Job CCCVII

 Job 33:29-33, “Behold, God works all things, twice, in fact, three times with a man, to bring his soul from the Pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of life. Give ear, Job, listen to me; hold your peace and I will speak. If you have anything to say, answer me; speak, for I desire to justify you. If not, listen to me; hold your peace, and I will teach you wisdom.”

In all of his self-serving diatribe and repeated attempts to elevate himself to a position of authority he had no right to appropriate, Elihu did happen upon a nugget of wisdom that cannot be dismissed or readily brushed off. In an admittedly roundabout way, Elihu hit upon the grace and mercy of God, wherein He will endeavor to bring a man’s soul from the Pit not once, but twice, in fact three times as Elihu states, and for some even more than that.

I’ve never been a fan of modern technology, and with the increase in spam calls, or individuals trying to sell me extended warranties for a car that isn’t worth the monthly premium of said warranty, the ringer on my phone is permanently on silent. I don’t like distractions, especially when I’m spending alone time with God, and wouldn’t you know it, that hour or two in the morning that I carve out as both intentional and exclusive to get into the Word and spend time in prayer is when everyone decides to reach out.

I often find three or four missed calls when I finally get around to checking my phone after I’m done with my quiet time, and they're always spam, potential spam, or an unknown caller who picked that specific time to dial my number.

I learned early on that one of the most often used and undeniably effective tools of the enemy is distraction. You commit yourself to a time of prayer, or study, you purpose in your heart that this thirty minutes, an hour, or two hours will be used exclusively for that pursuit, and suddenly everyone wants a piece of you, a moment of your time, something that can’t be put off or delayed, because if the enemy can keep you from spending time with God one day, he will attempt to rinse and repeat the rest of the week, then the month, then the year.

It never ends up being the emergency it was presented as being, and you find yourself having missed that window of being alone with God, because once the day gets started, it never stops. Between rushing the kids to school, packing their lunches, going to work, or the hundred other things we need to do to keep our head above water, the moment has passed.

The point is that a relationship must be reciprocal. If you want to know God on a deeper level, you must make the time to spend with Him. If you want understanding about a given biblical topic, you must make the time to study it. Yes, God works all things twice, in fact three times, to bring a man’s soul from the Pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of life, but it requires the individual’s consent and participation insofar as he does not resist the spirit of grace, nor turn his back on the proffered love.

God doesn’t take hostages. He will not keep you in His kingdom at gunpoint. Jesus Himself said if anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. This is the way, walk in it.

Jesus did the heavy lifting. His purpose on earth was to reconcile us to the Father, something He alone could accomplish, and by His sacrifice made a way for us to be with Him in paradise, saved from the Pit, born anew, sanctified, and cleansed of what we once were, to be transformed into an image of Himself. In His own right, God extends grace, mercy, and forgiveness to all who humble themselves, but He will not force Himself on anyone. He knocks, and we open. He calls, and we answer. He molds, and we submit, not growing brittle or stiff-necked, but remaining malleable.

Any goodwill Elihu may have fostered by his mention of God’s grace gets canceled out when he once again attempts to bring the spotlight back on himself and insists that Job should listen to him, hold his peace, and allow him to teach him wisdom. A person who thinks they know more than they do is a danger not only to others but also to themselves. There was no humility in Elihu, no allowance for the possibility that things weren’t as they seemed at first glance, and like a bull intent on goring whatever stands before him, Elihu pushed ever onward, insisting that anything he had to say was wisdom personified.

Elihu was the quintessential armchair quarterback, the man who not only knew everything but believed he would have acted and reacted to a specific situation better than the individual in question. He never bothered to consider all that Job had lost, all that he had been through, or all that he’d endured thus far. His narrative was firmly established, and he would not be swayed from his position. He was wise in his own eyes, and he was sure to let everyone know it, for after all, if you don’t point out your wisdom, who’s going to do it?

You see this happening in churches and ministries often enough: a soon-to-retire pastor or head of a ministry brings on a young, unseasoned individual to take the helm, only to have them reimagine the ministry's mission statement and transform it into something unrecognizable within a matter of months. Never mind the hostile takeovers taking place in the corporatized Christian landscape, wherein someone believes they can do a better job than the individual who spent decades building up the work. The one question that’s rarely asked, and one that should be asked more often, is if you’re so star-spangled awesome and you have the vision to grow something exponentially, why covet another’s ministry rather than starting your own?

As was the case with Elihu, the sad reality is that some men’s hubris exceeds their intellectual ability, and when it comes to ministry, many go without being sent, doing more harm than good in their single-minded pursuit of something that was never theirs to begin with.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCCVI

 Job 33:23-28, “If there is a messenger for him, a mediator, one among a thousand, to show man His uprightness, then He is gracious to him, and says, ‘deliver him from going down to the Pit; I have found a ransom’; His flesh shall be young like a child’s, he shall return to the days of his youth. He shall pray to God, and He will delight in him, he shall see His face with joy, for He restores to man His righteousness. Then he looks at men and says, ‘I have sinned and perverted what was right, and it did not profit me.’ He will redeem his soul from going to the Pit, and his life shall see the light.”

If you get the sneaky feeling that you’ve met Elihu before, you’re not alone. The reason for this is that you’ve likely run across an Elihu type in your life, as I have, because they are more common than one might think. Elihu was the type of individual who, no matter the situation or circumstance, had the ability to make it all about himself. He was the star of his own show, and everyone around him was an extra.

If a typhoon devastates an entire region, the Elihu type will bemoan the fact that their flight might get delayed or diverted. Never mind that thousands of people are missing and presumed dead, or that an entire nation is without power for going on two weeks; your plans got ruined, you were inconvenienced by having to wait in an airport for two extra hours, and that was the real tragedy.

Elihu took what was happening to Job, and you guessed it, made it all about himself, and how Job was lucky, or at least should feel lucky, because God had sent him along to act as mediator, and by Elihu’s very presence, his selfless act of standing in for Job, he would be spared from the Pit if he would only confess and admit to having sinned and perverted what was right.

In his hubris, Elihu saw himself as one in a thousand, and if he’d had a say in the matter, the book would have been called the Book of Elihu rather than the Book of Job. Job was auxiliary, as far as Elihu was concerned, and the real story here was the selflessness Elihu exhibited by being willing to mediate between Job and God.

Even at the pinnacle of his success, Job never made it about himself. He didn’t go fishing for accolades or seek the praise of men; he didn’t see himself above the need to have a true and abiding relationship with God, nor did he forego the time he spent in God’s presence.

By the time the story of Job begins to unfold, his children were already grown, each in their own houses, yet, even then, Job would send and sanctify his children once the days of feasting had run their course, and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all.

He understood that everything was dependent on God, His good pleasure, and His sovereign will. For some, once they “make it,” whatever that entails and however that plays out in their minds, God becomes less relevant, less necessary, less important, because their desire was never to have intimacy with God but to succeed, to outshine their competition, and to reach their earthly goals. Not so with Job. By any metric, he’d made it. He was the greatest of all the people of the East, yet that did not dampen his desire to be in God’s presence and walk uprightly.

It’s not as though Job was secretive about his desire for God, nor about his relationship with the Almighty. By his own admission, Elihu had overheard the back-and-forth between Job and his three friends, had witnessed Job’s repeated insistence that he had not done wickedness and that God remained his singular priority and pursuit, but Elihu refused to believe him.

