Job CCXVIII

 So, which came first, the chicken or the egg? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Was there an ice cream land in heaven before ice cream was invented, or is heaven expanding in tandem with human invention and ingenuity? The same applies to Jello-Land, and isn’t there some sort of copyright infringement happening because, technically, Jello is a company that sells flavored gelatin, not the actual product itself? Does the Jello company have a legitimate lawsuit against heaven for naming it Jello-land? Inquiring minds want to know.

Why are you focusing on this? To highlight the absurdity of the claims some people are making on behalf of God, and in the name of God, that’s why. They’re jesters, farceurs, tellers of fables and ticklers of ears, wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest with no connection to the vine or foundation in truth.

Tell us more, tell us more about how cows drive around on tractors, about the unicorns in heaven, about the sasquatch, and other such fables. Make us smile, make us laugh, make us cringe and roll our eyes, but by no means insist that we reflect on our own wretchedness, our faithlessness, our hypocrisy, and ignorance of truth.

It takes less effort to pop a Twinkie in your mouth than it does to cook a meal, but while one may take longer, it’s packed with nutrients and vitamins, while the other is just empty calories that leave a coat of mystery oil on the roof of your mouth. One provides sustenance that is lasting and beneficial, the other an insulin spike that leaves you hungrier than you were before consuming it.

The choice of which to gravitate toward is yours as an individual. I’m not going to hide in the bushes and stuff a Twinkie in your mouth while jump scaring you, nor am I going to drive out and cook you a meal every night. It is you who must determine which is better for you and take steps to ensure you acquire it regularly.

You choose whether you will pursue fables and bedtime stories meant to lull children to sleep, or the power and authority that comes with walking in the will of God. One requires little to no effort, the other demands the putting to death of the old man and the forfeiting of all things for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.    

How do cows turn the key in the ignition if they have no thumbs? How do they know to change gears? Are the tractors automatic? Are there gas stations in heaven, or do the tractors run on sustainable energy sources heretofore unheard of? When it comes to the nature, character, sovereignty, providence, and supremacy of God, there is no need for such banal, laughable questions. He is the same, yesterday, today, and forevermore, unchanging, everlasting, sovereign, and omnipotent.

That’s all well and good, but you have to admit heaven sounds quirky, cute, and fun, I mean, cows driving tractors of all things. You can’t make that stuff up! Actually, you can.

Oddly enough, of all the things John the Revelator saw during his glimpse of heaven, there was no mention of cows driving tractors. He saw the throne, the One who sat on the throne, the twenty-four thrones surrounding the central one, he saw the elders, the seven lamps of fire, the sea of glass, and the four living creatures, not resting day or night saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come”, but no mention of pet dinosaurs or tractor-driving cows.

Granted, John admits he was in the spirit while the individual to whom the tractor-driving cows are attributed says she was translated bodily, but unless there is a different wing of heaven for receiving physical guests, like a solarium, it’s more than likely it’s pure, undiluted fiction.

Just compare and contrast the two. The solemnity, awe, reverence, worship, and grandeur of John’s vision of heaven, with the pitiful recreation of pet dragons and unicorns. Perhaps God remodeled to keep up with the times, one might say, but God is outside of time and does not seek the affirmation or validation of man. He is God! Worthy of honor and praise, worthy of glory and power, for He created all things and by His will they exist.

The God Job knew was the God who reigns in majesty, the God who is high and lifted up, whose train of his robe fills the temple. He knew the God who is from everlasting to everlasting, his Redeemer, and that’s the prism through which he served, worshipped, and had fellowship with Him. Had it been a child’s cartoonish version, replete with tractor-driving cows and sasquatch, would his faith have endured, I wonder?

It doesn’t take exhaustive research to discern the lies vomited upon the unsuspecting by self-professing heaven-hoppers, just a rudimentary knowledge of the Word of God and how ones such as John, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Paul, or Stephen described what they saw.

Just because we want to believe fables, it doesn’t make them true. Just because what is described is fanciful and imaginative, lighthearted and eccentric, it doesn’t make it Biblical. No, you didn’t sit on God’s lap, no, you didn’t braid His beard, no, you didn’t beat Him at pinochle or spend a week playing Pictionary.

2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”

Even though we knew it was coming, it’s still tragic to behold. Even though we tried to steel ourselves, it still smarts because real people are getting hurt, even though they’re the ones who sought out teachers who, rather than challenge them, rightly divide scripture, and preach the truth, would tickle their ears and speak fanciful fables to them. If you have a heart for people, you can’t help but be saddened by it, even though you know they participated in and invited their own deception while actively turning their ears away from the truth.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXVII

Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord? Perhaps once when there weren’t so many people vying for the spotlight, but nowadays you have to elbow your way through the masses, get some fresh anointing, a new revelation, something to set you apart like claiming to take trips to heaven as often as some of us commute to work, otherwise all you’ll end up being is a servant of Jesus who follows in his Master’s footsteps, and that won’t get you any air time on public access television, be sure of that!

Does it matter that nowhere in the Bible is there a precedent for being physically translated to heaven, coming back, and then making return trips every other week? Of course not! That doesn’t matter. People want to believe, and they’ll believe it because they want to believe it, even if it is wholly extra-biblical.

You’re just jealous that you never got to see the body part room in heaven, witness the grandeur of pet dinosaurs, or smell the aroma of pumpkin pie while walking through Jello-Land, which is the patented, proprietary scent of the Kingdom. Any reasonable individual would think I was poking fun, making it up, finding the most absurd word combinations I could think of, then hurriedly typing them, but no, these were actual claims of an actual person who actually deems herself a prophetess! And you wonder why so many are suspicious and skeptical of anything to do with the prophetic nowadays?

Zophar knew nothing of God’s wager with Satan, and neither did Job, for that matter. Even so, he had no qualms about declaring that Job checked off all the boxes required to be labeled a wicked man. Sure, he could hide it well enough, but then again, the wicked hide evil under their tongue, and do not forsake it.

You’re not fooling anyone with all your talk of your Redeemer living and seeing Him face to face one day. If you were the faithful man you claim to be, you would have already relented. You would already have acquiesced to our collective wisdom and confessed to the wrongdoing we know you to be guilty of. What other explanation could there be? Just because we don’t know of one instance where you have oppressed and forsaken the poor, or violently seized a house which you did not build, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

I’ve lost count of how many times the household of faith was aflutter about the imminent return of Jesus on a specific date because someone made an assumption, saw things that weren’t there, or drew conclusions without any underlying Biblical support. Each time, the reason it has to be a specific date differs, but the root cause of why someone came to their conclusion is the same. They took one passage of Scripture out of context, then assumed, presumed, guessed, contrived, and manufactured the missing parts to fill in the holes in their narrative.

We will not allow for the possibility that some things were not given for us to know, so we have to come up with a plausible explanation as to why Jesus was wrong when He said no man knows the day or the hour, not even the angels in heaven, but the Father only.

Matthew 24:36, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”

Well, yes, Jesus said that then, but he hadn’t met the blind mystic from the Eurasian peninsula, or the fellow from Nigeria who assured us that they knew exactly when Jesus would return. I’m sure after getting a thorough tour of heaven and regaling us with all the wonders it holds, from chocolate rivers to ice cream land, the frequent visitor will get around to asking when Jesus is coming back, and will be sure to let all of us know.

Does the when really matter if He doesn’t find us in peace, spotless and blameless upon His return? Does it really matter how long we have to the finish line if we’ve already given up running the race that is set before us with endurance or running in the opposite direction?

