unchanged while God cosigns every bad decision, foolish choice, and crooked path your feet take you down? If we never come before God with brokenness and sincerity of heart, if we never approach Him in prayer, we can fool ourselves into believing He is validating our poor choices because, well, He never said anything about it, now did He?

We justify spiritual atrophy because we are unwilling to submit and surrender our all to Him, attempting to avoid the pruning process we know is necessary in order for us to live vibrant, obedient, and faithful spiritual lives. It’s like getting a report card and refusing to hand it over to your parents, knowing that there’s something there they may not be very happy with, so you conveniently leave the envelope at the bottom of your backpack for weeks on end. Then, when the parent-teacher conference rolls around and your teacher asks your parents how they feel about your progress or lack thereof, their only answer is a blank stare.

You don’t have to show God your report card. He already knows everything. You can’t avoid correction by not coming before Him in prayer because that will only exacerbate the problem and make the situation worse. Rather than attempting to play games with God, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, come before Him with a repentant heart, and He will forgive and restore.

God knows you’re not perfect. He never said only perfect people can come before Him in prayer. The only prerequisite is a humble and contrite spirit that acknowledges the flaws and imperfections and cries out to Him to create in them a clean heart. That’s the caveat, though: you must desire a clean heart, you must desire true fellowship, you must desire His presence and not just some form of fire insurance.

Psalm 51:10-12, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.”

If that’s the cry of your heart, do not delay in going before Him, spending time with Him, and crying out to Him. No man can avoid God forever. Whether in this life or when we stand before the throne of judgment, we will all give an account. Better that we repent now, better that we submit now, better that we surrender now, that we might hear the glorious words, “well done, good and faithful servant.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XLV

 Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day because it was His custom to do so. You come before God with prayer and supplication because it is something you’ve grown through consistency, not only to gain strength from and interact with God through, but because you likewise understand its importance in your spiritual walk. An individual without a prayer life is spiritually stunted. It isn’t an elective, it’s mandatory.

With the advent of the new school year, my eldest daughter will have the option of electives. It’s a new experience for her, and we’ve been poring over the different classes her school offers, from creative writing to a course on C.S. Lewis to pottery, painting, and a handful of other things she is keen to try her hand at. During our discussion of which two classes would best suit her creativity, she pointed out that it would be a lot more fun if her entire school day could be made up of electives, rather than history or math, because the electives seemed more fun. They may well be more fun, but none are as necessary as the fundamentals of mathematics or understanding history, so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Learning how to weave wicker bowls is all well and good, but if you find yourself working at a coffee shop and can’t make change for a two-dollar cup of coffee from a five-dollar bill, you’ll wish you’d learned to add and subtract when the opportunity presented itself. As is often the case with many things in life, you will never truly understand the benefits of prayer until you come to the point of having to rely on it for your spiritual strength and endurance.

Jesus knew. He understood and, therefore, made it a priority to take time to fellowship with the Father. It’s not as though His schedule was light or there weren’t a thousand other things He could have been doing, but because He knew the value of time spent alone with God, He made it a priority.

Mark 1:35, “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.”

That Jesus took the time to pray should tell us everything we need to know about the importance of prayer. The first thing Jesus did to start His day was to pray. He chose when, He chose where, and He chose the length of time He would spend in prayer, but whether or not He would do it was never in question. Jesus did not see prayer as optional.

A long while before daylight, Jesus went out and departed to a place He knew He wouldn’t be bothered, a solitary place, away from prying eyes or whispering tongues, and there He prayed.

We cannot know exactly how long before daylight Jesus rose, but the wording of Scripture, which insists that it was a long while before, suggests that it wasn’t a handful of minutes. Another relevant truth that jumped out at me while contemplating this verse is that Jesus didn’t attempt to pray while lying abed, but physically went out and departed. Is it mandatory? No, but it's something worth noting, especially for those who are halfway hoping to get back to sleep and use prayer as their version of counting sheep.

There was purposeful intentionality to Christ’s actions, and the purpose was to be alone with God and pray. He didn’t use prayer as a foil or as a means to achieve a different end, but as the purpose of His action.

Depending on one’s constitution, being still can be the most difficult thing you’ll ever have to do. My wife is one of those individuals who runs full throttle from the moment she wakes, to the moment she drags herself wearily to bed. There’s always something to do and a dozen things that haven’t gotten done, and to her, there’s no such thing as warming up the engine or letting it idle. It’s neutral to sixth gear, bypassing the other five, pedal to the metal, and off we go.

After twenty-five years of marriage, I’ve managed to tame her all-go, no-slow attitude if only slightly, and since I’m the opposite of her, wherein I like my routine, especially in the morning, she’s managed to rub off on me as well.