If Job had lived his life incongruent with the will and plan of God up until that point, not only would God not have singled him out as blameless and upright, but there would have been enough evidence to point to and rightly call him a liar to his face when he claimed innocence. He was well known enough that, had he done something wicked, it would have been discovered no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

Job wasn’t trying to save face or claim innocence when he knew himself to be guilty; he wasn’t trying to get off on a technicality, asking what the definition of wickedness was; he knew that he knew himself to be one who feared the Lord, and was not reticent in saying it.

Anyone who seeks to judge others before they judge themselves is not acting out of love, kindness, or righteous indignation, but a desire to elevate themselves and highlight their own perceived righteousness.

There are a few things that are offputting about Elihu and his approach of Job, but for me, worse than any other, it is the prism through which he saw Job, from an elevated position, thinking himself righteous and within his rights to pass judgment on a man who had, up until this time, denied all the accusations leveled against him, and conducted himself in such a manner as to make those who had been arguing with him have no retort or counterargument.

Elihu might have been a fresh face on the scene; he may have seen himself as superior since Job’s friends were, in his words, very old, but when he opened his mouth to speak, we soon realize he was the worst of the lot. Say what you will about Job’s three friends, but none of them had the temerity to appoint themselves as mediators between Job and God as Elihu had.

As the adage goes, respect isn’t given; it’s earned, and although Job’s friends had earned his respect by traveling to him in his time of need, Elihu had done no such thing. He saw an opportunity to exalt himself, and he took it, thinking it would be an easy thing given Job’s state. What Elihu hadn’t counted on was that it wasn’t any man who was Job’s defender but God, and when God is your defender, no matter what men might say, you will continue to stand firm and resolute.         

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCCV

Job 33:19-22, “Man is also chastened with pain on his bed, and with strong pain in many of his bones, so that his life abhors bread, and his soul succulent food. His flesh wastes away from sight, and his bones stick out which once were not seen. Yet his soul draws near the Pit, and his life to the executioners.”

If Elihu ever failed at being Job’s self-appointed spokesman before God, he could readily try his hand at being an utterer of personal prophecy in our modern era. He would likely get more traction than some of the new brood of internet prophets, who have measurably less insight and awareness than Elihu. What Elihu was saying wasn’t revelatory by any means; it was the conclusion to which he’d come based on Job’s suffering, because if a man suffers from pain in his bones to the point of abhorring bread, surely he must be under God’s chastening.

It’s funny how the faces change, but the means by which those who claim revelatory insight use the same deductive reasoning to reach their conclusions. It’s also the reason that focusing on the mechanisms and contrivances that such individuals use, rather than on the individuals themselves, is a better use of one’s time.

The false prophets, teachers, evangelists, and those pretending to be sheep but are inwardly ravenous wolves are like the hydra of legend, wherein if one head is lopped off, two others grow in their place. Different face, same scheme, time and again, but if you are able to articulate and properly define the scheme, the face won’t matter because you will know them by their fruit.

Matthew 7:15-20, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

One of the biggest scandals within the prophetic movement in recent years was self-titled prophets using Facebook to mine data about individuals, then passing it off as authentic prophetic utterance. People were wowed and impressed as though they were there for a magic show rather than a church service, smiling and clapping like trained seals when they were told the street they lived on, or the name of their pet poodle, not bothering to think it through and conclude everything they’d heard was public knowledge, but receiving it as words from on high.

Those who understand how such individuals operate and can identify the mechanisms they employ know that the street number or the name of their recently deceased grandmother is just a springboard to what they’re really after. It never ends with “Your cat’s name is Mr. Whiskers, very original”; it begins with it. Sooner rather than later, also under the guise of prophetic utterance, the manipulation will begin in earnest, and whether it’s sowing a faith seed for the new parsonage that will allow for greater spiritual interactions with the Almighty, or coming under their mentorship which they then use to exploit toward nefarious ends, the victims go along with it because he knew my pet hamster’s name offhand, so he must be what he claims to be.

As an aside, when did the purpose of prophecy become to confirm to you something banal and spiritually irrelevant that you already knew, or could readily discover by looking at your driver’s license? When did we lower the bar to the point that we equate prophecy with a variety show put on by the local high school to raise money for its summer camp outing? What we are seeing today is what happens when desire to witness the supernatural meets unwillingness to live lives worthy of the name Jesus. We want the experience without the repentance; we want the words of knowledge without sanctification; we want the power without the indwelling presence because the indwelling presence demands a clean vessel, and that, in turn, demands that we mortify the flesh and deny ourselves daily.

You can’t have one without the other, but you can pretend to. It may work for a while; the crowds may be wowed, and the gullible may swoon, but the end will be worse than the beginning, and eventually the truth will out.  

If by some miracle we run across someone with true prophetic gifting and they speak a word that challenges us, calls us to repentance, chastens us, or isn’t what we expected to hear, we brush it off and go prophecy hunting until we hear the one we want to hear, because it was never about what the Lord would say but about confirming our biases and hearing a word that is little more than an echo of our own machinations.

I really didn’t like the word about humbling myself and striving for righteousness because it challenged me and made me feel some kind of way, but that one about being highly favored and God having a plan for my life where I would reach millions with my gift - that one hit home. It bore witness, don’t you know, so it must be God’s honest truth. Never mind that I know I’m not where I’m supposed to be in my walk with God. Never mind that although by now I should be on a steady diet of meat, I’m still on milk, and even that only enough to subsist; the man on stage said that I too would be a prophet to the nations.

Elihu didn’t go so far as to prophesy or claim he was prophesying, but he allowed his worldview to determine Job’s guilt and then created a narrative to support his conclusion. It’s like insisting you know the answer to a math equation before you’ve heard the equation itself. It’s four; I know it’s four; I don’t care if the equation is seventy divided by two; the answer is still four.

Such people are impossible to reason with because they will not allow for a different answer, no matter how much evidence exists that they were wrong.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCCIV

 Job 33:8-12, “Surely you have spoken in my hearing, and I have heard the sound of your words, saying, ‘I am pure, without transgression; I am innocent, and there is no iniquity in me. Yet He finds occasions against me, He counts me as His enemy; He puts my feet in the stocks, He watches all my paths.’ Look, in this you are not righteous. I will answer you, for God is greater than man.”

Though he believed himself to be the possessor of pure knowledge, one from whose lips nothing else could flow, Elihu’s first action was to fall into the logic trap Job’s friends had likewise fallen into, not allowing for the possibility that there was something beyond what they understood taking place.

I’ve heard you say you were pure, without transgression, and that there is no iniquity in you, but if that were the case, why would God find occasion against you? If you were an innocent man, then God would not count you as His enemy; ergo, you are not an innocent man!

With all the build-up, with all the bloviating words Elihu used to introduce himself, one would think his first address to Job would have contained a tad more wisdom than it did. After talking himself up to the point of appointing himself as Job’s spokesman before God, his hot take was basic and banal. There is nothing new. There is no epiphany, no nugget of wisdom that would make one believe Elihu was as profound and intellectually gifted as he thought himself to be, but that’s the thing about hubris: it always makes the individual suffering from it think more highly of himself than he has any right to.

One thing Elihu said was true: God is greater than man, but given the subtext of his words, he also concluded that even though God is greater than man, God must see Job’s situation as he did, thereby making God beholden to him in His thinking.