We will always find an excuse to put off doing what we know we ought to do because we’re either hoping someone else will do it or are unwilling to put in the effort.

Nobody in our family likes folding clothes. Whenever a fresh load of laundry comes out of the dryer, everyone finds something else to do that is more important and time-sensitive than taking the basket and going through the shirts, towels, pants, and other sundries, and folding them. My daughters suddenly remember they have homework, I suddenly remember I have to shovel the driveway for the third time that day, and my wife is busy either baking bread or preparing dinner.

Everyone waits for the others to finally break and start folding, and the battle of wills begins. That is, until momma bear speaks in a tone that shatters any hope of levity or mirth, and insists that everyone take their own laundry and fold it before dinner, otherwise they’ll be sitting in front of an empty plate.

Nobody’s quick about it; everyone drags their feet, but we all start folding because dinner smells good and we’re hungry.

God has not only told us what the end will look like in His word, but He has also outlined what we must do to overcome and endure to the end. Build up your faith, build up your prayer life, trust Him, follow Him, know His voice, submit to His will, and here we are saying I’ll get to all of that, but first there’s something more important I have to deal with. I’ll start taking my walk seriously, I’ll start investing my time wisely, I’ll start using my discernment to separate false hope from lasting hope, but first, there’s this one thing I need to research, there’s this one rabbit trail I need to follow, there’s this one straw I need to grasp at, and then, once that’s done, I’ll get to doing what You’ve said I must do.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXVI

 Sometimes the hubris is insufferable. You want to grab the person by the shoulders, shake them a bit, and ask, “Do you hear yourself? Do you hear what you’re saying? Do you understand the ramifications of insisting that people who were martyred for the sake of Christ will not enter the Kingdom because you deemed it so based on your personal prejudices? Do you get that in declaring that someone will be barred entry into heaven based on some arbitrary rule you determined, or some performative ceremony you insist upon is appropriating the authority of God and putting yourself in His place as judge?”

We’re no better than the people who think biological men can get pregnant sometimes. We cling to things that are demonstrably false and will not be moved from our position, no matter how many times we are proven wrong.

If Paul was a demonic plant, then Peter must have been too, yes, the selfsame Peter of whom Jesus said that upon this rock He would build His church. How so? Peter cosigned and vouched for Paul, calling him a brother. If he were a deceiver, then, by Peter calling Paul a brother in Christ, he, too, must have been deceived. 

2 Peter 3:14-16, “Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation – as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.”

Not only did Peter call Paul a brother, but he also called him beloved! Well, there you have it, Peter’s off the list now, too. There go another two books of the New Testament. Eventually, all we’ll have left of the canon of scripture is the book of Enoch and Genesis 6. Yes, I know, the book of Enoch is not contained within the canon of Scripture, but that too was a conspiracy, don’t you know. They left the best, most essential part out on purpose, they did!

The God who is sovereign over all creation missed that one! The God who knows the end from the beginning and is supreme in purpose, will, and design got this one wrong. If He were smart about it, He would have scrapped everything Paul wrote and replaced it with the book of Tobit, the book of Judith, the book of Enoch, the book of Mary, the gospel according to Nicodemus, and just for some added spice, the Protevangelion.

Full disclosure, yes, I’ve read the Apocrypha, the writings of the early church fathers, such as Origen, Polycarp, Augustine, Irenaeus, and Ignatius, as well as later writings by men such as Gurnall, Luther, Knox, Pink, Spurgeon, Bunyan, Ryle, Watson, Flavel, Tozer, Ravenhill, and a score you’ve likely never heard of, but they were never meant as a replacement or substitute for Scripture, nor are they on equal footing with it.

Since the Son of God was the only perfect man to ever walk the earth, in every case, there are things I agree with wholeheartedly and things I don’t agree with, things I understand, and, as Peter says, things that are hard to understand, but I filter them through the prism of Scripture and not personal prejudice. To some extent, we can’t help but be influenced by upbringing, personal experience, and worldview, but we cannot allow those things to dictate in such a fashion as to discount the Word of God in favor of them.

I don’t like kale. It’s a personal preference. My wife loves kale, and that too is a personal preference. The Bible does not make any determination on the consumption of kale; therefore, neither my dislike of kale nor her enjoyment of it is wrong or sinful. Sin is sin because the Bible deems it sin, and what the Bible deems sin is sin, no matter how many faux shepherds try to say otherwise.

If Aunt Trudy all of a sudden decides meat is murder, and no flesh shall evermore pass her lips, that’s her prerogative. It does not make it a doctrine. It does not make it a divine edict. It does not make her more righteous for not eating meat, just as it does not make me a sinner if I enjoy a steak on the rare occasion I can afford it. If, however, Aunt Trudy determines that her not eating meat means no one else should, and if they do, they’re headed for the lake of fire, Aunt Trudy is playing God, and one day she will answer for her missives.

Rather than being diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless, we’re spending our days and nights trying to prove how smart we are at the expense of Scripture itself. Sometimes it’s okay to sit in the corner and eat a slice of humble pie. Sometimes it’s okay to be silent and not offer a hot take on how you feel about what the Bible says. Sometimes, it is perfectly reasonable and even highly recommended that we don’t create new doctrine out of whole cloth in the hope that others see us as luminaries and wise men among fools.

Granted, it’s easier to stargaze and ruminate about Nibiru than it is to submit to the process of sanctification, molding, pruning, and refining, but Nibiru doesn’t save; Jesus does. We’re watering the potted plants while the house burns. We’re rearranging the deck chairs as the ship is sinking. We’re running out of time, but in our arrogance, we presume that God will see it our way, so what does it matter what tomorrow brings? We won’t be here to see it anyway, so back to the talk of black holes and dwarf planets we go. Who wants to hear about all that righteousness and holiness unto the Lord stuff anyway? That won’t get you much traction nowadays, and traction is what it’s all about.

Zophar’s reaction to being challenged was to take offense. I’m certain that not only will some take offense at the preceding pages, but they will also be sure to let me know loudly and repeatedly. Such is life; the more things change, the more they stay the same, and that goes double for human nature.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXV

 Being hated as a child of God is inevitable, unavoidable, and certain. Jesus said as much. The question that remains unanswered is how we react to the hatred and vitriol. Will we wither, shrink away, and attempt to blend in with our surroundings, making compromises in the hope of not being singled out and villainized, or will we stand firm in the truth that a servant is not greater than his master, and if they persecuted Him, they will surely persecute us.

It comes with the territory, and that is something we must acknowledge, be aware of, and prepare for. Given that Job was an archetype of Jesus, and though God found him blameless and upright, his friends concluded he had sinned grievously, and his household deemed him forsaken, the notion that our innocence will keep the wicked from persecuting us is flawed from its inception.

You don’t have to be guilty to be deemed guilty when those declaring themselves to be the arbiters of justice practice injustice whenever it suits them. In their eyes, your crime isn’t that you stole, murdered, lied, or cheated, but that you serve Jesus. If that’s a crime, guilty as charged.

Satan knew Job was blameless. He knew Job had not sinned, yet it did not stop him from unleashing the closest thing to hell this side of eternity against him. There is no mercy, empathy, or sympathy for the innocent. There is no kindness or compassion in him. There is no point during Job’s sifting when Satan eased back on the throttle, concluding that he’d suffered enough, or that his suffering wasn’t fair.  