There are the types of people who consider that if they don’t return from a vacation more exhausted than when they left, it was wasted money; then there are others, like me, who just want to sleep in, sit in the shade, and watch the world go by. More often than not, we’ll meet somewhere in the middle, and usually, I don’t get back home more exhausted than when I left, but as exhausted as when I left.

Stillness, being alone with God, tuning out everything and everyone else, and focusing solely on fellowship with Him, is more powerful than most realize today, because they’ve never had the experience. There’s always something to distract, there’s always something to vie for their attention, there’s always some sound, some ring, some ding, some robotic, nasally voice informing you that you’ve got mail, or that you’re of an age where you should really consider a prostate check just to make sure everything’s honky dory.

Sometimes even an unexpected noise somewhere in the house is enough to break our focus and concentration, and rather than consciously continuing to pray and seek God’s face, our mind begins to wander, thinking about what the sound might have been, what it could mean, and although it never happened in the long years you’ve been living in the same home, begin to consider that someone has broken in, not realizing you have nothing worth stealing unless a colorful wool blanket you bought at a sale for twenty bucks is the thing they’re after.

There will always be something that will try to keep you from spending time with God, and it is our duty to make sure that nothing interferes or takes away from the time we set aside to fellowship with Him.

Psalm 27:14, “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XLIV

 Luke 18:1, “Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.”

There is enough evidence within Christendom to confirm that the cessation of prayer leads to all manner of ruin, among them losing heart. Throughout this journey called life, there are bound to be hills and valleys, there is bound to be rough terrain, there are bound to be obstacles and setbacks, and without a consistent and robust prayer life, losing heart becomes an ever-present possibility.

The longer one spends away from the presence of God, the longer they fail to pray, the possible becomes probable, the probable becomes likely, and the likely becomes inevitable. It may take a while to come to the point of depletion, absent joy, peace, or guidance, but once the lines of communication between us and God have been severed, if they are not reconnected, it’s only a matter of time.

Like brushing your teeth or combing your hair, prayer isn’t one of those things you do once and then move on with life, never to revisit it. It’s not the polio vaccine; it’s a daily practice that is beneficial beyond words for your spiritual man. Somehow, we always find the time to do the things we want to do, and find excuses for not doing the things we know we ought to be doing instead.

I didn’t go to the gym today because it felt like rain, and I didn’t want to get wet. The day before, I thought I was coming down with something, and I didn’t want to pass it on to anyone in case I was. The day before that, the tires on my car felt a bit flat, and you know what they say: better safe than sorry when it comes to such things.

How’d you get to the game without a car? The same individual who is making excuses for not going to the gym is asked. Well, I took three buses, hitched a ride, and walked the rest of the way. I wouldn’t have missed that game for the world.

It’s either we do everything we can to facilitate spending time in God’s presence, or we don’t. We either make time for Him or relegate him to household chores, wherein we’ll put it off to tomorrow for so many tomorrows that the dirty dishes in the sink start to grow their own ecosystem.

Well, I’ve always been of the mind that if God wants to say anything to me, He’ll reach out. That’s not the way it works. If you’re waiting for God to reach out without having established a relationship with Him, learned to hear His voice, and practiced the discipline of prayer, you’ll be waiting for a long time.

We always tend to point to the exceptions and not the rules, but they’re exceptions because they are extremely rare, whether the thief on the cross, or Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, wherein he was blinded by the light and heard the voice of the One he was persecuting.

If you’re waiting for God to come and take your hand and say, “Would you like to spend some time with Me?” you’ll be waiting for a long time. It is our duty to knock, then He will open. It is our duty to ask, then He will give. It is our duty to desire more of Him, and He will make Himself available to us. Discipline is our responsibility. It is something we have agency over and something we can nurture and foster in our daily lives.

Luke 4:16, “So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.”

A custom is something you do repetitively and consistently. For something to become a custom to you, you must be disciplined in your actions and purposeful in implementing the schedule you set for yourself. Whether that’s carving out a non-negotiable hour every morning to spend time with God, or the twenty minutes it takes you to drive into work. It’s one thing to have a plan, it’s another to execute it.

Most people have plans to do all manner of things when the time is right. They plan on getting fit, they plan on getting healthy, they plan on cutting out the second helping of pecan pie, but they never get around to implementing their plans. Something always comes up. They’re too tired to go for a walk, they need to finish all the junk food in the cupboard before they clean up their diet, or they justify eating the whole pie in one sitting because wasting food is wrong and sinful, and they can’t bring themselves to be so irresponsible as to throw away a perfectly good pie.

For plans to be effective, they require action. If we’re waiting on the perfect time to start pursuing a life of prayer, where there is no job to go to, no bills to pay, no chores to do, and no distractions to be had, all we’ll be doing is waiting until we’re so close to death as to have family and friends come and say their final goodbyes, and even then the constant visitors will be what’s keeping us from going before God and spending time with Him.