I have judged you guilty; therefore, God will judge you guilty as well. It matters not that you insist upon your innocence or that there is no evidence of sin or wrongdoing; I am Elihu, and I have judged you thusly.

Presumptive human reasoning based on one’s own prejudices and the mind of God don’t mix. To assume that the two are in harmony, and appropriate the authority of God in one’s assertions isn’t merely dangerous; it’s sinful. God will not share His glory with another, nor will He allow His authority to be misappropriated and abused.

When one comes in the name of the Lord, they are there to speak His words, do His bidding, deliver His message, and nothing more. He must have been sent by the Lord in order to come in His name, and everything he does in his duty toward the Lord must be within the boundaries of what the Lord declared. You neither have the authority to wing it nor interpret the words that God spoke and assume that it’s what God meant. Your duty is to repeat the words God spoke verbatim, meaning in exactly the same words as were used originally.

Elihu had not been sent; he had no message; he had no word from the Lord for Job, yet he presumed to know the mind of God and placed himself as the sole mediator between Job and God.

Job 33:13-18, “Why do you contend with Him? For He does not give an accounting of any of His words. For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction. In order to turn man from his deed, and conceal pride from man, He keeps back his soul from the Pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.”

As I read Elihu’s words, the one analogy that comes to mind is of someone trying to teach a fully grown, adult Shakespeare the alphabet, insisting that he needs to know the basics of language before he can hope to read a sentence, never mind write one. Job was a man who was so accustomed to the presence of God that his singular terror was His absence, yet Elihu was going on about the varied ways He can speak to mankind, yet mankind, being obtuse, does not perceive His message.

Job’s greatest lament was God’s silence. Not that God had spoken and he’d missed it, or that he did not understand the message he’d received in a dream or a vision of the night, but cry out as he might, God remained silent to him.

Job had made this clear enough in his discourse, but Elihu heard what he wanted to hear, and had formulated his conclusions based on the premise that God was punishing Job for something he had yet to admit to, and what’s worse, in Elihu’s estimation, God had been speaking to Job all this time, but Job was too dense to perceive it.

He hasn’t gone quite so far yet, but at some point it would be no surprise if Elihu went with the standard, “If I were in your shoes, this issue would have been resolved a long time ago. I would have perceived what God was telling me and would have acted accordingly, but you refuse to do so. God has tried to turn you from your deeds, but you did not turn.”

It’s evident that although Elihu thought pure knowledge flowed from his lips, he had no clue what he was talking about regarding Job and his relationship with God. He judged the situation for what it was without spiritual insight or allowing for the possibility that something more was happening, just as Job’s friends had done.

We’ve all been guilty of getting caught up in thinking we were right about something to the point that it becomes all important to prove just how right we were. When it turns out we weren’t, that we’d misjudged a situation or a person, one of the hardest things is to admit as much, to acknowledge that we’d judged wrongly, and that we need to repent of it.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCCIII

 Job 33:1-7, “But please, Job, hear my speech, and listen to all my words. Now, I open my mouth. My words come from my upright heart; my lips utter pure knowledge. The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. If you can answer me, set your words in order before me; take your stand. Truly I am as your spokesman before God; I also have been formed out of clay. Surely no fear of me will terrify you, nor will my hand be heavy on you.”

In contrast to Job, who was humble enough to know what he didn’t know, Elihu was a young man whose self-assurance and self-importance were ones for the ages. It wasn’t God who declared Elihu a man of upright heart, but Elihu himself, unlike Job, whom God deemed blameless and upright.

Grandiose doesn’t come close to describing Elihu’s attitude, because he didn’t just consider himself a man of upright heart; he also believed that his lips uttered pure knowledge. Every word that comes out of my mouth should be carved into stone to be remembered for ages to come, in my humble opinion. Can anyone validate my claim that my lips utter pure knowledge, you ask? No, then again, they’re all beneath me, so why would I consider their input?

Try as one might to see Elihu as a sympathetic figure, his words and attitude make it difficult, if not outright impossible. How would you react if, after a lifelong relationship with the Almighty, having lost everything, lying in the dust, scratching at yourself with a potsherd and barely clinging on to life, someone came along and insisted that they were your spokesman before God?

But I speak to God every day. I entreat Him to show me the error of my ways, if any error is present; I long to feel His presence and have fellowship with Him. How is it that you’ve appointed yourself my spokesman before God?

On the one hand you say we’re the same, both formed out of the clay; on the other you position yourself as spiritually superior, insisting I should fear you and that your hand would not be heavy on me. Who exactly are you? Why should, after all I’ve been through, endured, and suffered, be at all concerned with the weight of your hand on me? These are all valid questions Job could have asked, but Elihu was not interested in having his bona fides questioned. His only concern was that Job take his stand and answer him as though he were judge, jury, and executioner all rolled up into one.

There are a handful of practical yet important lessons in what not to do regarding Elihu’s approach, demeanor, and overall delivery of what he had to say that would serve any of us well as a cautionary tale.

The first of these is to reject the often appealing sense of self-importance. Not only did Elihu consider himself a man of upright heart, but he also insisted that his lips uttered pure knowledge. That’s quite a boast, one not even Job had made, yet Elihu felt perfectly comfortable making it.

Whether it’s Robert Tilton back in the day claiming to be the apple of God’s eye, or the more recent individuals who have no qualms about declaring themselves the solitary conduit of wisdom, knowledge, and prophetic insight, anyone who attempts to elevate themselves and claim exclusivity regarding an attribute that God gave to the household of faith as a whole is suspect and should be engaged with caution if at all.

If one such as Paul dared not elevate himself beyond the station of bondservant of Christ, what gives any person living today the right to make claims and boasts of such grandiosity as to make one think they were interchangeable with the Almighty Himself?

The second thing that Elihu did, that we should avoid at all costs, is presume to know the mind of God, and assume that He thinks as we do, judges as we do, or sees things through the same prism and the same light as we do.

Isaiah 55:8-9, ‘“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’”

If Job didn’t know why he was going through the things he was, surely Elihu didn’t have a clue. Yet, in his hubris, he was fully assured that he knew the right of it, and all that was left was to convince Job of it. Set your words in order before me, answer me, take your stand; I will determine whether you speak the truth, I will determine whether you are innocent, and will eventually prove your guilt.

Elihu wasn’t without his bias. He had already made up his mind regarding Job, and had concluded, as had Job’s three friends, that he’d done something truly wicked to suffer in such a manner. He presumed to know the inner workings of the mind of God Himself, and was not reticent in declaring as much.

The third thing we should avoid, and one that has become epidemic within the household of faith, is claiming titles God never gave you, or offices to which you were never called. Elihu had assigned himself the position of Job’s spokesman before God. God never called him to be so, nor had Job solicited his aid in beseeching God. Elihu took it upon himself to claim something to which he had no right, and many today are doing the same thing within the context of ministry.

Everyone and their grandma is suddenly an apostle or prophet, not because God called them to be, or equipped them to be, but because the title gives them clout and perceived authority. It hits different when a message comes from a supposed prophetess than from Aunt Midge with the sixteen cats and neon hair, doesn’t it?

In the end we will all be called to account for the lives we’ve lived, the titles we claimed, the authority we misappropriated that was never ours in the first place, the boasts we made, the words we spoke, the pride we felt, and the glory we took for ourselves that rightly belonged to Him.