Job 20:12-19, “Though evil is sweet in his mouth, and he hides it under his tongue, though he spares it and does not forsake it, but still keeps it in his mouth, yet his food in his stomach turns sour; it becomes cobra venom within him. He swallows down riches and vomits them up again; God casts them out of his belly. He will suck the poison of cobras; the viper’s tongue will slay him. He will not see the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream. He will restore that for which he labored, and will not swallow it down; from the proceeds of business, he will get no enjoyment. For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor, he has violently seized a house which he did not build.”

You can tell when someone is trying to make a rational argument, a logical counterpoint to what you’ve said, and when their emotions get the better of them, and they just unload, regardless of whether it makes sense, or there is a coherent through line. By this point, Zophar had abandoned all pretense of being comforting or conciliatory. Considering the words he spoke, it’s likely it wasn’t in a monotone voice, soft-spoken and reasonable. He was getting flustered, his ego had been bruised, and it’s not hard to imagine a wagging finger added to the mix as he expounded upon the lot of the wicked.

This wasn’t just a battle of wills; it was war, and there could only be one victor. It should have been easy enough since it was three against one, and that one was clinging on for dear life, but Job’s strength and resolve extended beyond his frail flesh because his hope was tethered, anchored, and cemented in the God he served, and though at times he gave as good as he got, he understood that his deliverance, were it to come, would not come by the hand of man, but the Almighty Himself.

The danger of presuming we possess more wisdom, knowledge, or understanding than we do is on full display in the form of Job’s friends. The entirety of their argument regarding Job and his situation was based on a fallacy, a conclusion they’d drawn based on what they saw with their eyes, without allowing for the possibility that they weren’t as wise as they thought themselves to be. We see this playing out in our modern era with startling regularity, not among those of the world, but those of the church who happen upon some tertiary issue or another and make it the nexus of their existence, going so far as to diminish the supremacy of Christ in the life of the believer in lieu of their chosen pet doctrine.

Such individuals become so entrenched and myopic in their stance as to be defined by that one issue rather than by the presence of Christ in their lives. It runs the gamut, and you’ve likely encountered such individuals at some point. Whether the conversation focuses on the timing of the catching away, if wearing a necktie is a sign of pride, whether not belonging to their particular denomination is Ichabod, aliens, giants, flat earth, or something as irrelevant as wearing a wedding band, if you disagree with their particular take you are worthy of being cast into the outer darkness, and must be disfellowshipped forthwith.

But I thought we were all members of the body of Christ. I thought that having been saved, born again, and serving Jesus as Lord, Savior, and King of my life was the only thing that mattered. Not so fast there, Sparky. Unless you address Him by His Hebrew name, you’re not really serving the real Jesus, and neither were any of those people who were tortured, murdered, and martyred for His name’s sake. They died in vain, forfeited their lives in vain, watched their sons, daughters, mothers, sisters, and wives butchered before their eyes in vain, because they didn’t know what I know, and that’s just the way it is.

And while we’re at it, that Paul guy who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament and was decapitated with Jesus on his lips, he was a demonic plant, and we know this because he called Him Jesus too. See? It all makes sense now. I’m the only one in a sea of nine billion people who knows the truth, who has the keys, who can unlock the mysteries that have been kept hidden for millennia. Well, me and my cousin Albert, because he believes exactly the same way I do!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXIV

 We cannot live with the presumption that our faith will never be tested, that we will never have to endure persecution, or that, as was the case with Job, the enemy will ask to sift us. For anyone who thinks it’s a one-off, that the only person throughout the entirety of scripture that Satan asked to sift was Job, you would be mistaken. Jesus Himself warned Simon that not only had Satan asked to sift him, but also all the disciples at that time.

Luke 22:31-32, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

If there is a biblical precedent for something, and repeated warnings throughout scripture that as wise servants we ought to be watchful, on guard, and aware that we have an enemy seeking to devour us, it is to our detriment that we dismiss them wholesale for the promise of some grinning face on a screen telling us it’s all gravy trains and biscuit wheels from here to eternity.

Paved roads, sunshine, and rainbows aplenty, and if, perchance, you get tired of all the blessings, prosperity, and inflow of miracle money, just you wait until your next breakthrough. It’ll make this one seem like child’s play, an accounting error, walking around money, because with each new seed you sow, your coffers will overflow exponentially.

In essence, we are dismissing what the Bible clearly warns of and embracing the things it never promised, all in the hope that God was wrong, man is right, and easy street is just around the corner.

Fish in a barrel is an apt metaphor for much of the contemporary church, and if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve got no one to blame for our divided, lukewarm hearts but the face staring back in the mirror. We were told to build up our most holy faith, but decided tomorrow, next week, or next year suited us better, so we put it off. We were told to pray for boldness, strength, and steadfastness, but decided calling money down from heaven would be a better use of our time. We were told he who endures to the end shall be saved, but the promise of a beachside stroll rather than a marathon was more attractive, so we’re looking out the window every thirty seconds, wondering why Jesus is late in His returning.

A wise man builds his house upon the rock because he knows that once the storm comes, there is nowhere to run, nowhere to evacuate to, and his spiritual house must be strong enough and built on the proper foundation so that it will weather the storm.

Conversely, a foolish man builds his house upon the sand because in the back of his mind, he believes he will no longer be here when the storm arrives. We can either use the time of relative peace we have left preparing for the battle that is coming, or stare at our navels, hoping it will never come. One will fare better than the other every time.

There’s a meme going around of a sign posted by a lakeshore, likely somewhere in Florida, that reads “Crocodiles do not swim here.” It’s meant as a warning, but because an exclamation mark is missing between “crocodiles” and “do not swim here,” one could misinterpret the sign and cannonball into the water without a second thought. Do we blame the sign exclusively, or does some of the blame fall at the feet of the individual who ignores the frothing waters, whipping tails, and chomping teeth of the crocodiles eagerly awaiting their next meal?

There is no such ambiguity in scripture when it comes to the believer’s role, purpose, or expectation while journeying through this world. You can’t misread the repeated passages warning of the environment of the last days, the enemy’s hatred, the vitriol of the wicked against those walking in righteousness, or the reality that we are in enemy territory. Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we are more comfortable among the enemies of the cross than we are among those carrying their crosses, are we truly followers of Jesus?

Just because they are uncomfortable, we can’t skip over the words of Jesus, who, in light of the reality that the world will hate us for His name’s sake, counseled that we ought to count the cost and see if we’re willing to pay it in full.

Not all will be called to sacrifice their positions or possessions, but some will. Not all will be called to spend endless nights in a cold cell, but some will. Not all will be called to suffer a martyr’s death, but some will. What we know with certainty is that everyone who calls Jesus Lord, everyone who has humbled themselves, picked up their cross, and followed after Him, will be hated, and if they desire to live godly in Him, they will suffer persecution. On what level, to what extent, for how long, or when is on a case-by-case basis, but all means all, and we can’t reimagine Scripture to say something different just because the truth makes us uneasy.         

The day may come when those closest to you, those you consider friends and family, will see you as an oddity, as someone who brought suffering on themselves for refusing to bend, make allowances, or compromise, seeing no further, digging no deeper, content with passing judgment and using your situation as a cautionary tale of what not to do.

At this point, if there is any lingering doubt in your heart, if you are not fully committed to the way of Christ, if the willingness to forfeit all the comforts of life and even life itself are not the overarching themes of your existence, the enemy will exploit the situation to the point of slowing your stride, stunting your surefootedness, and causing you to grow reticent about running into the arms of Jesus.