The longer we put off the discipline of prayer, the more excuses we’re bound to come up with to delay it even further. It’s something the flesh fights, and finds ways for us to put off because it knows that the stronger our spiritual man becomes, the weaker its sway and influence over our daily actions will likewise become. The flesh isn’t looking out for your best interest; it’s looking out for its own interest. It doesn’t want to die, it doesn’t want to be mortified, and it doesn’t want to give up the reins. It will fight tooth and nail to retain what little influence it has over us because that is the nature of flesh.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Twenty Five Years Today and Counting!

 

The Principles of Prayer XLIII

 When you need to get from point A to point B, a five-hundred-dollar beater with a full tank of gas will win out over a hundred-thousand-dollar car with an empty gas tank. Sure, the expensive car is nice to look at, but it lacks the functionality of doing what it was intended to do, which is to transport you from where you are to where you want to go. Aesthetics may draw the eye, but dependability is what anyone who’s sat on the side of the road waiting for a tow would prefer when their spiffy new ride decides it needs a nap, and after sounding like a slot machine that just hit the jackpot, warning of catastrophic software failure, it simply dies.

Prayer is dependable because prayer works. There is nothing else we can pursue in terms of spiritual growth that comes close to spending time in prayer and in the presence of God. Are there things that seem more attractive to the eye? Most assuredly, but window dressing won’t get you far, and more often than not, those who insist this new thing is better than the old way of doing things never experienced the power of the old way, nor did they have any interest in doing so.

You can’t really monetize a workshop on prayer the way you can a workshop on the secret mysteries of binding and loosing. If ever anyone tried, it would be a very short workshop. Thank you for coming. Take your seats, and we will begin. Just pray! Be consistent, be intentional, be honest, and be open. That concludes our workshop. By this point, at least half of your attendees would avail themselves of the money-back guarantee if one were offered, and if it wasn’t, the requests would be plentiful.

The reason so few focus on prayer is that it’s such a simple concept that it’s impossible to make merchandise of it. Their purpose isn’t to spiritually grow and mature those in attendance, it’s whether or not they can eek out a profit, and there is no profit in prayer save to the individual who devotes himself to it. It also takes away from the aura of indispensability that some individuals wrap themselves in. You don’t need someone holding your hand when it comes to prayer. You don’t need them to guide you, nor do you require their input when it comes to being alone with God.

When Christ’s disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, the entirety of His instruction can be comfortably read in less than two minutes. It’s a weeklong seminar. What are we supposed to do with the other six days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-eight minutes? The power of prayer resides not in the theory, but in the practice of it.

Lord, teach us to pray. “Get alone with God, and do it.” But there’s got to be more. Some shortcut, some hack, some special incantation that no one else is privy to. “There isn’t. Don’t be a hypocrite about it, don’t pray so others might hear, just find somewhere to be alone and pray.”

Anyone showing up to a course on prayer nowadays would likely leave an unfavorable Yelp review if they showed up and that’s all they got for their $249.99.

From the beginning, God’s intention was to have fellowship with His creation. Ever since Adam and Eve were in the garden and God walked among His creation in the cool of the day, His purpose was not to be an absentee landlord as some proffer, but to commune, have dialogue, and make His presence known.

If you seek Him, you will find Him. If you humble yourself before Him and entreat Him in prayer, He will make His presence known to you. The simplicity of prayer has remained as such because complicating it adds no benefit. The only time men attempt to complicate prayer is when they have something to gain by claiming they can unravel its mystery, thereby projecting an image of authority they do not possess.

It’s like offering someone a six-week immersive course on how to boil an egg. In order to get someone to bite, you must first convince them that they’ve been doing it wrong all their life. Water, fire, egg, and six minutes on the boil? Is that how you’ve been doing it? Well, let me tell you you’ve been doing it all wrong. If you want to do it the right way, of the eight odd billion people roaming the planet, I alone know the right way to boil an egg, and for a small fee, you can know it too.

But why do you charge for the secret of how to boil an egg the right way? Because otherwise, there would be no perceived value to my wisdom; therefore, it’s not about the fifty bucks that made their way into my PayPal account, it’s about you seeing the value of what I have to teach. I’m doing you a favor by charging you money for something so simple and intuitive that a five-year-old can do it blindfolded.

The following may be a letdown for those who are looking for an edge or for a way to game the system, but there is nothing you can do to bypass spending time in the presence of God and still achieve the same results. If that’s what we’re angling for, our hearts aren’t in the right place to begin with, and before we can grow in God, the heart condition must be dealt with first.

Prayer places us in a position where we feel the presence of God. Nothing else does that. If that was the only thing you knew about prayer, it should be enough to make it a priority and the focal point of your spiritual walk. It has been said that prayer is the highest calling, and given that it’s the only way by which we can have intimacy and fellowship with God one-on-one, I tend to agree.