While the humble, obedient, and faithful cry out, Come quickly, Lord Jesus, there are those within the household of faith who look upon that day with dread and great terror because they know God knows, and their farces have not fooled Him in the least.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCCII

 No one asked him to do it, no one inquired of him, but Elihu took it upon himself to educate Job and his three friends, and he had nothing good to say about any of them. Job had offended his sensibilities by declaring his innocence; the three friends had offended him by being unable to challenge Job’s assertions; and, of all the men present, he thought himself the sole possessor of wisdom and understanding.

With the advent of modern technology, it has become far easier to highlight one’s ignorance and put it on full display for all to see, and the chorus of those screeching “Listen to me, I also will declare my opinion” has become the soundtrack of life, ever present in the background, like the buzzing of a hornet or the stridulation of a grasshopper. You try to tune them out, even succeed on the good days, but more often than not they get so loud as to become impossible to ignore, a cacophony of noise with no underlying substance.

The first impulse is to add our own noise to the chorus, to speak our mind, to have our say, to throw our two cents in to a growing mountain of pennies. Surely, if the guy with the squeegee, offering to clean your windshield for some spare change, has an opinion on geopolitics and global affairs, you should have one too; at least you own a car, and technically, delivering DoorDash to lazy people is a job, so you have one of those too. Yep, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll give him a piece of my mind and tell him what I think because I have just as much right to an opinion as he does to his, and my opinion is likely the correct one anyway.

If we surrender to that first impulse, all that occurs is that our voice is added to the noise, and we find ourselves trying to talk over others, each holding to their position, becoming ever more impatient, erratic, and vitriolic. Soon enough, it’s no longer about the position, but about the person, and the ad hominem attacks come in hot and heavy, focusing on the individual rather than their premise, because if the message is bulletproof, the messenger likely isn’t.

I’ve found that the wisest thing to do in such situations is refuse to participate entirely. People who’ve made up their minds about one thing or another are rarely willing to hear dissenting opinions, or allow for their minds to be changed on the matter. If I’m asked my opinion, I will give it, but beyond that, I refuse to engage in a war of words that will likely produce nothing but bitterness and animosity.

If the matter is of a biblical nature, then all I can do is point to what Scripture says, because I am subordinate to it, and not it to me. If it’s a trivial matter, we all have our preferences and will not judge another for failing to tuck in their shirt or wear khakis to the park when it’s blistering hot outside. Do I think that wearing knee-high socks with open-toe sandals is a good idea? No, but it will neither bring one closer nor distance them from Jesus, so why should it matter to me?       

Job 32:15-22, “They are dismayed and answer no more; words escape them. And I have waited, because they did not speak, because they stood still and answered no more. I also will answer my part, I too will declare my opinion. For I am full of words; the spirit within me compels me. Indeed my belly is like wine that has no vent; it is ready to burst like new wineskins. I will speak, that I may find relief; I must open my lips and answer. Let me not, I pray, show partiality to anyone; nor let me flatter any man. For I do not know how to flatter, else my Maker would soon take me away.”

For well over half of the book of Job, no one even knew Elihu was present or that he even existed. His name had not been brought up, he had not been included in the conversation, none of what was said pertained to him, yet he was full of words, and the spirit within him compelled him to speak. Which spirit, I wonder?

This wasn’t about giving an arbitrary opinion on the weather; it wasn’t as though he was asked to chime in, but Elihu took it upon himself to speak; otherwise, he would burst. In his mind, what he had to say mattered so much that had he kept silent, he would find no relief.

If you’ve ever had someone jump in mid-conversation without understanding the context or knowing what was said before they decided to give their hot take, you know what Job and his three friends felt like. I’m sure you’re right, and Fords are unreliable, but the conversation wasn’t about cars. You misheard “afford” and thought it was “Ford”, and now we’re onto a whole new topic when the initial conversation centered around how no one could afford health insurance anymore.

There is wisdom in the admonition that one ought to be slow to speak and quick to listen. Granted, Elihu had been listening to the back and forth between Job and his friends, but he had no reason for injecting himself into the conversation save for hubris and the elevated opinion he had of himself and his opinion.

He knew what he was going to say before he said it, and likewise knew it would not land well, so he couched his words in a self-serving, “I’m just being honest, not looking to flatter, or show partiality” preface before launching into his diatribe. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt, believing him at his word that his desire was not to show partiality to any one individual over the other, the question remains: why say anything at all? It’s not as though Job asked him to jump into the conversation, nor had his three friends enquired of his opinion or asked for his aid in convincing Job that his uprightness was an illusion. Even so, in Elihu’s mind it was either speak, or burst like a new wineskin, and there was no in between.    

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCCI

 As we proceed further into the chapter, we are made aware of a fifth individual, one who, up until this moment, had watched and heard the interaction between Job and his three friends but had remained silent.

We are informed that he is Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, and by all accounts, he was an angry young man. His wrath was aroused against Job, against Job’s three friends, and as any youthful hubris is likely to do, he thought he knew better than everyone and proceeded to set them straight. He’d held his tongue up until this point. Perhaps his parents had taught him to respect his elders, and although he’d been present for the back and forth between Job and his three friends, and managed to hold his tongue and not speak, that time had come and gone, and now he would give them a piece of his mind.

His wrath was aroused against Job because he viewed Job’s discourse as justifying himself rather than God, and against his three friends because they found no answer, yet condemned Job. Young Elihu was an island unto himself and had convinced himself that he knew better than everyone, and he’d prove it.

Evidently, it’s not just this generation of young people who think they know better than those with decades under their belt. It’s not a new malady, it seems, but something that has been around for thousands upon thousands of years.

The first words out of Elihu’s mouth could readily be seen as an insult to the other four men, calling them very old, rather than wise or experienced. If you have children of a certain age, you’ve likely had at least one such conversation wherein the things they said revealed a lack of practical life experience. When we were children, we all thought as children. Tragically, even though fully grown, some men still think as children, but generally speaking, the way of things ought to be that the grayer your temples, the greater the wisdom you possess.  

There are no substitutes for some things. While you can substitute sugar for Splenda or coffee for tea, there are no substitutes for lived experience, and the wise among us tend to learn from the mistakes of others instead of making the same mistakes themselves.

There are countless examples in which the good advice parents gave their children was summarily ignored, only for the very same children to come back years later and grudgingly admit that their parents were right. Perhaps the face tattoo wasn’t the best idea. Perhaps mom and dad were right, and gainful employment did have its benefits, like not starving, after all.         

Job 32:10-14, “Therefore I say, ‘Listen to me, I also will declare my opinion.’ Indeed I waited for your words, I listened to your reasonings, while you searched out what to say. I paid close attention to you; and surely not one of you convinced Job, or answered his words – lest you say, ‘We have found wisdom’; God will vanquish him, not man. Now he has not directed his words against me; so I will not answer him with your words.”

No one asked it of me, but I will, nevertheless, give my opinion, and you have no choice but to listen to me. Although the Word does not go into detail about who this young man was, other than that he was from the family of Ram and the son of Barachel the Buzite, it seems he thought highly of himself and was not shy about it. It’s one of the things the household of faith contends with more and more these days, because everyone not only has an opinion about everything, but they feel it is within their right to voice said opinion, and insist that everyone listen.

It’s one of the reasons we have strayed so far from Biblical truth that we now require a roadmap just to get back to its general vicinity. It may deflate some egos, but when it comes to Biblical truth and what the Word of God says, your opinion is irrelevant. I know, but I’m me, and I’m important, and people should listen to everything I have to say, even if it contradicts Scripture itself.

