Job CCXXIII

 When a man is wise in his own eyes, it’s difficult to get him to acknowledge the flaws in his logic. You’d have an easier time rolling a boulder up a hill while on crutches than getting them to concede that, although, generally speaking, their words are valid, and their conclusions are apt, in this specific context, they are flawed, and do not apply.

It’s not as though Job hadn’t tried to convince his friends that they were barking up the wrong tree. It’s not as though he hadn’t pointed out time and again that he was not guilty of the wickedness they’d assumed him guilty of because of what he was going through. He had repeatedly, yet in their hubris, they would not allow for another possibility than the one they’d already come to.

Professing to be wise, thinking oneself wise, and being wise are neither the same thing nor are they interchangeable. Anyone can profess to be wise. Anyone can claim wisdom. Only God can determine who is wise indeed. What makes a man wise? That is the fundamental question. Is it the piece of paper from the online seminary that makes one wise? Is it being a professional student collecting degrees like some people collect baseball cards? Is it a position you hold? Is it a title you possess, or is it something else?

As is always the case, the Word of God has the answer, and it is neither opaque nor difficult to understand.

Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

The first step on one’s journey toward wisdom is the fear of the Lord. That’s what the Book says. Absent the fear of the Lord, one cannot hope to attain true wisdom, no matter how many classes they take, how many workshops they attend, or how many sweaty hands are laid upon their heads, imparting wisdom to them. The fear of the Lord is the environment in which wisdom can grow, flourish, broaden, deepen, and mature. Without it, true wisdom is always out of reach, ethereal, and unattainable.

Proverbs 26:12, “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.”

Harsh? Perhaps. True? Undeniably so. It’s evident in every arena and on a daily basis. You have individuals who are wise in their own eyes with the degrees to prove it, unable to answer a question as fundamental as whether men can get pregnant. Anyone could be stumped by a question, I guess, but I never thought anyone would get stumped by that specific question.

Ask a farmer, a welder, a fisherman, or a handyman the same question, and although they might not have diplomas gracing the walls of their shack, they can answer the question without missing a beat because while one is wise in their own eyes, the other has basic common sense that goes a long way to proving wisdom.

A degree from Harvard or Yale is not the beginning of wisdom, but the fear of the Lord is. All the things the world obsesses about, focuses on, and sacrifices its time to don’t amount to anything more than stroking one’s vanity, especially if what you’re learning doesn’t apply to everyday life, if you haven’t learned a skill, whatever that skill might be, or if you don’t add any value to anyone but your ego.

It’s why you have people with college degrees working at the local Piggly Wiggly. You have a degree in liberal arts with a minor in indigenous Peloponnesian women’s fashion of the seventeenth century? That’s fabulous, congratulations. Now remember, you have to double-bag anything made of glass or that weighs more than three pounds. Oh, and remember to smile and wish the customers a good day.

A piece of paper saying you are educated is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay you in order to ply your trade and put your skills to use. Evidently, knowing the ins and outs of Peloponnesian high fashion in the seventeenth century is worth precisely $12.50 an hour.

There is only one way to gauge true wisdom, and that is whether or not the individual possesses the fear of the Lord. It is a wisdom that acts as a guiding light, as a prism by which you make the choices you make and pursue the things you pursue.

If the fear of the Lord is at the forefront of your mind daily, you will inherently understand the futility of this present world and the things thereof and set your sights firmly upon Christ and the cross. There will be no turning, no second-guessing, no feeling of regret for not having taken a different road or pursued a different vocation. He satisfies. His presence and power never wither nor fade, for His mercies are new every morning.

Those who say Jesus is not enough and go on endless crusades to convince others to likewise deconstruct their faith never really knew Jesus. They may have read of Him, heard of Him, seen others in true relationship with Him, waved a hand, said a prayer, had an intellectual understanding of who He is, but as far as feeling His indwelling presence, love, peace, comfort, and joy, they never did. How could I be so certain? Because once you feel the presence of God, everything else is dim and unsatisfying. Once you know Him as Lord, King, and Master of your life, there is no going back to the bondage and despair of yesterday.

It’s no accident that those who decide to deny the Lordship of Christ, deconstruct their faith, and insist that they’re now spiritual rather than saved and sanctified find the tallest rooftops from which they can announce their rebellion. You don’t see such rabid denunciation of anything else in their lives, yet this is the one thing they have to be loud and proud about. No one’s out there screeching how they left their wife, left their job, or left their pet pug on the side of the road, but the chorus of those who left Christianity behind is growing ever louder, and it’s with a purpose. The purpose is to demoralize those who are still walking faithfully with Jesus, and hoping to plant seeds of doubt in their hearts. It is a tool of the enemy, and these individuals are being used by Satan, whether wittingly or unwittingly.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXXII

 Two things can be true at the same time. Water is both necessary for the continuity of life, but it can also kill. You can’t go without water for more than three days, but you can also drown in a pond if you don’t know how to swim.