It will usually come via the tried-and-true “has God indeed said?” and the often-used “what if?” all the while insisting that it’s plain common sense to question, to query, and to wonder. The problem is that God has indeed said that the soul that sins will die, Jesus did indeed say that if we deny Him before men He will deny us before the Father in heaven, so it’s no longer an honest query or a request for clarification on a particular matter, it’s disobedience and rebellion, plain and simple.

Job knew all that he needed to know in order to endure. He didn’t know if he would be healed, he didn’t know if his wealth would be restored, he didn’t know whether he would have more children, or if he’d survive the night but he knew that his Redeemer lived, and no matter what Zophar and his other two friends attempted, no matter how far they went in the hope of discouraging him, or compelling him to question his innocence or relationship with God, he would not.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXIII

Had it not been targeted at Job, Zophar’s soliloquy could readily pass for a sermon on the fate of the wicked, and how any pleasure, prominence, wealth, or influence they might have is only temporary and fleeting. While they are ascendant, while the things of this life are plentiful and there is no storm cloud in sight, their haughtiness grows, mounting up to the heavens. They’re on top of the world, the wind in their sails, and in their eyes there is nothing that could stop them or slow them down. They conclude that excess equals God’s favor, though they know their lives do not mirror what Scripture clearly states they should. Yet their end is inevitable, and they will perish forever like their own refuse if they continue down the path of wickedness.

Whether it’s a trick of the mind or a trick of the devil depends on the individual in question, but either way, they convince themselves that superficial commitment, situational devotion, and feigned worship are sufficient to access the storehouses of heaven itself and be drowned in material things. The only thing they really have to worry about is not getting crushed by all the blessings. That, and not missing the Sunday service where they get to beat a tambourine out of tempo, and testify to the goodness of the Lord because now their driveway looks like a used-car lot, even though it’s only them and the wife who are licensed drivers. I have things, therefore I must be doing something right. I have possessions, therefore God must be overlooking my hypocrisy, duplicity, and lack of reverence.  

More people have failed the tests of prosperity than have ever failed the tests of hardship. Wealth is as much of a test to determine where your true heart and affections lie as trials and setbacks are. If we rejoice and show gratitude when the Lord giveth, but grow bitter and disillusioned when He takes away, it says much regarding how we view God, and what we believe the core of a relationship with Him ought to be.

Either we believe God’s purpose is to sanctify, purify, and perfect us however He sees fit, or we believe His purpose is to placate and give us all the stuff we want just to keep us quiet, like a toddler who starts whining, screaming, and crying the instant his pacifier is out of reach.

Toddlers don’t go to war; mature, fully grown adults do. If ever you walk into a congregation, you’ll know which is which immediately. Are they praying for power, boldness, courage, and strength to endure, or are they trying to call money down from heaven and claiming riches beyond their wildest dreams? Are they focused on the growth of their faith, their spiritual man, and their commitment to Christ, or on the flesh and the ease and comfort thereof?

If the flesh is your priority, you will inevitably sacrifice anything in service of that ideal. You’re saying if I deny Jesus, I get to keep all my toys? You’re saying if I deny Jesus, I’ll never see the inside of a prison cell or suffer the loss of anything? Pinkie promise? If yes, then you’ve got yourself a deal. I’ll just repent later or cross my fingers behind my back when I do.

Conversely, if your priority is obedience to the will of God, then nothing the world can offer or threaten you with will be enough of an incentive for you to turn your back on Him. Take it all, take me away, do as you will, but I will never deny Jesus. An easy enough declaration to make when no one’s knocking on your door, searching your house for Bibles or other religious paraphernalia, waiting in the parking lot at church to see who shows up, or when something as benign as a prayer meeting is deemed a crime worthy of a prison sentence. We can tell ourselves it will never happen here, but the Bible says it will. Whether your gut or your heart, they are untrustworthy. The Word of God, however, is true from generation to generation. What God has foretold will come to pass. It is an absolute certainty.

When such practices begin to roll out, however, when the words of Jesus regarding the world hating us for His name’s sake, persecuting us, and killing us as though we were the greatest threat to civilized society, you will see the difference between those who spoke words they never meant, and those who are fully committed to Jesus even when it costs them everything to do so.

You’ll know soon enough who’s playing at being a follower of Christ and who is an authentic follower of Christ when there is pressure and an explicit cost to doing so. Until then, words are easy to come by, especially with a sympathetic audience. Getting on a soapbox and pontificating endlessly about how we would lead the charge against the darkness if it threatened the light is a proven lie since the darkness has not only threatened the light but is making headway, and most calling themselves Christians today pretend not to see it, excuse it, or justify it by pointing to the changing times and the changing culture.

Man will always find a way to excuse faithlessness, cowardice, indecisiveness, or selfishness when he places his wants, needs, interests, and comforts above obedience and commitment to God. It’s a coping mechanism, and one that works temporarily, but eventually we will all stand before the God who judges justly, and our jumbled, self-serving excuses just won’t do.

One’s dedication and commitment cannot be half-hearted, situational, or superficial when called upon to suffer loss, privation, physical or psychological torture, and still remain steadfast, unbroken, and resolute to the last.

This isn’t some hypothetical pabulum or theoretical rumination. It’s a truth that has been proven throughout the history of mankind time and again. Wherever persecutors rose up to persecute the household of faith, those whose commitment was steadfast weathered the storms no matter how turbulent they got, while those who were there for reasons other than being lifelong bondservants of Christ either faded away or became the persecutors of those they once called brother and sister.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXII

Job 20:4-11, “Do you not know this of old, since man was placed on earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short and the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment? Though his haughtiness mounts up to the heavens, and his head reaches to the clouds, yet he will perish forever like his own refuse; Those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’ He will fly away like a dream, and not be found. Yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night. The eye that saw him will see him no more, nor will his place behold him anymore. His children will seek the favor of the poor, and his hands will restore his wealth. His bones are full of his youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in the dust.”

Human reason always assumes causality. It’s the easiest basis upon which we can conclude a particular thing, and so, we tend to take the straightest path and see in the straightest line. We dare not allow for the notion of exceptions, or the idea that we may not see as clearly as we think we do because that would diminish our perceived understanding, and compel us to humility and the acknowledging that we don’t know it all, we don’t see it all, and only One who sits above, for whom the world is as a footstool is omniscient in the truest sense of the word.

When Jesus answered the disciples’ burning question of who would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, He called a little child in the midst of them and said, “assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Thankfully, He did not call a teenager, because if He had, I’d have questions, but a little child, likely still dependent on his parents for their survival, innocent in their intent, and more importantly within the context of this discussion, self-aware enough to know they didn’t know everything, and eager to ask as many questions as needed in order to gain understanding.

We can either approach God, Scripture, or a given situation with a sense of superiority, assuming we already know all there is to know, how it’s going to play out, and how best to interpret a given text, or with the attitude of a little child, self-aware enough to know that we don’t know everything.

While one allows for teachability and even correction, the other is stiff-necked and brittle, ignoring, deflecting, and otherwise rejecting any attempt to see a given situation in a light different from the one they themselves had not considered.

If you’ve ever been around little children, you know they have questions about everything all the time. From the simplest questions, such as why is the sun bright, why is rain wet, or why do we have to take a bath more than once a week, to the more profound ones, like what happens when we die, or why do baby teeth have to fall out when they are perfectly fine. Little children are inquisitive. They always want to know why, and more often than not, they have follow-up questions.