As I heard a young man ask the cashier at the local grocery store when she denied his coupons because they’d expired, “Who you is? Who do you think you is?”

We have foregone discipleship, seasoning, maturing, studying, learning, and growing, because those things take too long, and we have a five-year plan for our ministry. I got saved on a Wednesday, and started teaching the Word on a Sunday, even though the first time I ever cracked open a Bible was the previous Thursday, but listen to me, and I also will declare my opinion!

Then they start playing their own version of “Did God really say?” with scripture that is obvious and unambiguously declares what God said, because in order to stand out, you have to put a new spin on the old text, and in order to do that, you must go beyond the bounds of what it states.

Now that you’re old, you just have a problem with young people in ministry. Not so, but I do take issue with brash young people in ministry who attempt to twist the Word of God to fit their reimagined version of what they think Christianity should be instead of what the Bible says it is. Being loud doesn’t make you right; it just makes you loud.

Speaking of things that can’t be substituted, discipleship is one of those things, at least if the desire of your heart is authentic ministry and not just a get-rich-quick scheme you’ve dreamed up. Who one chooses as their mentor in spiritual matters tells me everything I need to know about the true desire of their heart. There are those who follow after Christ, laying aside their plans, dreams, aspirations, and desires in the process; then there are those who pretend to follow Him to fulfill their plans, dreams, aspirations, and desires. One will lead to a humble, well-lived, obedient, and Biblical life. In contrast, the other will lead to compromise, because being Biblical will never draw the crowds that being worldly will, and if the heart is set on the things of this world, then every decision will focus toward that end.

The worst thing the young can do is seek to be discipled by flash over substance, unless what they really want is to mirror the flash, without regard for what the Bible says a bishop, elder, or teacher of the Word ought to be. We’ve seen the consequences of these choices time and again, and we’re just getting started.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCC

 Job 32:1-9, “So these three men ceased answering Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. Then the wrath of Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, was aroused against Job; his wrath was aroused because he justified himself rather than God. Also against his three friends his wrath was aroused, because they had found no answer, and yet condemned Job. Now because they were years older than he, Elihu had waited to speak to Job. When Elihu saw there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, his wrath was aroused. So Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, answered and said: ‘I am young in years, and you are very old; therefore I was afraid, and dared not declare my opinion to you. I said, ‘Age should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.’ But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding. Great men are not always wise, nor do the aged always understand justice.’”

If you can’t win an argument on merit, if you can’t accuse someone of wickedness based on the evidence, the only thing left to do is start slinging mud and frame the individual in question as either pompous, elitist, or self-righteous. You don’t see things the way I do; you don’t come to the same conclusions as me, so there must be something wrong with you. We can’t put our finger on it; we can’t identify what it is, but sure as the sun shines, something is amiss; otherwise, you would have relented and acquiesced to our judgment. That’s what Job’s three friends had concluded, and, comforting themselves with the notion that he was being righteous in his own eyes, they ceased answering him.

The easiest way to see someone’s true character is to disagree with them on some small matter that in the great scheme of things is tertiary and irrelevant, and watch their reaction to it. People who think they’re always right can never admit to it when they are wrong. In their minds, being wrong is an impossibility, and so they eliminate the possibility thereof altogether. It’s never considered, it never enters the equation, and so they have to rationalize it to themselves by finding reasons to support their conclusion.

I don’t think it was ever intentional, but my grandfather had a gift for putting people on the back foot and watching them react. He wasn’t mean about it, just honest, but even back then, some took honesty as an affront and an insult. For all the years we lived in California, we didn’t have a dedicated ministry office or a dedicated line. Everything was run out of the two-bedroom apartment seven of us lived in, and the ministry line was the same as our home phone number, which became a bit of a nuisance when it would start ringing as early as four or five in the morning because those calling hadn’t figured in the time difference between the East Coast and the West Coast.

One morning, we got such a call with someone asking if they could drop by for a visit, as they were traveling to California the following week, and since we are the hospitable sort, we told them they could drop by any time, and we would have a prayer, a meal, and a talk.

He showed up four days later, and immediately, one could tell something was off. There are humble, pious people, then there are those who pretend at it, and this man was the latter, both in his mannerisms and the condescension he exhibited at seeing the humble apartment we lived in.

“You live here?” he asked, arching his eyebrows and wrinkling his nose.

“Indeed, we do,” my grandfather answered in Romanian, and I dutifully translated into English.

We invited him in, pointed to the table, offered him a chair, and suggested that if he wanted to place the large bundle he was carrying under his arm against the wall, he was more than welcome to do so.

“Oh, this is far too important to lay on the floor,” he said, and placed it across his knees as he sat.

My grandfather pulled up a chair across from him. I sat next to my grandfather, and we waited to see what the man wanted. Meanwhile, my mother was busy making lunch in the kitchen, and since it was a small apartment, you could hear the sizzling of the pan and the clanging of the pots, to which he said, “Can she be a bit less noisy? I have an important message to deliver to you.”

“She’s doing her best,” my grandfather said, a look of annoyance flashing on his face, “what brought you to our humble home?”

“I am here to reveal to you that I am King David, and you are to be Prince Moses, and we two are to be the voice of God throughout the land. As he said this, he reverently lifted the bundle from his knees and placed it on the table between us.

“This is your staff, Moses,” he said.

My grandfather arched his brows, shrugged his shoulders, and, without missing a beat, asked, “Why do you get to be a king, and I a lowly prince? I want to be king.”

The flush in the man’s face was instant. “No, that’s not the way it works,” he spluttered. “I’m King David, and you’re Prince Moses. That’s the way it works.”

I translated what he’d said, trying not to grin, and after taking a deep breath, my grandfather answered and said, “I have already received my marching orders, I already know what my duty is to God, and if there were to be a change of plans, He would have told me as much. I cannot be the Moses to your David, but you’re more than welcome to break bread with us, have a time of prayer, and fellowship.”

“I will do no such thing,” the man answered, pushing his chair away from the table, “I’ll shake the dust off my feet, is what I’ll do, you are not the man I thought you to be.”

“That’s fine,” my grandfather said, “my daughter will vacuum later.”

To that, the man stood and stormed out of our apartment, without another word, leaving the staff of Moses behind in his haste. It turned out to be a nice walking stick, ornate and beautifully carved, that my grandfather used on occasion when his gout and arthritis got to be a hindrance.

The point of the story is simple: the man had walked in with a preconceived notion, an assumption that he was certain was the right one, and would not allow for the possibility that he was mistaken. When his assumption was challenged, there was no introspection, but rather angry retorts and combativeness. Be humble enough to allow for the possibility that you misread a situation, that you prejudged someone not based on evidence but on emotion, and if you discover this to be the case, be humble enough to repent of it.    

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXCIX

 Job 31:33-40, “If I have covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom, because I feared the great multitude, and dreaded the contempt of families, so that I kept silence and did not go out of the door – Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my mark. Oh, that the Almighty would answer me, that my Prosecutor had written a book! Surely I would carry it on my shoulder, and bind it on me like a crown; I would declare to Him the number of my steps; like a prince I would approach Him. If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together; If I have eaten its fruit without money, or caused its owners to lose their lives; then let thistles grow instead of wheat, and weeds instead of barley.”

