Job CLXVI

 At any given moment, we are seen from three different angles. There is how others see you, how you see yourself, and how God sees you. The closest approximation to reality, the truest version of you, isn’t how you see yourself or how others perceive you, but how God sees you. It’s the only opinion that matters, the only one that can be trusted, because even one’s own heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

If you are a son or daughter of God, blood-bought and born again, then it matters not what others say about you, or to you for that matter, you know that you are His and He is yours, and though men may revile you, though fair weather friends may abandon you, God will be an ever present help in time of trouble. He will always be the refuge to which you can run and know that you will find peace and comfort.

Although a separate conversation about sonship is warranted, wherein it’s not about what we say with our lips but how we follow through with action, including repentance and brokenness of heart, I’m going off the assumption that those of you who read my writings aren’t superficial believers, or in it for the fire insurance.

Yes, there is a large swath of modern-day Christianity that claims sonship without ever having become a son or daughter of almighty God. There is a large swath of modern-day Christianity whose father is still the devil, yet who want all the benefits of being associated with the one true God. They’ve not been reborn, restored, transformed, cleansed, and made new; they still wallow in the mire and rabidly chase after the things of this world, but they did raise their hand in a service that one time, and that’s about as much effort as they were willing to commit to being grafted into His kingdom.

These are the selfsame people who roll their eyes at the mention of righteousness or repentance, and whenever challenged about the lives they live, their go-to is that God knows their heart. Indeed, He does, and it is deceitful and desperately wicked. Repent, oh foolish man, while you still can, while you still draw breath, because the last breath you draw is the last chance you have of being reconciled to God.

It’s not the duplicitous, hypocritical, or fair-weather believers the devil targets. They pose no danger to him and are no threat to his plans and agenda. It’s those who know who they are in Christ, those who walk in the authority of Scripture, those who hold fast to their faith no matter the storm or the size thereof, that he takes umbrage with. It’s those he seeks to devour.

If he can’t tempt you away from the truth, deceive you away from the truth, or distract you away from the truth, he will use others to try to dispirit you, dishearten you, and make you question the hope you have as an anchor of the soul, which is both sure and steadfast. A little doubt goes a long way, and the devil knows this better than anyone.

Just as the devil can’t make you sin but only tempt you with it, he can’t make you abandon hope. He will facilitate situations and circumstances where that hope is tested, but as long as you cling to the truth, as long as you cling to Jesus, as long as you know your place in God, it will have been a failed attack. Uncomfortable? Most assuredly. Oftentimes painful? Indeed, but God never promised an easy road, just an eternal reward at the end of it.

There’s a reason Paul describes the running of the race as the single-minded pursuit of an athlete doing his utmost to cross the finish line and receive his prize. I can’t say I’ve ever competed in events that were not team efforts, but I’ve known a handful of people who trained for marathons. To the last, their entire focus was on that one day when they would stand shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others, hear the starting pistol, and strive to reach the finish line first.

Their entire lives revolved around diet and training, pushing themselves incrementally until race day, when they would go all out, leaving nothing in reserve. Whether their significant others, friends, families, bosses, or acquaintances understood their need to be single-minded in their pursuit was inconsequential to them. Whether they approved, cheered them on, or insisted that they were wasting their time was likewise irrelevant. They had committed to running a race and knew that if they did not adequately prepare, if they did not train, they would have no chance of finishing it.

The forefathers of the faith, those of the early church, understood that The Way was not a team sport, but an individual endeavor. Yes, we are members of one body, but individual members, responsible for running our individual races, that we may attain the prize.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”

There are no exceptions, exemptions, or deferments. If you want the prize, you must run the race, and do so with the goal and purpose of obtaining it. Understand that you are not competing for a perishable crown, but for an imperishable one, and let that reality guide your actions, reactions, words, and emotions. Be temperate; exercise self-restraint; be consistent in your race because the prize awaits all who commit to the way, and let nothing deter them from it.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.