The older we get, the more set in our ways we become, the more we grow so sure of ourselves and our assessment of a situation that merely the idea of something being other than what we’ve already concluded is anathema to us. It’s not just some of us; it’s all of us, me included, and I’ve seen this throughout the years in practical terms.

A couple of years ago, my youngest was complaining about her thumb hurting. I looked at it, saw nothing obvious, and told her as much, placating her by suggesting she might have hit her thumb while playing and not remembered it. She was adamant she hadn’t, I insisted she must have, and a day later she returned with the same complaint.

“It’s still hurting, daddy, and no, I didn’t bang my thumb on anything.” When I asked if a kiss would make it better, and she answered no, I put her on my lap and asked her to show me her thumb again. Other than a bit of redness, there was nothing there. Even though in my mind I was fully convinced that she’d somehow hit her thumb on something, because she was so adamant that she hadn’t, I turned her thumb every which way, looking at it from all sides. As I was about to give up because there was nothing there, I looked straight down, squinting at the space between her nail and the meat of her thumb, and noticed a discoloration. I gently pulled down on the fleshy part to get a better look, and sure enough, there was a splinter lodged between her nail and her thumb. It wasn’t big, I’d missed the first time, and what’s worse, because I’d already made up my mind about the cause, I’d doubted the extent of the pain she was in.

I grabbed a pair of tweezers, extracted the splinter, kissed the ouchie, and felt like the worst dad on the face of the earth for the rest of the day. I’d looked at the evidence available to me, only that which was in plain sight, and I’d come to the wrong conclusion by not giving more credence to her words.

Nothing Job had said compelled Zophar and his two other friends to view the situation in a new light, or from a fresh angle. Of all the words Job had spoken, the only thing that had gotten through to Zophar was Job’s rebuke, and he made sure to let Job know that it vexed him. Once that bit of housekeeping was done, he went right back to trying to convince Job that he had sinned, not based on any evidence, but based on the anecdotal history of past generations and how the wicked had fared in each of them.

Yes, most of the time your daughter’s thumb hurts because she banged it on something and doesn’t remember doing so, but once in a while she has a splinter that you will only see if you look closer, from a different angle, and in a new light. Not everything is as it seems to the naked eye. Not every situation has a clear explanation, neatly tied up with a bow. Mysteries abound to this day, even though there is nothing new under the sun. A wise man is humble enough to acknowledge he may not be seeing a situation as clearly as he ought, while the fool concludes no other explanation can exist besides his own.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXI

 Job 20:1-3, “Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said: ‘Therefore my anxious thoughts make me answer, because of the turmoil within me. I have heard the rebuke that reproaches me, and the spirit of my understanding causes me to answer.’”

I hear you, but I don’t hear you. I acknowledge that you spoke words, strung together to make sentences, but as far as allowing them to take root in my heart or compelling me to a bit of self-awareness or self-reflection, not so much. Since it’s all about me, and the words you spoke vex me, I’m going to go on a protracted rant that will not only invalidate anything you’ve said, but remind you that I’m right, you’re wrong, and you need to see the situation for what it is.

Your willful blindness to the depth of our wisdom is what should concern you, not that you’re a heir’s breath away from death. At least before you go, acknowledge that we were right. Admit that you’ve sinned even though you can’t remember having done so. It would make us feel so much better. That was pretty much Zophar’s opening salvo as he took it upon himself to rebuff the words Job had just spoken.

It’s worth noting that while Job spoke of his Redeemer, Him walking upon the earth, and the hope of one day seeing Him face to face, Zophar proceeded to make it all about himself, his feelings, his understanding, his worldview, and his conclusions. When everything you hear from an individual is about himself and not about the One he claims to serve, be cautious and wary when it comes to allowing their words to take root in your heart.

You and your buddies have been berating and abusing a man on the verge of death, a man you claim is your friend, insisting that he deserved worse, manufacturing sin in his life in order to justify your inferences, but the rebuke that reproached you was beyond the pale and needed a counterargument? Do tell.  

It was not the spirit of the Lord that caused Zophar to answer, but by his own words, the spirit of his understanding. There was no divine inspiration or revelation in his words, but an intellectual reaction to being challenged, wholly tethered to his understanding. You hurt my feelings! What I did and said prior to your retort matters not.

I know what I know, and nobody, not even God, will sway me from that position. My understanding is supreme! If anyone or anything challenges my understanding, then they must be wrong. What’s worse, you had the temerity to rebuke me, and it landed. It stung. I felt reproach, and that’s not something I can let go unanswered.

It is said it’s far easier to teach someone new habits than try to get them to unlearn old ones. It’s one of the reasons you should train up a child in the way he should go from the onset, so that when they are older, they will have a stable foundation upon which to grow. Be honest, be responsible, be accountable, treat others with kindness, serve Jesus, extend grace, love mercy, all these values and a slew of others are what my parents instilled in me at a young age, and what I strive to instill in my daughters. We’ve all seen the rude, obnoxious kids in the grocery store screaming and pitching a fit because they couldn’t get a third box of Coco Puffs. It’s because they are not being trained but allowed to do as they will to their detriment and their parents’ shame. Getting them to unlearn these habits is a monumental task, and most end up being rude, obnoxious adults because it’s all they’ve ever known.

A clean slate is just that. Something that can be written upon without the added effort of having to wipe down the doodles, and half-fleshed out thoughts, ideas, or machinations of an already used slate.

During my first year of high school, the Spanish teacher had to share a classroom with the math teacher, alternating periods, and each time, without fail, the Spanish teacher would get heated because the math teacher didn’t bother to wipe down the chalkboard at the end of her class.

The quietest the room ever got was during the first few minutes of Spanish class, when we all wanted to hear what the teacher was mumbling under his breath as he used the dry eraser to erase the numbers, fractions, and equations from the chalkboard. Since he was American, his outbursts usually came in English, and some of the students took to translating what he’d said into Spanish and quoting it back to him just to see him get red in the face.

The point is that it takes more time and effort to explain to someone who considers themselves spiritual that it really doesn’t mean anything, and that they need to repent and be born again, than to take an individual who acknowledges their need for a savior and point the way to Jesus. Whether it’s praying the rosary or praying to Mary, going to confession via a priest, all of these practices need to be unlearned, and those in authority must possess enough patience, wisdom, and knowledge of Scripture to explain why.

Why can’t I pray to Mary? Because Mary doesn’t save, Jesus does. Why can’t I go to a priest for confession? Because there already exists a mediator between man and God, and that is Jesus. Why can’t considering myself a good person, a moral person, or a spiritual person ensure my eternity in God’s presence? Because your righteousness, noble deeds, selfless endeavors, or spirituality are as filthy rags before a holy God, and only being made clean through His Son’s blood will allow you to be welcomed into His kingdom. It’s not an accident that Jesus is the center of everything. He already told us as much when He said, I am the truth, the way, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me! Anything that takes away from the supremacy, sufficiency, and exclusivity of Jesus is wrong, no matter how right it may seem to our own eyes.

When we care more about being right than about the truth, we enter murky territory that fosters callousness and breeds indifference toward anyone other than ourselves. Whether intellectual superiority and elitism, or spiritual superiority and elitism, their roots are intertwined and take succor from the same source: pride. This was the frame of mind Zophar found himself in, and if his fake outrage at Job for having hurt his feelings achieved his desired end, he had no qualms about using it to its fullest.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCX

Speaking of my wife’s job, nearly half of her clients are individuals who, having tried to fix it themselves, realized they were in over their heads, and in trying to make it better, they just ended up making it worse. I mean, how difficult can it really be? A wall here, a buttress there, a vaulted ceiling and some arched doorways, and you’re in business.