An innocent man is just that: innocent. He is not someone who’s been able to hide his transgressions, sins, or wickedness from the eyes of others, for while others may not see what he does in the dark, God sees all and knows all. Job was able to declare his innocence because he was innocent of wickedness, innocent of sin, and not pretending to be.

You can’t go a week without reading some new, horrible, bile-producing headline of someone in spiritual authority being exposed for the wickedness they tried their best to cover up. The thing about sin is that it’s not your friend. It will whisper sweet nothings in your ear, it will insist this is the thing you’ve been missing out on all your life, it will present itself as fulfilling and something you can’t live without, until it has you in its clutches, then the mask comes off.

The devil plays dirty, and there is no empathy or compassion to be found in him. Sin is a snare, a trap, something the enemy uses time and again to stall forward momentum. The same thing that was used to tempt and entice, once committed, will be used to shame, humiliate, and discredit because that was the devil’s plan all along.

Especially when it comes to hidden sin, or sin one has not repented of, it’s not a question of if, but when the other shoe will drop. It’s the ever-present sword of Damocles hanging by a horse hair over one’s head, and though they may be surrounded by opulence and luxury, though they may have the best the world has to offer, the sword is still hanging overhead, ready to fall at any moment, making any sweet thing taste bitter on the tongue. As Cicero once wrote, nothing is happy for him over whom terror always looms.

The thing the foolhardy believed would give them wings, joy, and boundless pleasure soon becomes a millstone around their neck, a mire from which they cannot extricate themselves, and what’s worse, they can’t call out for help for fear of being found out and exposed for being the thing they railed against so passionately.

If you speak against the thing you’re doing, you’re a hypocrite, and sooner or later that hypocrisy will be on full display. If you preach righteousness, strive for righteousness. If you preach purity, be pure. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before the thing you tried to hide and cover up will be the thing that will define your existence, and the world will know of it in all its gory detail.

Unfortunately, so many names spring to mind that I would need four more arms to count them on my fingers, not because I’m keeping a tally but because once what was done in the dark is brought to light, the enemy does his utmost to gleefully point to it over and over again.

Funny how you never see a news segment about the true men of God who live the lives they’re preaching others ought to live. Funny how the selfless, the Scripturally sound, and those who rightly divide the Word never get any airtime, but the tumors and the cancers seem to be ever-present.

For those quick to roll their eyes at the mention of the fear of the Lord and the shunning of evil, say what they might, they can’t deny the results. The proof is in the pudding, and though these two pursuits are proven to work, as evidenced by the life of Job, all the other half-measures, machinations, justifications, and twisted interpretations they’ve attempted to foist upon the household of faith have fallen woefully short of the mark.

The fear of the Lord is a necessary virtue in the life of a believer, and it walks hand in hand with the shunning of evil. One who fears the Lord will shun evil because they acknowledge they serve a holy God, one who has declared that nothing wicked or defiled will enter His kingdom. It’s simple enough, obvious enough, self-explanatory to the point that anyone insisting that they can live in darkness yet claim to be of the light isn’t doing it out of ignorance but because they love their sin too much to repent of it, turn their back on it, and follow after Christ.

They will gravitate toward anyone giving them permission to remain as they are while vilifying those who, in love, insist that they must repent and turn from their wickedness because, as long as they cling to the illusion of being in right standing with God, there is no need for transformation, a new mind, a new heart, or a new purpose. They want to remain as they are while retaining the full benefits of sonship, because although heaven is appealing, their sin is more so.            

Some men think it’s a game and treat it as such. Others understand that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God and live their lives accordingly.

Job knew himself well enough to know that he wasn’t faking it until he made it, he wasn’t putting on airs, he wasn’t pretending to be something he was not, and laments that if only his Prosecutor had presented any evidence He might have against him, he would gladly wear it as a badge of honor, not because he was proud of his wickedness but because there was no wickedness to be had.         

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXCVIII

 The things that will grow your spiritual man are always the hardest things for the flesh to get behind, accept, and practice. The flesh knows you’re trying to kill it; it knows that the more you grow in the virtues of prayer, fasting, reading the Word, the likelier you are to bridle your tongue, make a covenant with your eyes, love your enemies, and pray for those who spitefully use you.

Not only did Jesus say we are to pray for those who use us, but who spitefully do so. It’s a turn of phrase that I’ve spent some time pondering, because ever since I could remember, words and the meaning of words have fascinated me. As one of the greatest wordsmiths of recent years was fond of saying, words mean things.

The addition of the word spitefully adds a whole new layer of intrigue because not only do some individuals take advantage of others, but they also harbor animosity and malevolence toward those they use, abuse, and exploit.

The very individuals who insist that the surefire way to prosper is to send them a sacrificial gift harbor resentment and dislike toward those they dupe into financing their lifestyle. There is no love, charity, kindness, or empathy in them, but a constant churning of spite because the feeling of self-loathing has to have a release valve, and they can’t run the risk of looking in the mirror and seeing themselves for what they truly are.

A hireling does not care about the well-being of the sheep as long as they can fleece their wool. Concern for the sheep’s spiritual health, however, is top of mind for any true shepherd. One need only look to spot the difference. A hireling does not care where the sheep graze, what they consume, or how many predators are circling them, as long as, at the end of the day, the check clears and the money hits their account. Some sheep have even taken this permissiveness as an expression of love instead of what it really is, which is indifference to their spiritual health and well-being.

I love my pastor. He never rebukes, he never chastens, he never corrects, he never admonishes, and we’re in and out of service in forty minutes flat. There’s never any of that heavy talk regarding hell or accountability; he keeps it light, and I appreciate it. Why, just last week, he gave a twenty-minute talk on how one jalapeno pepper has like fifty seeds that can each grow a new jalapeno. I never knew that. I learned something without feeling bogged down with thoughts of eternity and such. It's more like a variety show than anything else, really.

John 10:11-14, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not a shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own.”

It is a shepherd’s duty to corral the sheep, to keep them from wandering off into the woods, or grazing beyond the pasture where they might consume something that will make them sick or outright kill them. The Word of God has guardrails for similar reasons, and what is good and what is evil is clearly delineated therein.

We often point to the parable of the good shepherd leaving the ninety-nine to go in search of the one, failing to acknowledge that what the parable is really about is the goodness, mercy, love, and kindness of the shepherd rather than the obstinacy of the sheep who chose to go where he wasn’t supposed to be in the first place and got himself in trouble for the effort.

Even so, heaven does not rejoice for the sinner that remains a sinner, but for the sinner who repents. It’s not a distinction without a difference; it’s the difference between life and death.     

After declaring that he neither rejoiced in the destruction of those who hated him, nor lifted himself up when evil found them, Job turns his sights on the stranger, the sojourner, the traveler, those who would come and go, likely never to be heard from again, and insists that he opened his door to them, and did not let them lodge in the street.

Once again, context matters, and given that Job likely lived among nomadic people, and there were those who were constantly moving, never staying in one place for too long, it was a much-appreciated kindness to have someone feed you and give you a place to sleep for the night. What the sojourner did not do was claim Job’s tent as their own, demand that he feed them, or attempt to displace Job and become permanent fixtures in his house.

Job knew what was his, and willingly shared what he had with those who encountered him in their travels. He was not practicing socialism as some have quipped. Rather, he was being a gracious host willing to share a meal with a traveler and give them a place to rest for the night. It is a dangerous thing to force one’s worldview into the lives and times of individuals who lived thousands of years ago and insist this ought to be the way of things today.