God can be love and an all-consuming fire simultaneously. In fact, He is both of these things. The contemporary church has been laser-focused on His love for so long that they’ve forgotten, dismissed, or ignored that He is also an all-consuming fire. It’s the only rational explanation as to why so many take liberties with Him, speak in His name, or shamelessly make up lies regarding their stature in His eyes, and how they’ve gotten to experience what no individual in the Bible has.

Look at me! Look at me! I’m not just your average, run-of-the-mill special; I’m extra special, the most special, and I know that because I got a guided tour of heaven in my physical form and was even asked to give God my two cents about how to better run the universe! Sorry, pumpkin, but being delusional nowadays isn’t special; it’s ordinary and commonplace.

Even those who had a glimpse into the spiritual world, those who had the honor of seeing beyond the physical, were so rare as to stand out throughout the four-thousand-year span of the Biblical record. Through it all, there doesn’t seem to have been a shortage of false prophets, seers, revelators, or teachers, but the supply of the authentic was always finite in comparison. That should tell us something, but our need for experience over relationship makes us disregard what was for the illusion of what could be.

There will always be more false prophets than true prophets of God. There will always be more false teachers than true ministers of the Word who rightly divide it. It has always been the case, and will continue to be thus until the return of Jesus. The only thing that has changed from generation to generation is the numbers, not as far as percentages, but the volume itself. The more populated the earth becomes, the more false prophets there will be, because the enemy understands the math behind deception more readily than most preachers.

Technology has also allowed them to reach a broader audience, or in fishermen's parlance, get more lines in the water, and the more lines you have in the water, the likelier the chance of getting a nibble.

Could you imagine the sort of following David Koresh would have had, had all the social media platforms been around when he was trying to convince everyone he was the reincarnate Christ? The wise among us still would have pointed out that Jesus needing coke bottle glasses seemed a bit iffy, but the reach would have been broader, and the gullible would have been more numerous, to be sure.

People without an anchor, those who are not rooted in Christ and the Word, tend to gravitate toward extremes, however those extremes might manifest themselves. Rather than purposefully picking up their crosses and following after Jesus, they spend their days ricocheting from one guardrail to the other, like some out-of-control projectile, until they reach terminal velocity and leap over the guardrail altogether.

I’ve seen people oscillate between insisting you have to wear homespun linen tunics to church, and insisting you can show up in a wife-beater and a pair of board shorts, to then giving up on going to church altogether because those in attendance were unwilling to submit themselves to them and follow their meandering path.

Jesus is not some fixed point off in the distance, so far away that He’s almost imperceptible, giving us license to wander about on switchbacks until we end up in the same spot we started. He is near, right before us, and sticks closer than a brother, keeping pace, and leading us the way we must go.

I’ve never once considered what I was wearing when the trials of life were so pronounced that the only thing I could do was fall on my face before God and weep. It’s in those moments that the pretense, posturing, and pontification of whether you should use cologne or have gel in your hair when you come before God are stripped away and become irrelevant. When your heart is overwhelmed, there is nothing performative about your brokenness, nor are you concerned about how others perceive you in that moment.

What will others say if they see me crying? Who cares? What will others say if they see me fall on my face before God with groanings and heart cries? Who cares? I am not in the presence of God to impress others or elevate their opinion of me or my spiritual maturity. I am in the presence of God to feel His embrace, to feel His comfort, to feel His joy and His peace that surpasses understanding.

Job wasn’t looking to impress anyone. He didn’t care what anyone thought of him. It’s obvious he wasn’t looking his best. He was not wearing fine linens, nor was he freshly bathed. He no longer held any clout with his contemporaries or even those of his own household. He was at his lowest, likely lower than any of us have ever been, so much so that we cannot fully relate to his situation. Chances are his flesh reeked of putrefaction as he lay in a pile of ashes, but God still heard him when he cried out, and did not turn away because he wasn’t wearing his Sunday best.

The only ones who will judge your appearance for good or ill are other people. God cares not for your garments, whether they are made of linen or cotton, whether they are freshly pressed or have some wrinkles to them. There’s no bouncer at the door checking if you’re freshly shaven or if you’re wearing cologne. He looks at the heart, for that is what He desires to make His throne.