After months, if not years, of wasted effort, money, and time, they had to swallow their pride and admit they couldn’t do it on their own; they had neither the skill nor the ability to carry out the project and make come to fruition what they imagined in their minds, and finally sought the help of a professional.

The hard truth they faced was that not only would they have to redesign their adobe, but they also had to tear down the things they had tried to do themselves because they were incongruent with the project as a whole.

Spiritually speaking, many today follow the same path, fall in the same snare, and not only do they have to be built up from the ground up, but they also have to undo and unlearn all the things they tried on their own before they came to the realization they couldn’t do it on their own.

Raise your hand, say this prayer, send a check, and you’re good to go! But what about being discipled? What about having some notion of the direction I’m supposed to be headed in? Do you perchance have a blueprint or a general outline of what the end result should look like? Oh, I’m sure you can figure it out. I’ve got to go make fifty videos about how a thousand people got saved the other night, so I’m a little tight on time, but make sure to like, comment, and subscribe to the videos I’ll be putting out. Engagement is essential, and the algorithm rewards participation.

But what about growing, maturing, and understanding the deeper things of Scripture? What about going beyond the milk of the Word to something denser? Oh, you know, just feel your way through it. It’s like telling someone to go buy lumber, nails, and a hammer, then once they’ve done that, expecting them to build a craftsman home from the ground up with no instruction, direction, or idea of what it should look like. Then we’re shocked that so many are spiritually stunted, have no relationship with the God they claim to serve, or have never approached Him after that one night when they said the sinner’s prayer in a hushed tone.

To be fair, there’s also the other side of the coin, wherein people who’ve never held a hammer or used a saw are keen on telling you how to build your own house. They got saved on a Tuesday, and by Friday, they’re reimagining Scripture, questioning the purpose of Christ’s being born, insisting that He is not sufficient, and there’s a plethora of other things you need to do to be saved, then declare themselves prophets to the nations which you must obey as though it were God Himself standing before you asking you to give generously.

It’s like taking marriage advice from newlyweds on their honeymoon. What do you know about it, exactly? I’m sure for the week you’re on a beach, waking up every morning with the sun warming your face with no worries and no concerns, it’s as easy as a Sunday morning, but let’s talk after a decade or two, a couple of health scares, a miscarriage, conversations about budgeting, or having to care for your wife or husband for an extended period of time while they’re bedridden.

Perhaps then, it won’t seem so easy, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. Nothing worth having in life comes easy. That’s just a sales pitch that unscrupulous people resort to when trying to get you to buy their course. A seven-figure passive income without a dollar out of pocket? Sign me up. The course costs five grand? What about the no out-of-pocket money thing? Oh, you mean after I give you the five grand? Got it, thanks.

A warrior does not become seasoned in a vacuum. A warrior becomes seasoned through battle, building upon the experiences of having stood toe to toe with the enemy and not flinching away. Seasoning, maturing, or growing in God, for that matter, takes time, even if it’s not what some might want to hear. It’s not about a diploma or a certificate of completion of some online seminary; it’s about lived experience and walking with God purposefully and consistently.

Your faith in God grows and expands as you journey through life following after Him. Had Job not had his lived experience regarding the faithfulness of God as a foundation, it would have been a short book indeed. Two chapters in, and Job would have been vanquished, his doubt overwhelming any desire to endure, but this was a seasoned warrior, one who had seen the hand of God at work time and time again, and who understood finishing a race is as important as starting it, if not more so.

The glory, the reward, the culmination of one’s labors in life are at the finish line. It’s the desire to hear well done, good and faithful servant that makes the trials, hardships, and valleys of life tolerable, while having the added benefit of refining us, maturing us, and teaching us reliance on the God we serve. I know my Redeemer lives. Five words that resonate with every believer. Five words the contemplation of which could fill entire libraries. Five words that give us hope in the midst of despair, that provide us with peace in the midst of chaos, and that give us joy in the midst of heartbreak.

You can know all there is to know about moon cycles, constellations, ancient civilizations, and the letter of the law, but if you do not know that your Redeemer lives, it’s all for naught. Job knew! Although his flesh was withering, his servants abandoned him, his friends judged him harshly without evidence or merit, Job knew his Redeemer lived, and that gave him the strength to press on.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCIX

 Not one of the major themes that Job hits upon in the last eight verses of this chapter could have been intuited by human reason or logic. Whether speaking of a future time when He shall stand at last on the earth, or the resurrection of the dead, wherein Job declares that in his flesh he would see God, or that in the end there is a judgment, all of these were divinely inspired utterances meant to resonate through time, left for the generations that would follow as a testament, and a testimony.

What may seem obvious to us today, given that we have the canon of Scripture, and that the birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection of the Christ have already taken place, wasn’t so obvious to the people of Job’s time. It was pure revelation, and although God did not intervene in Satan’s sifting of Job, these divine insights helped to sustain him through the trial he was enduring.

If you’ve walked with God for any length of time, you can look back and identify the moments when, at your lowest, He spoke encouragement to you, when, at your most desperate, you’ve felt the touch of His hand. It wasn’t your high IQ mind coming up with the perfect balm for your pain; it wasn’t your resilience or ability to pull yourself up by the bootstraps that gave you that extra burst of peace, joy, or comfort; it was God, His presence, and His love that saw you needed it.

We tend to take credit for what God does in our lives. I’ve heard some variation of I worked on myself, or I healed myself, more times than I could count, and what so few realize is that none of us possess the tools to fix ourselves. None of us possesses the knowledge or ability to heal ourselves.

It’s one thing to try to fix something that broke if you knew what it was supposed to look like when it was whole. The problem is that absent God, man was never whole. Man was never fixed. Man was never right. The best any man can do without the aid, presence, and restoration of Christ’s blood washing them and making them clean is a less broken version of themselves, but never really whole. A less sickly version of themselves, but never truly healed.

There are programs, centers, and clinics aplenty trying to circumvent the need for Jesus. Even when we acknowledge our frailty, we refuse to recognize it fully. We still think we can patch a bullet hole with a Band-Aid and be right as rain. I don’t need to surrender my life to Christ, I don’t need to repent and humble myself; all I need is thirty days in rehab, says the man whom the staff knows on a first-name basis because of all the times he’s been a guest.

If you break your finger, taking aspirin will not heal it; it will just numb the pain, and even that is only temporary.

God doesn’t deal in pain management; He deals in healing. He restores, transforms, and makes new, not partially, but fully. He cauterizes the open wounds of betrayal, disappointment, self-loathing, doubt, fear, inadequacy, trauma, and hurt with His love, and once the wounds are closed, He doesn’t just paint over the scars but makes the entire heart new.

A new heart does not possess the old desires. A new heart does not possess the old yearnings. A new heart receives a new purpose, and the things that once brought it joy and pleasure are as dross and rubbish.

My wife is an interior designer by trade. She is phenomenal at her job. Sometimes, people mistake her for a decorator. They just want some new curtains, or some sconces, perhaps a fresh coat of paint, or some crown molding, just to spruce up the place, but not really change anything beyond the superficial. She then has to inform the individuals that it’s not what she does.