The only cost to you is time. You don’t need a workbook, a spreadsheet, a pie chart, or a starter kit. Make time for God, for it is time well spent, and the greatest investment you can make in your spiritual growth.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

On The Road Again

 I’ve lived out of a suitcase long enough to know that it’s not impossible to do. I did it for a solid ten years when I was traveling as my grandfather’s translator, but evidently, I didn’t have the fashion sense eleven and seven-year-old girls do, nor did I require wardrobe changes midday.

We are on the road, making our way to Romania, where I plan to spend some time with my father. It’s also been a solid three years since I’ve taken a break from daily writing. Until we reach our destination and get settled, my posts will be sporadic and inconsistent. Between the jet lag, long days, short nights, and the odd tantrum that someone dared to wear someone else’s hoodie, there’s only so much I can juggle before it becomes impossible.

I also plan on spending a few days with my girls, away from the rigidity of our daily schedule back home. No wake-up time, no out the door before 7:35, so you can get to school on time, just the family being together.

I thought I’d post this just so you know nothing happened, nothing’s wrong, and we will return to regular posting soon enough. Looking at the world and its machinations, I can’t rightly say how many more opportunities are in store to just breathe in the air, enjoy the sun on your face, smile at the silly jokes your kids make, and make some happy memories. It’s probably a good idea to do it sooner rather than later.

Thank you for your prayers and understanding.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

The Principles of Prayer XLII

 Unless one’s goal in life is to see how many hours they can spend on the couch without getting up, everything we endeavor to excel at requires discipline and focus. Dreaded as these words might be to a generation addicted to TikTok and doom scrolling, they are, nevertheless, necessary practices and prerequisites to building upon one’s prayer life with consistency.

There’s nothing so disheartening as giving it your all and seeing no progress. Although this may be the case if you’re attempting to master juggling, doing cartwheels, or high-wire shenanigans, if you are focused and disciplined when it comes to spending time in prayer, the progress will be evident from day to day. It may be incremental, but looking back a month, six months, or a year from where you started to where you are, the evidence of growth will be undeniable.

What started out as three minutes of discombobulated thoughts spoken in a whisper has now turned into thirty minutes, perhaps an hour of dialogue with God. What was once something you delayed and procrastinated over becomes the one thing you look forward to most upon waking, and that’s because the presence of God becomes more important with each encounter, and the need for Him becomes indispensable.

Those who relish performative prayer, and only do so when others are watching or within earshot, not only dismiss Christ’s instruction on the matter, but will never know the intimacy that being alone with Him produces. Prayer does not require an audience. Prayer is not meant to impress those who happen to hear it. Even within the context of corporate prayer, the purpose isn’t to shout over one another, but as one voice and one heart, worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Matthew 6:5-6, “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

There is a time for corporate prayer. We see this clearly in the book of Acts, wherein the followers of Jesus, along with the disciples, gathered together and prayed earnestly, whether for the promise of the Comforter or for boldness when they found themselves on the threshold of what would be the genesis of persecution for the early church.

Corporate prayer, however, is not a substitute for intimate, one-on-one communion with God, and it was never intended to be. Jesus said as much when instructing His disciples on how to pray, not allowing for the possibility that they wouldn’t have consistent prayer lives as individuals.

Prayer for the spiritual man is as necessary as food is for the physical man. No one ever came up to you and said, if you eat, make sure to get some fiber, protein, and fat as well as complex carbs with your meal. It’s always when you eat, because if you don’t eat, you die.

Jesus didn’t say, “If you pray, do it in this manner.” He said, “When you pray.” He left no doubt as to the importance and the indispensable necessity of prayer in the life of the believer. He did not allow for substitutions or replacements for prayer, or infer that if you didn’t want to pray, you could do something else instead.

Given that it was Christ Himself who gave the instructions on how to pray, the manner in which He prescribed it is the most effective, nourishing, and spiritually developmental way to do it. He would not insist that we pray in a certain manner if a better method existed, because when it comes to His own, He reveals His best. Optimal prayer is one that is done the way Jesus instructed us to do it—you and God and no one else.

The time we spend in the secret place with God, communing with Him and having fellowship with Him, will be evident in the effectiveness of our testimony and the authority we walk in when among others. You can’t be in the presence of God consistently without growing in Him. One translates to the other, and if you’ve wondered why there is so little power and authority in the church nowadays, you have your answer.

The less time one spends alone with God, the less power is evident in their ministry. The less time one communes with Him, the less authority they possess. Tragically, rather than return to the source of power and be filled with His presence, many choose to lean on props and gimmicks, smooth words and bombastic entertainment to take away from their evident impotence when it comes to rightly dividing the Word.