Yes, be gracious, be kind, be giving, be charitable, but all those things require that one has a choice in the matter. Forced redistribution of goods isn’t charity, it’s legalized theft. That is not what Job was practicing, nor do I believe he would have stood for it were that the case.

Certain people with demonstrable and well-defined agendas have gotten brazen when it comes to coloring outside the lines, insisting that Jesus would do what the Word declares He never would, accept as virtue what He called sin, and this extends to every pet issue or pet doctrine one might cling to rather than to Him. Men will twist Scripture to make it fit into their worldview rather than allow Scripture to transform them into the likeness of Christ, and the only foreseeable outcome for such brazenness is utter destruction. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXCVII

 Two noteworthy virtues, often overshadowed by his suffering, stand out when contemplating Job’s life: he never forgot who God was, and he never lost his awe of the God he served. A man who had everything he could ever want or desire still observed the sun when it shone, and the moon moving in brightness, and was in awe of God’s creation. He understood how small he was in relation to how great God was, and the majesty of all He’d spoken into being continued to humble him, no matter how far he’d come or how much he’d been able to amass.

When we sing How Great Thou Art we should mean it because it’s factual. It is the truth. We serve a great God, a God of wonder and majesty, and we can never lose sight of this lest we descend into the preposterous mindset that we can view God at eye level rather than looking up.

The fear of the Lord that Job possessed was a healthy one because of his awareness of who God is. He knew God to be both more precious and more reliable than gold, and so placed his confidence in Him. He knew that all his eyes saw, everything that surrounded him, whether the moon, the stars, the sun, or a blade of grass was fashioned by His hand. He would not take credit for the things God had done because he could not.

Job never patted himself on the back or saw himself as the architect of his existence. He did not view himself as a little god, nor as one who determined the course of his life. If he was blessed, it was not by his own hand, or his prowess in business, but by the providence and good pleasure of the God he served.

This is the proper attitude of the heart that we, as servants of God, must possess. Not demanding, not feeling entitled, but exhibiting awe and gratitude for His guiding hand upon us, whether that hand leads us through the valley or over the mountaintop. We are either spoiled children or soldiers of the cross. The difference between the two is that while a spoiled child stomps their feet and acts out when they don’t get their way, a soldier follows orders and carries on even if the way is hard.    

Job 31:29-32, “If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him who hated me, or lifted myself up when evil found him (indeed I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for a curse on his soul); If the men of my tent have not said, ‘who is there that has not been satisfied with his meat?’ (but no sojourner had to lodge in the street, for I have opened my doors to the traveler).”

Even Job had his detractors. Even he had men who hated him, for whatever reason, but he did not return their hatred in kind. Yet another good, noble, virtuous, and practical lesson we can learn from the life of Job. Even when destruction came upon them, Job did not rejoice. Nor did he lift himself up when evil found those who hated him, insisting that whatever befell them was well deserved because they chose to pick a fight with him.

I’ve heard it from the mouths of those who ought to know better, and it’s off-putting every time. You know what happened to so-and-so? They crashed their car, their cat died, their house burned down, but they got what they deserved because they said that one nasty thing about me that one time.

It’s easy to love your friends. It’s a lot harder to love your enemies. The uniqueness of Job rests in the fact that he was doing intuitively what Jesus would command His followers to do two thousand years later. Job didn’t have a template. He didn’t have the law, he didn’t have Scripture, he didn’t have the words of Jesus; he was a man living in the desert who desired a pure relationship with God, and from that desire, he followed through and did all that God inspired him to do.   

Matthew 5:43-48, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Job could have rightly pleaded ignorance of the notion of loving one’s enemies since he had no instruction manual to tell him otherwise. If you try to put Ikea furniture together without an instruction manual, can anyone really fault you when what ought to have been a dresser ends up looking more like a coffin?

We have no such excuse, yet we’re always looking for an out, a cheat code, a way to circumvent what Jesus said we must do, because blessing those who curse you, doing good to those who hate you, and praying for those who spitefully use you and persecute you is hard. Yes, it’s hard. Anyone who says it isn’t is either lying to you or lying to themselves.

I’ve lived long enough to know betrayal by those I’ve considered brothers in the faith, not for some noble reason, but for the basest reason of all, trying to take for themselves what God gave to another. Few things in life hurt worse, and demoralize you to that extent. In the moment, I would have rather moved the Great Wall of China stone by stone without the aid of oxen or carts than prayed for those who spitefully used me, but I did it nevertheless because it’s what Jesus commanded. The first prayer was the hardest, and I felt no relief or release; the weight of it was still heavy on my heart, but then came the second prayer, and the fifth, and the tenth. At some point, I stopped counting and was surprised to find that the pain had subsided, and my heart no longer felt like it was wrapped in barbed wire. It was heavy no longer.  

Do not rejoice at the destruction of him who hates you, do not revel in their downfall when evil finds him. Do not ask for a curse on their soul, or entertain the desire of seeing evil come to him. It will only serve to pollute your heart. Rather, rest in the knowledge that you serve a just and righteous God, who will do as He wills when He wills it, for you are not justified in the sight of men but in the sight of God.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXCVI

 Just as there are plenty of examples of men projecting an image of righteousness rather than pursuing and aspiring to it today, I’m sure there were such individuals in Job’s day as well. Unless you’re one of those odd ducks like me, you enjoy the odd compliment or individuals speaking well of you. I’ve never been able to take a compliment. I don’t know how to react to one.

The reason stems from my awareness that whatever was said in a sermon or written on a page that moved someone to the point of coming to thank me wasn’t my doing. It did not originate from me, so accepting praise for it seems a tad disingenuous if not outright dishonest. If I know I didn’t do something, whatever it might be, then I shouldn’t be taking credit for it.

Men who crave acknowledgment usually aren’t deserving of it, nor have men demanding of praise done anything to warrant it. By all means, thank the Lord, praise the Lord, acknowledge Him in all things, but as far as an individual, no matter how gifted or talented they might be, it wasn’t their talent that grew the ministry or the church, but the providence of God.

This is why so many churches and ministries crumble and are no more nowadays. Because rather than being built on the sure foundation of the gospel, rather than having the Word as their foundation, they were built upon the charisma, charm, or magnetism of an individual. When the figurehead no longer figures into the equation, when they go the way of all things, then whatever it is they’ve built goes with them. Only what is built upon the lasting, timeless, and eternal can sustain beyond the lifetime of an individual because it’s God who does the sustaining and not man.

Yes, there were likely men in Job’s generation who pretended at virtue, uprightness, or even righteousness as we’ve come to understand it, but for some vested interest rather than for righteousness’ sake. Of all the men of his day, God singled out Job because, knowing his heart, seeing what motivated him, God concluded that there was no ulterior motive for Job’s ceaseless kindness, obedience, and faithfulness.

Granted, to the person being fed or clothed, the motivation of the individual doing the feeding matters little. They were hungry; now they are hungry no longer. They were cold, now the coat they received keeps them warm. To God, however, motivation matters and is taken into account.

There will be individuals on that day of days who will stand before His throne and speak on all the noble things they’d done, up to and including prophesying, casting out demons, and doing many wonders in His name, yet told that Jesus never knew them, not because the things they’d done, in and of themselves weren’t virtuous but because the intent with which they’d done it was for something other than the glory of God.