Her job is to take an existing structure and remodel it completely. Tear down walls, move pipes, gut the place down to the timbers, and rebuild it differently, all of which require time and labor, because while you can hang some new curtains over lunch, it takes weeks if not months to demo an entire home, frame new walls, install new floors, and bring in new appliances.

If you’re looking for a decorator, God’s not what you’re looking for. There are life coaches, therapists, and specialists aplenty for those things. If you’re looking to make the existing you less hideous to the eye while remaining the same in your heart, there are beauticians, nail salons, fashion gurus, and a glut of makeup companies eager to take your hard-earned money with little to show for it at the end of the day.

Superficial change does not require divine intervention. Transformation, however, requires not only God’s active presence but your voluntary consent to be transformed and made new. God will do the work, but you must allow Him to do it.

In conversation with my wife, she’s made it crystal clear that the most tedious clients are the ones who constantly second-guess everything and question every decision. Why can’t we just do away with this wall entirely? Because it’s a load-bearing wall, and if we remove it, you’ll be wearing your roof for a hat. Why can’t we just extend this part of the house by a couple of feet? Because it would end up on our neighbor’s land, and he will likely sue you into homelessness.

If you’ve submitted yourself to God, trust that God knows what He is doing. Yes, everything He removes, prunes, or otherwise demands that you must repent of is necessary. You need a new roof because the old one is leaking. You need new siding because your home has termites. You need a new heart because your old one is riddled with sin, and it cannot carry the presence of God in its current state.

God is not a decorator. He is a designer, demo crew, and expert builder all in one. He knows what He is doing, and if you neither despise the chastening of the Lord nor detest His correction, but submit to His will, you will be in awe of the finished product.            

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCVIII

 If someone’s friendship, respect, or loyalty is contingent on what you can do for them, just know that, much as they might insist that they’ll be with you through thick and thin, it’s situational, and once you can no longer provide the thing they’re after, they will be the first to disavow you.

We see this happening in churches nowadays, where the prominent members get preferential treatment, are pandered to, are placed in the front row and fawned over, but the moment they’re no longer able to write the checks, or their name wanes in popularity, and it’s no longer profitable for the preacher to associate himself with them, they’re discarded. Such individuals are within their rights to feel like they were used, whether for their money or their clout, because that’s precisely what happened.

Not only do they begin to grow bitter and disillusioned, but they also readily come to the conclusion that everyone’s the same, the whole church family thing is a farce, and they become resentful toward God Himself.

Whether prince or pauper, we are all the sheep of God’s pasture. When those in authority place value on something someone can offer rather than the individual himself, it always ends in disaster because it’s not the way the Word of God tells us the household of faith should operate. As one body, those who can help those who need it, but that does not make them superior to those in need.

While we busy ourselves mimicking the church of Corinth, we should acknowledge that they weren’t held up as an example to be followed, but a cautionary tale to be avoided. They did the same thing two thousand years ago: the rich sitting and congregating with the rich, the poor set apart and looked down upon, and when Paul wrote his letters to them, he gave them no quarter, nor did he excuse their behavior.

As Job’s trial progressed, so did his isolation and loneliness. We are not given to know when his own servant would no longer answer his call, but it likely occurred later than when his hardship commenced. The servant had seen Job’s trials intensify day after day and at some point had concluded that he wasn’t worth the bother. He wasn’t long for this world, so what did it matter if he pretended not to hear his master’s call? Herein lies the difference between a principled, honorable individual and an unethical one.

There is a broader theme here, one we can learn from, because oftentimes the servant takes it upon himself to covet the position of his master, and in so doing uses every opportunity to undermine him. When you see individuals who are meant to be servants disagreeing with the written word of the Master, you know that they are not content being a servant, but desire to usurp the authority of the one whom they claim to serve. They pretend not to hear His voice when He warns them to repent; they ignore His word when it gives explicit instructions about what the office demands, all the while hoping that men will look to them as the authority rather than to God.

I don’t care how well-known, how prominent, or how many titles the individual has assigned himself; if he attempts to downplay, disregard, or usurp the authority of scripture and make it his own, he is to be marked and avoided. He is no longer serving the Master faithfully but attempting to become a master in his own right. Unfortunately for them, there can be only one Master, and anyone other than Christ is a cheap imitation, floundering about, trying to magnify their own relevance at the expense of Jesus.

The one silver lining in this otherwise melancholic situation is that once your fair-weather faux-friends have gone, you realize God remains, and He is sufficient. The way forward for Job was now clear. He saw both the vanity of all things, the faithlessness of friends, family, and servants, and the all-importance of knowing God all at once.

God replaces every bullet point on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Instead of needing self-actualization, God. Instead of needing safety, esteem, or security, God. Instead of needing love from others or a sense of belonging, you have the love of God and know that you belong to Him.

God isn’t just one aspect in the believer’s life; He is everything in the life of the believer. He isn’t just an outer shell covering up a patchwork of hubris, rebellion, disobedience, doubt, and indecision, so those we come in contact with don’t shrink back in horror. When we are born again, we are transformed, made new, emptied of what we once were that we may be filled with Him, His presence, His Spirit, and His purpose for our lives.

Whether it’s Job’s declaration that he knew his Redeemer lives, and one day he would see Him for himself, or Paul’s testimony of having counted all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, both men had come to the same conclusion: God above all! God above my will, my desires, my wants, my needs, and my very life.

All of Him for half of you doesn’t work. Picking up your cross and following after Him on weekends, then doing whatever you want the rest of the week, doesn’t work either. Declaring yourself to be an ambassador of Christ when it costs you nothing, then shrinking away and denying Him like you were Peter by a bonfire at the slightest pushback, means you were never truly His to begin with, because true worship, obedience, and servitude aren’t situational.

Job’s faith in God gave him the eyes to see beyond his present situation. It gave him eyes to see the glory that would come, that once his skin was destroyed, he would see God in His glory and majesty. Faith allows us to see beyond our present struggles and gives us spiritual eyes to see the future glory. Faith doesn’t give us hope for a better tomorrow, but assurance of an eternity in His presence.         

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCVII

 A stranger is a stranger. They don’t know you, you don’t know them, and for the most part, their opinion holds little weight. Your spouse and a stranger can say the same thing, in the same tone, with the same inflection, and the one spoken by your spouse will smart far worse than the words of the stranger.

It’s not the stranger that abandons you, it’s those closest to you. It’s also when you feel the pain of it more thoroughly, because those now pretending not to know you were the selfsame people who sat at your table, ate your food, and enjoyed your company. Job was discovering how fickle his inner circle was, how situational their feigned loyalty and friendship, because those who had once crowded around him, vying for his attention, had now become completely estranged from him.

It was not Job’s choice; it was their choice, and now Job lamented the reality of having had fair-weather friends all along and not realizing it. It’s inevitable that people grow apart as they journey through life. People you once called friends in your teens likely aren’t the same people in your fifties. People move, they get married, they have children, and the friendships you thought would have permanence and be part of your life until its twilight wane, and falter.

What Job was experiencing wasn’t growing apart over time, but abandonment the moment he was no longer the prosperous, powerful man he had been up until his moment of testing came. There isn’t much you can do about choosing your family, but you do have agency when it comes to choosing your friends. Choose wisely; otherwise, when you need them most, they’ll disappear into the ether as though they were never there.

Being abandoned during seasons of trial is not something we fear or concern ourselves with when it comes to God, because He has promised that He will neither leave us nor forsake us. There is steadfastness and permanence in the promises of God, and when He says He changes not, He means it. For those who’ve never been abandoned or forsaken by friends or family, it may sound nice and comforting, but it will not resonate on the level that it will with those who’ve gone through such an experience.