It’s not that they don’t know what works or the power that resides in prayer; it’s that they’re unwilling to make it a priority, thereby relying on parlor tricks to emotionally manipulate those in attendance. As the Pharisees of old were wont to do, whenever someone walking in the authority of God crosses their path, they feel threatened and react instinctively to protect what they deem as their fiefdoms.

By this point it’s no longer about Jesus or the Kingdom but about the individual protecting their slice of the pie, and ensuring that none are the wiser when it comes to the reality that there’s more to be had for the spiritual man than holding up one’s Bible every Sunday morning and repeating a mantra. True power, true authority, and the true gifting of the Holy Spirit terrify the lukewarm and mealy-mouthed, especially those in leadership, because once the reality of what God can do, what He promised He would do through those who walk humbly with Him, is evidenced, it exposes their ineffectiveness for all to see.

Rather than crusade against the enemy and the forces of darkness, far too many are preoccupied with keeping a lid on the truth that God is still the same as He ever was, able to do as He’s always done, and if there is anyone to blame for the flickering light that should be as a bonfire, it’s us.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

The Principles of Prayer XLI

 You’ll know the spirit in which such individuals walk by their reaction to the rejection of their proclamations. A messenger is tasked with delivering a message and has no emotional attachment to whether those to whom they deliver the message receive it or reject it. Someone trying to elevate their status by claiming supernatural experiences or insight, however, will react with bitterness and vitriol when their assertions are confronted with Scripture, because they had a vested interest in being seen as spiritually superior to those he was addressing.

Simply put, a messenger’s only duty is to deliver the message in the same manner it was received. His feelings don’t enter into the equation, nor do his opinions, and once the message is delivered, his duty is done. Being tasked with delivering a message from God isn’t a springboard to prominence, fame, and fortune for the messenger. A faithful servant, a true messenger, does his utmost to remain unseen, unnoticed, and unassuming, because he doesn’t want to take away from the message itself or make himself the focal point rather than the message.

Self-importance is corrosive to the spiritual man and has led many an individual to set aside their duties in exchange for chasing the limelight. The pattern is as clear as day. An individual receives a message they are tasked with delivering, they deliver the message, those to whom they deliver it begin to elevate them, they take a liking to it, and rather than be in an environment of humility, obedience, prayer, and faithfulness, rather than reject the praises of men and shift the focus to Christ and the cross, they start to believe their own hype, and feed off the adulation of their contemporaries. Because they are no longer in the position they once were, having allowed distraction and the pride of life to divert them from their purpose, that once vibrant relationship becomes stale, and their singular focus shifts to their name, reputation, reach, popularity, and legacy.

Micah 6:8, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

No matter how great the calling you’ve been called to, no matter what duty you have been tasked with, no matter the number of people sitting in your pews on any given week, what is required of you is to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. There is no tier system with God. You don’t get to shrug off His commandments, requirements, or standards once you get beyond a certain number of members or once you’ve walked with Him for an allotted time.

God requires that we start out walking humbly with Him and finish our race in the same manner. He requires that we start out doing justly, and loving mercy, and end our race doing the same. The only thing that changes from when we start our race to when we finish it is the depth to which we know God, the lessening of self, and the increase of Him, the maturing of our spiritual man and the withering of the flesh to the point that it is dead and no longer holds any sway.

At the start of any journey, the destination is afar off. We know where we want to get to, but if we’ve never been there, all we have is an idea in our minds, an image we hope will materialize into reality. If you live in the Midwest and you’re traveling to Florida, you expect that as you get closer, cross from Georgia into Florida, you’ll begin to see palm trees, and eventually, if you drive long enough in the right direction, the glorious ocean with its blue waters and lapping surf. If you start seeing snow-capped mountains and evergreens instead, at some point you’ll have to acknowledge you’re driving in the wrong direction and course correct. The closer we get to where we want to be, the clearer it becomes. It crystallizes, and the signs that we’re getting close become evident.

When we begin the race, the finish line is nowhere in sight, but we know that it exists. We persist, we endure, we press on, because we know the purpose for which we are exerting ourselves, and though we might not see it in the physical, we have faith that one day the race will have been run to completion, we will have completed our journey, and receive our prize.

At some point, the finish line comes into view, it’s so close we can see it before us, and we get our second wind, all the struggle, the hardship, and the pain having been validated by the absolute knowledge that our faith was not misplaced, we weren’t running in circles, but toward a clear and defined goal.

One inevitably grows in faith the longer they walk with God. They have the experience of having known His presence, felt His love, seen His hand, and witnessed His mighty power, and they transition from the faith that comes by hearing to walking in faith, growing in it, and learning to wield it with each passing day.