Objectively speaking, they’d checked off a lot of boxes. They’d done the things they did in Jesus’ name, they exhibited power by doing wonders, prophesying, and casting out demons, but the underlying reason for doing these things was to elevate themselves, bring honor to themselves, or make themselves out to be more than they were supposed to be which is a vessel, a servant, one who does the bidding of his Master out of faithful obedience rather than some perceived benefit to themselves. They neither lived as a true follower of Christ nor walked in His way. They pretended to, and the power they exhibited was not due to their righteousness, but because there is power in the name that is above all names, the name of Jesus.

They were attempting to take credit for what they hadn’t done, had no ability to do in and of themselves, and knew full well they had no right to appropriate God’s glory for their own. I know my limitations, and you should too. When anything occurs that exceeds those limitations, give credit where credit is due. Don’t fall into the snare of appropriating what God did, claiming it as your own, because He is a jealous God and will not share His glory with another.    

Job 31:24-28, “If I have made gold my hope, or said to fine gold, ‘You are my confidence’; if I have rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because my hand had gained much; if I have observed the sun when it shines, or the moon moving in brightness, so that my heart has been secretly enticed, and my mouth has kissed my hand; this also would be an iniquity deserving of judgment, for I would have denied God who is above.”

If we were to encapsulate Job’s words into one big idea, it would be that everything comes from God. He is the author, creator, and giver of all that is, and as such, it is in Him that we must place our hope rather than the things He freely gives us. Job viewed placing one’s hope and confidence in anything other than God as iniquity deserving of judgment, because it would imply that His hand was not in it, and He had no control over it.

Humbling as it might be for some, whatever heights of success you may have reached, however many zeros you have in the bank, it wasn’t you. It was His goodness, His providence, His purpose, and if ever you begin to place your confidence in the things rather than the God who gave you the things, it’s the genesis of a slippery slope whose terminus is the bottom of the pit of despair.

I’ve known men who’d amassed fortunes only to lose them on one bad investment, and because their confidence was in the net worth they’d been able to amass, the loss broke them. I’ve likewise known men who lost it all, and because their hope and confidence were in God, they retained their peace, joy, and faith. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t trust both in the arm of the flesh and in God. You must make the conscious choice to trust and hope in one over the other, and Job had made his choice. Had his confidence been in gold, had his hope been tethered to his great wealth, Job would now be a hopeless ruin, and a byword to be pitied. His hope and confidence, however, had always been firmly anchored in God, and though the storm buffeted him and the waves crashed upon him, he was not carried away by its incessant force.

You can trust in one or the other, but you can't trust in both. You can either trust in God, who has proven His faithfulness time and again, or in the things that are even now passing away. While for some this is no choice at all, for others it is an issue they wrestle with more frequently than they would ever admit. God is faithful, eternal, and omnipotent. The same can’t be said for the buckets of gruel you’re being encouraged to put on a credit card by unscrupulous individuals who see you as nothing more than a payday. Choose wisely!    

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXCV

 Job 31:16-23, “If I have kept the poor from their desire, or caused the eye of the widow to fail, or eaten my morsel by myself, so that the fatherless could not eat of it (But from my youth I reared him as a father, and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow); if I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing, or any poor man without covering; if his heart has not blessed me, and if he was not warmed with the fleece of my sheep; if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, when I saw I had help in the gate; then let my arm fall from my shoulder, let my arm be torn from the socket. For destruction from God is a terror to me, and because of His magnificence I cannot endure.”

One cannot fault Job’s righteous anger in defending his innocence against what he knew to be baseless accusations. A guilty man would shrug his shoulders and attempt to justify his actions, trying to explain why he did what he did. An innocent man, however, sees the accusations as an insult and a sleight against his character, thereby mounting a defense not of himself but of his integrity.

Job wasn’t being flippant about his integrity, nor was there anything in his life that he knew he’d done wrong, to have to couch it in a lengthy explanation. He got down to brass tacks, stripping away platitudes or unnecessary verbiage, to the point that his directness would be considered blunt by today’s standards. So sure was Job of his innocence and uprightness that some of the things he said should happen to him had his actions been otherwise are truly horrific.

He started out tame enough, insisting that if his heart had walked after his eyes, or if any spot adhered to his hands another should eat what he had sown, and his harvest should be rooted out, but as we progress further into the chapter, he insists that if he had done any of the things he’d been accused of, his arm should fall from his shoulder, and torn from the socket. These are no small things.

It’s not as though he said that if his character was in any way sullied or his integrity compromised, he should get a mild headache or a hangnail. He did not minimize what he thought his punishment should be, knowing that he would have to endure it, but, certain of his innocence, he insisted that, were he guilty, it should be the worst thing he could envision at the time.

He was already covered in oozing boils, sapped of strength, barely hanging on, and in his state, the thing he considered worse still was that his arm be torn from the socket if ever he’d raised his hand against the fatherless, or ignored the poor.

Job said these things in light of knowing who God was, and understanding that God had the ability to follow through, were his words not honest, sincere, and forthright.

Throughout his life, Job had never seen the poor, the widow, or the fatherless as a burden, nor had he seen helping them as a chore. He hadn’t gone out of his way to avoid them, ignore them, or pretend they weren’t there, but whenever the need arose, he was there to meet it, knowing it was the right thing to do.

I’ve been blessed to know a handful of people who go out of their way to ensure that the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, the cold are provided with a blanket, and the fatherless are protected from being exploited by the cold and callous among us. Such individuals never acted out of largesse or abundance; they shared the little they had, sacrificed, and went without so that someone could have a hot meal or a warm bed to sleep in.

Yes, by all accounts, Job had been rich, the richest among the people of the East, but that only revealed his nature, character, and integrity when it came to how he saw his fellow man, and the lengths to which he went to ease their suffering, fill their bellies, and show kindness.

Contrary to popular belief, wealth does not change a man; it merely reveals his true heart and character. Job insists that from his youth he reared the orphan as a father, and from his mother’s womb he guided the widow. That he should be generous with what God had given him had not been an epiphany he’d had in his latter years, but from his early days, he saw the need to protect the innocent and show kindness to those whom the world was doing its best to pretend did not exist.

Job wasn’t looking for accolades or plaques thanking him for his donation. He was a present help to those in need, even when no one was looking, even when there wasn’t a crowd of people gathered to witness his kindness.

It didn’t matter to him if someone witnessed his feeding the hungry or clothing the naked because he knew God saw, and that was enough for him. Any time we do something on behalf of another, hoping others see it, it pollutes the intent of the heart with which it was done. We become as Cain, grudgingly doing it out of duty, rather than sincerely desiring to be the means by which the hurting are comforted, and the hungry are fed.

Job did what he did from a clean heart and pure intentions, and seeing his declaration, both of his innocence, as well as how tirelessly he helped those from whom he had nothing to gain, we come to understand that God’s assessment of him being an upright and blameless man was not inflated or blown out of proportion. God saw Job as he was. It wasn’t a soft spot for him that compelled God to declare him to be a man who feared the Lord and shunned evil, but a true description of who he was.

The difference between men declaring someone a good man and God declaring someone blameless and upright is that God knows all, while men see only what they want to see. The two are not the same.

The question that begs to be asked, and one we must answer as individuals, is whether we strive to be seen as noble and virtuous by others or by God.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.