The reason abandonment by those closest to us in our time of need feels so raw and painful is also due to the implied betrayal. In many cases, they don’t just grow indifferent but outright hostile, likely because deep down they know they’re in the wrong, don’t want to admit it, and choose to lash out.  

Only those who’ve truly been hungry understand the value of a warm meal and appreciate it far beyond someone who’s never been forced to miss one, not because they chose to, but because there was nothing to eat, ever will. The same goes for being cold or thirsty, because once you’ve experienced privation of any sort, you become more grateful, thankful, and appreciative when what you were deprived of becomes readily accessible.

My daughters do not appreciate freedom to the same extent I do because all they’ve ever known is freedom. I grew up in a communist country, saw the toll it took on my parents, and experienced the heavy-handed practices of authoritarianism to the point that being left alone by the powers that be and not dictated to regarding the minutest of details regarding my personal life is considered a gift and a grace.

It’s because they’ve never experienced it that a particular segment of the population is endlessly droning on about totalitarian governments and that we’re living in one. Those who come from former communist block countries, who grew up in true totalitarianism, can’t help but roll their eyes and think to themselves, just you wait. If you think this is totalitarianism, when it finally does arrive on our doorstep, you will be stunned into paralysis.

It doesn’t matter who you are; we all filter present experiences through the prism of past experiences. If you’ve ever been bedridden for a prolonged period of time, then when someone you know, whether friend or family, goes through a similar trial, your first impulse is to sympathize and empathize with them rather than try to crack a joke about how it must be fun to just lie around all day.

If they’ve never gone through it, all they see is someone propped up on some pillows, whittling the day away. They don’t see the muscle cramps, the bed sores, and the atrophied muscles, and they do not understand that the comfy bed eventually starts feeling like a prison, one which the individual in question would do anything to escape.

Job had already stated that he would have been a better friend to the three men who were berating him had they been in his situation. He had come to realize that it extended beyond the three to everyone he knew and to everyone he thought he could rely on if ever the need arose. That is a hard pill to swallow for any man, and had Job not had the relationship with God that he did, it could have very well been the nail in his coffin of desperation.

It is a cruelty that cannot be understated, to be abandoned by family, friends, brothers, and acquaintances when you need them the most. Never be stingy with your kindness. Never be stingy with an encouraging word or with providing a shoulder for someone to cry on. It’s those small, random acts of kindness that mean more to those on the receiving end than you will ever know.

All it would have taken for Job to see his world a bit brighter and have some hope infused into his countenance would have been for one of his friends to say, I believe you, I’ll pray with you, for you, intercede on your behalf, and cry out to God because there must be something more to the story than what we currently perceive. Not a high bar, or unachievable ideal by any means, but even so, everyone in Job’s life fell short.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCVI

Just as there is a difference between knowing and presuming, there is a difference between acknowledging that while God can do all things, and nothing is impossible for Him, it is within His purview, in light of His omniscience and ultimate purpose for your life, whether or not He will. Yes, God can. Will He? That is an altogether different question, the answer to which is dependent on whether what you are asking for is in harmony with Scripture and if receiving it will lead to greater sanctification for your spiritual man.

If we are asking for things that will make the flesh more comfortable while being detrimental to our spiritual man, because He loves us, and His purpose for us extends beyond this present life, God will say no. We may not see it as a kindness, a blessing, or a grace in the moment, but given enough time, in hindsight, we will come to understand that God said no for our own good.

If you have children, odds are you’ve had to say no to them at some point. It likely wasn’t because you didn’t love them, or were indifferent to them, but you understood that eating a three-pound block of chocolate fudge in one sitting likely wouldn’t have a positive outcome. Yes, they really wanted it, pleaded for it, insisted that they wouldn’t get a tummy ache, or that the sugar rush wouldn’t keep them up half the night, bouncing off the walls and asking what board game we could play at a quarter past midnight, but as a parent, you knew better.

You knew that even though they meant it when they said they wouldn’t get sick, once they consumed the entire block of fudge, they would not have control over the outcome. They could not control whether they got sick or not.

God tells us in His word that sin kills. It’s an across-the-board statement that allows for no exceptions or carveouts. Yes, there are some who, having read what the Bible says, roll their eyes and insist that they will be the exception to the rule, that although sin might kill weaker men, it will not bring them low. Although they might believe wholeheartedly that they can walk the fine line between God and the world, juggle satisfying the appetites of the flesh and being pleasing in God’s sight, by the time they figure out they overestimated the magnitude of their self-restraint and ability to say no, it’s too late.

The Word instructs us to flee youthful lust, abstain from every form of evil, and resist the devil, not because God doesn’t want us to have any fun, blow off some steam, or make merry. He instructs us not to do them for our own good, knowing that their end is death and destruction, and His desire for us is to have life, and life more abundantly.

That some have convinced themselves God is miserly because He tells us to walk circumspectly, pursue righteousness, pray without ceasing, rejoice always, and hold fast to what is good, reveals their ignorance of both God’s character and the dangers of sin. It’s like one’s children thinking their mother a villain for insisting that they eat their broccoli and putting the fudge in the high cupboard. If you do not possess enough maturity to see the benefits of what God instructs in His Word, the worst thing you can do for yourself is grow bitter and resentful and conclude that you know better.  

We can tell ourselves that if a sack of money dropped out of the sky, we would use every dime to do good, show charity, and be magnanimous, and perhaps even mean it at the time. That does not ensure that we will follow through once the money falls from the sky, and rather than causing our love for Him to wane and be replaced by the love of money, God declines our request.

I know individuals personally whose entire lives would be turned to ruin if they ever had more than four figures in their bank accounts. Whether it’s an addictive personality or an inability to budget, whatever sum would show up would summarily be squandered, with a bit extra to boot, making the latter end for them worse than the beginning.

If the end result of what we ask for is not God’s glory, then although God can, for our own good, He will politely decline the request. If our first reaction to God saying no to something we’ve been asking for is, that’s not fair, it reveals the truth that we were not seeking His kingdom, but the things of this world, which, had we been given them, would serve as both shackle and quicksand for our spiritual man; Ever sinking, yet unable to escape.

If you want to have it your way, Burger King is still an option. If you want it God’s way, then by definition you must submit to His authority, His will, His sovereignty, and His plan for your life. The reason so many find spiritual progress slow and difficult is because they’re spending their days digging in their heels, resisting the urging of the Holy Spirit, and attempting to debate God on whether where He is leading them is the best possible path. You see, they’ve done their research. They read dissenting opinions on the interwebs, and they seemed more practical and in harmony with their five-year plan than just praying, fasting, reading the Word, and spending time with God. All of that seems so tedious. Why not fork over the three grand, get yourself an authentic, freshly printed prophetic degree, and proceed to be the prophet to the nations you always knew yourself capable of being?

Where He leads, I will follow is simple enough in theory, but what if He leads where the flesh doesn’t want to go? Do I have to submit to His will? Yes, yes, you do. Life is easy when it’s easy, as are obedience, faithfulness, and living out your convictions. It’s when the road gets hard and what we are tasked with requires sacrifice and self-denial on a grand scale that we must be determined to press on, continuing to follow after Him, knowing He will lead us to green pastures and still waters. Try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, it’s not about us, but about Him, and His working through us to bring about His glory in us. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.