Faith is active. It is ever-growing, stretching, reaching, maturing, evolving, and those who find themselves in a state of stagnation must not take it lightly or dismiss it. There is always a root cause for why one’s faith stagnates. Usually, it’s because we’ve become so busy being busy that we’ve neglected the essential practices, such as fasting, prayer, and studying the Word. Spiritual stagnation and spiritual decline are not accidental, nor do they occur absent an underlying cause. If the enemy can keep someone from noticing it, from being alarmed by it, and course-correcting, returning to the consistent practice of the things that once made them grow, they will eventually find themselves back where they started, wondering how they got there.

Consistent prayer works consistently. It works to grow, to strengthen, to enlighten, and to mature the spiritual man in ways nothing else can. It may sound like an oversimplification, but the most profound truths are usually simple ones. Do what works!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

The Principles of Prayer XL

 If the recent spiritual state of the modern-day church has proven anything, it’s that the old path, which it has chosen to discard in lieu of more exciting, newly forged goat tracks, isn’t just superior to anything our contemporary luminaries can come up with, but it still remains the only true path that will lead to our desired destination. Jesus said He is the way, and it remains as true today as it was two thousand years ago when He uttered the words.

My purpose in this writing isn’t to reimagine one’s relationship with God or bring new revelation, but to bring to mind what the Word of God says regarding such indispensable practices as prayer, so that we might endeavor to return to the purity, simplicity, and functionality of true worship.

Nothing I write should be new to anyone who’s been walking with the Lord for any length of time, but a refresher, a reminder, that doing the simple things consistently is what has worked since the early church and beyond.

A life of prayer isn’t bombastic or showy, but the inner strength that consistent prayer produces is so vast and deep that one can tap into it whenever the need arises without having to wonder if it’s available.

We must be able to distinguish between genuine strength and chemically enhanced show muscle. The two are not the same, and when true strength is required, the show muscles will fall short every time. We’ve gone from men and women of God walking in His authority, whom the enemy knows by name and is weary of, to a gaggle of entertainers trying to outdo each other with ever more elaborate stage productions that do nothing to fuel the spiritual man to greater heights of power.

If entertainment is what you’re after, then by all means, seek out the closest guy prancing on stage, throwing his coat at people, and punching cancer patients in the gut. If true strength is what you seek, then there is no alternative to spending time with God, in prayer, consistently and unwaveringly.

By nature of being in fellowship with God, prayer is a transformative experience. Prayer changes you. It transforms you. If you are earnestly carving out time to be in His presence, with every encounter, your spiritual man becomes all the stronger, your perception becomes all the clearer, and your ability to know His voice becomes all the more refined.

The more you press in and beseech God with prayers and supplications, the more time you will want to spend with Him. Back in the day, before the kids, when I still had what some call downtime and actually turned on the television once in a while, there was a commercial for a potato chip making the rounds, and its tagline was that you couldn’t eat just one. Once you pop, you can’t stop, and the way they spun the narrative, it was supposed to be a good thing. It was for their bottom line, but likely not so for anyone’s waistline. The same can be said for the pursuit of a life of prayer, although when it comes to spending time in prayer, there is no downside. Once you begin to seek the face of God in earnest and desire to have fellowship with Him, the desire for more of it will only grow, becoming near to compulsory, having known what it is to feel His presence, and know that He is there.  

As such, qualitative prayer will inevitably stir within us a desire for more quantitative ones. There is no muscle fatigue associated with prayer. If you have no clue what I’m referring to, muscle fatigue is the principle that you can overwork a muscle to the point that the exercise is no longer beneficial but detrimental to one’s development. There’s no such thing as praying too much or too long. There’s no hard stop at thirty minutes or three hours from which point you get diminishing rates of return for the time you put in.

Lamentations 3:22-24, “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I hope in Him!’”

God’s mercies do not run out. He is not Santa Claus, discovering he’s reached the bottom of his goody bag, and there’s nothing left but a pair of socks that look suspiciously similar to the ones your mom bought for your dad on his birthday. They are new every morning, and every time you come before Him, you will know the refreshing that comes with spending time in His presence, a refreshing that does not grow stale or diminish over time, but that is vibrant and full of life with each iteration.

When I first bought it, my cell phone would hold a charge for a couple of days. I don’t use it much to begin with, nor have I increased my screen time, yet a few years in, if I don’t charge it every couple of hours, the battery dies. It is not so when it comes to what we experience in prayer. You don’t feel less of God with each passing day; you feel more of Him. Your strength is not more readily depleted, but grows exponentially as you continue building the bond of faith, trust, obedience, and submission.

Prayer is not a fad. It’s not something that’s here today and gone tomorrow. It is the foundation and support structure for both faith and the relationship we, as His children, must have with God, our Father. While the Scriptures are how He speaks to us corporately, prayer is how we communicate with Him and how He communicates with us on a personal, one-on-one level.

There is one caveat that needs mentioning, given the recent spate of unbiblical revelation by individuals who insist we should trust them over the written Word, and that is that God will never contradict His Word. He is not double-minded, He is not flighty, and He will never give an individual message that contravenes, or stands in stark opposition to Scripture itself.

Yes, there are those who speak when God has not spoken. There are those who go that God has not sent. Whenever you encounter an individual who places themselves above the authority of Scripture, insisting they should be believed over what the Bible says, they are not to be placated, indulged, or humored, but wholly rejected and given a wide berth.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XXXIX

 Psalm 34:8, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!”

My eldest daughter is fully convinced she doesn’t like fruit. Has she ever eaten any? No, that would be logical and make some sort of sense, but without having had a banana, an apple, a pear, or watermelon, she is certain, beyond a shadow of doubt, that she’ll hate it, and it will be the grossest thing she’s ever put in her mouth.

Unbeknownst to her, my wife blends apple puree into the pancake batter, mixes banana into the muffins she bakes, and does her best to ensure that she gets some fruit in her diet.

My youngest, on the other hand, would eat fruit with every meal, and there is no fruit she won’t try at least once to see if she likes it. From kiwi to mango to papaya to the more commonplace apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, and plums, she eats them all with delight, insisting with every opportunity how delicious they are to her sister’s chagrin.

Those who have never tasted cannot know that the Lord is good. You can try to explain it to them, describe what it is to have fellowship with God, be in His presence, and hear His voice, but until such a time as they themselves come before Him in humility with expectation and anticipation, they cannot know the full measure of it.

It’s no accident that those who have started the journey of a life of prayer continue to walk it until their last day. It’s not as though countless people throughout the millennia, on different continents, from diverse backgrounds, speaking different languages, somehow colluded to tell everyone how effective and fruitful prayer was, while they found it underwhelming and easily replaceable with some other pursuit.

As far as conspiracy theories go, that would be a whopper, on the same scale as those who insist that well over half of humanity has been replaced by robots wearing human skin suits, and soon enough, will replace the other half. Given that the tools men use to collude with each other in our modern era did not exist until recently, it’s not just improbable, but impossible that all the men and women who testified to the great and wondrous benefits of prayer somehow secretly got together and wove a false narrative that has been perpetrated for thousands of years.

Even so, men would rather cling to the most improbable hypothetical theories to justify their unwillingness to submit to the Word and follow the examples of those who came before them than humble themselves and put in the time to get to know God. They’ll focus on the one individual who insists prayer doesn’t work because they prayed for a new Porsche and never got it, rather than the thousands of testimonies that highlight the power of prayer and the benefits thereof.

If you taste, you will see that the Lord is good. You cannot form an opinion about something without having experienced it, nor should your opinion be considered as viable or factual. Those who pray consistently and prioritize prayer as needful and necessary know what it is to feel the presence of God, feel the indwelling of His Spirit, and walk in His authority. Those who don’t will insist that it’s cumbersome and mundane, and doesn’t do much of anything, even though they’ve never committed to it as the Word says we ought.

Ephesians 6:14-18, “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked on. And take up the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”

We’re quick to quote the first part of this passage, but less so the latter. Putting on the whole armor of God and praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit are part of the same body of instruction. We cannot do one but fail to do the other, and still expect to be battle-ready, at full strength, and ready to take on the darkness.

If you want to stand, then the set of instructions Paul laid out in his letter to the church at Ephesus is non-negotiable. You wake up every morning and conduct an armor check, ensuring your waist is girded with truth, your breastplate is well-fastened, your feet are shod, your shield is at hand, your helmet is on, your sword is sharp, and then pray. Pray always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end.

It’s not something we do haphazardly, but methodically, almost ritualistically, to the point that it becomes like muscle memory. When a soldier goes to war, he makes sure he has everything he needs. He doesn’t hope it’s there, but he checks, double-checks, and triple-checks that all the necessary tools for warfare are present and accounted for, knowing it can be the difference between life and death.

If you show up to the battle with an empty scabbard, it’s not as though you can borrow a sword from someone else, and the same goes for every article of armor with which you must be clothed.

God won’t send anyone into battle without providing everything they need to stand and be victorious. However, because some are neither sober-minded nor methodical in ensuring that they have the armor they’ve been provided, and that their strength and lines of communication are in good working order, they show up to battle in nothing more than a pair of khakis and a muscle shirt.

It’s not God’s fault that you packed your armor away the day you received it, or that you never once bothered to unsheathe your sword, wield it, and see how it fits in your hand. When we dismiss God’s instruction, we do so at our peril and to our detriment. Whatever newfangled way someone insists they’ve come up with to circumvent the necessary will eventually and inevitably lead to ruin, because the only way to spiritual growth and maturity is clearly outlined in God’s Word.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XXXVIII

 There is no area of one’s spiritual walk that prayer will not improve, enhance, strengthen, bolster, or fuel. Prayer is the superfood of the spiritual man. It brings peace when we are anxious, it gives us strength when we are weak, it provides clarity when we are uncertain, and it nourishes us when we are hungry.

There is nothing that can replace it, nor is there a substitute for it. Likewise, there is no barrier to entry when it comes to developing, nurturing, and growing a life of prayer. You don’t need a diploma or certificate of completion from some seminary to begin your journey of prayer. You don’t need someone’s permission or anyone telling you that you’re ready to earnestly endeavor to know more of God. All that is required is willingness and desire. You must have the willingness to set aside all distractions, the things that eat away at your time, and the desire to grow in God.

If no words come, start with the Lord’s prayer, and work your way from there. If your heart is burdened, unburden yourself before Him. If your heart is joyful, thank Him for His many blessings. If you are feeling weak, ask Him for strength. There are no limitations to what we can share with God, because we are addressing our Father in heaven, whose desire is to reveal more of Himself to us with each passing day.

We cannot underestimate the importance of honesty when we come before God in prayer. He already knows it all. We are an open book before Him, and not only is there no point in putting on airs or pretending we are stronger than what we know ourselves to be, it’s counterproductive.

Whenever we see a prophet or an apostle declare themselves as such in the Bible, God had already cosigned their position and awarded them the requisite authority that they might walk in the power of the office, and not just claim a title for the sake of impressing someone.

Most people claiming to be prophets today aren’t. That’s just the sad reality of it, and the same goes for those insisting that they are apostles. Prophets are rare, so are apostles, because the standard to which God holds such men is high indeed, as is the accountability they have to God for the words they speak in His name.

Jesus had twelve apostles, and these twelve turned the world upside down. Nowadays, you’re bound to find twelve self-titled apostles in a church of thirty, all vying for the honorific and implied status the title grants them, while shying away from living up to the standard explicitly detailed in the Word of God.

The standard of the calling is obligatory. It’s not optional, it’s not something men can circumvent while still claiming to have been chosen to some high office. Because they talk the talk but fail to walk the walk, every day, it seems, new horror stories of men in authority being exposed as depraved wolves and charlatans come to the fore.

The desire of their heart isn’t to walk humbly with their Lord, and obey Him in all things; it’s the acquisition of benefits that comes with the status symbol of being called an apostle or a prophet. We’ve seen time and again that it never ends well, and more tragic still is the collateral damage these individuals perpetrate on the household of faith.

I have only so much empathy, and mine is reserved not for the wolves who know precisely what they were doing, but for the sheep whose faith was shaken, tattered, and shipwrecked because they failed to heed the warnings regarding the dangers of placing their trust in men. Steer clear of men who insist that their title or station affords them special treatment, benefits, or requires your subservience. We are all servants of God, on equal footing, none more special than the other, all accountable to Him. There is no substitute for God. The place of honor is reserved for Him and Him alone, and anyone who insists otherwise is not His servant but a savage wolf intent on the destruction of the flock.    

God knows our imperfections. He knows our weakness, our frailty, our struggle, and our pain. To stand before Him and pretend otherwise is to diminish who He is and insist that He play along with the new trend of self-identifying as something we are clearly not. Be humble enough to understand that His grace is sufficient, and honest enough to ask for help in the areas you know help is needed.

But what will people think of me if they find out sometimes there is disquiet in my heart? What will people say if they discover I sometimes worry about my children’s future? Likely, they’ll think you’re human. Likely, they’ll think you are being sanctified daily like everyone else, and that you’ve not reached your destination, but are running your race faithfully until you reach the finish line.

If they think less of you for showing weariness or admitting that the battle rages on and that there is still an enemy to resist, it’s because they’ve put you on an undeserved pedestal. As long as you haven’t put yourself there, it’s a ‘they’ problem, not a ‘you’ problem. My duty as a servant of God is to live up to His standard, not the standards others try to project onto me.

Yes, I wear shorts in the summer. No, I’m not always in a suit. Yes, you’re likelier to encounter me with a bit of scruff on my face than fresh-shaven. No, I don’t wear wing tips and a necktie when I go into the office. Yes, I have laugh lines. No, I’m not trying to impress anyone.

When you come before God, be you. Not an image you’re trying to project, or what you think God would like to see, but who you are, warts and all, knowing that He can make you clean, He can make you whole, He can give you strength and boldness and courage to be light in this world of darkness, and be seen as different and peculiar without going out of your way to be so. Running into someone wearing a toga and a headdress is just weird. Seeing someone smile when everyone else is frowning, encountering someone who radiates peace while chaos reigns around them, is peculiar. Know the difference, and strive to be the latter rather than the former.     

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.