But what about the man who didn’t have on a wedding garment at the king’s feast? If it’s true that you don’t have to wear a three-piece suit to approach God, why was that man kicked out? That was a parable not about the outer garments of the individual but the inward condition of his heart. If you plan on attending the wedding feast of the Lamb, then know that His expectation is that you be washed, made clean, born again, transformed, and sanctified, without spot or wrinkle, for nothing wicked or defiled will enter His kingdom. You can’t sneak your way into heaven. You can’t fake your way into His wedding feast. There is a list, and if your name isn’t on it, there’s no one you can bribe, cajole, or intimidate into letting you in.

What Jesus said to Nicodemus holds true to this day, and beyond to the last day: unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXXI

 The difference between Zophar’s accusations against Job and what is happening in much of the church, as far as sin being exposed, is that Zophar had no witnesses against Job; no one had accused him of committing acts of wickedness, it was just a conclusion Zophar and his friends had come to based on the fact that Job was suffering.

Let’s not get it twisted here, because I know there’s bound to be someone eager to defend a wolf who will conflate what Zophar did with what is happening in the church, and conclude that perhaps the dozen witnesses who tell the same story of inappropriate touching by a man that could be their grandfather while using their spiritual authority to perpetrate his evil is the same thing by a different name.

Job was a blameless and upright man by God’s standard, and whom God declared as such. Some of these monsters are so heinous in their criminality that they deserve to be thrown in a dungeon and have the key melted down to slag. The two are not the same. They don’t belong in the same hemisphere, never mind in the same category.   

Men err. Men make assumptions that later prove to be false. Men interpret what they see and come to the wrong conclusions so often as to make it a certainty that if it hasn’t happened yet, it will happen in the near future. God, on the other hand, does not err; He does not make assumptions but knows all things.

If you are an individual giving an opinion regarding some event or situation, you’re allowed to be wrong, you’re allowed to make a mistake, and the honest ones will come out and say as much. If, however, you are an individual claiming to speak on behalf of God, you have no such luxury. You can’t back paddle or obfuscate and say you got it wrong because your previous claim was that you were speaking for God. Either you must admit it was you and not Him, and you claimed His authority to increase your standing, or insist that the omniscient God of the universe gave you the wrong info.

People who insist they are never wrong about anything are dangerous. People who claim prophetic insight and get it wrong are more dangerous still because they present their conclusions as originating from God and should therefore be received as the authoritative voice of the Divine. There is a reason for the harsh words directed at those who claim to speak on behalf of God when God has not spoken.

Deuteronomy 18:20-22, “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’ – when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously you shall not be afraid of him.”

Why was the standard so high? Because these men spoke words in the name of the Lord, and the people feared them for the authority they walked in. It wasn’t some trivial thing; it still isn’t, and God has not changed His view on the matter.

It’s not that we’ve lowered the standard of true prophetic utterances; we’ve eliminated them altogether. It’s the fuel that feeds the fires of deception, and with each newly minted prophet, the sheep soon realize is no prophet at all, only after they’ve hurt, wounded, misled, and shipwrecked people’s faith, there is a new slew of excuses trying to shield them from criticism rather than call them out for what they are.

It’s reached a level of absurdity wherein men have what can only be categorized as prophecy wars among themselves, each giving words regarding the other, insisting that the Lord isn’t with this one or that, when in reality He is with neither of them. All they’re doing is trying to protect their wallets.

When God speaks through an individual, that individual isn’t presuming, hoping, or feeling as though they've received a message; they know with certainty and clarity that thus says the Lord, and they are not reticent to declare it.

God will not contradict Himself, nor His word through prophecy. This only occurs when men presume to speak a word in God’s name which God has not spoken. That they are not judged in the moment does not mean judgment isn’t coming. That they can continue deceiving and being deceived does not mean that God is not keeping a record of their pronouncements and will one day judge righteously.

There is no fear of God or fear of judgment with such individuals. There can’t be. If you believe that God is a consuming fire, that He will judge every man individually, wherein everything will be laid bare, and nothing will be hidden, how could you continue down this path? How can you continue to presume and speak in the name of the Lord when He has not spoken?

Not even Jesus presumed. He made it clear that the words He spoke, He did not speak of His own authority, but by the Father who dwelt in Him. Wrap your mind around that one, then juxtapose it with how flippantly some men use the prophetic for their own greedy, self-serving ends.

John 14:10, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.”

If Jesus Himself did not speak on His own authority, what makes anyone currently living think that they can speak on His behalf in their authority? That is the question that must be answered in order to understand how deep the rebellion goes. Someone laid hands on you? Someone spoke a word that told you that you would be a prophet to the nations? Jesus was the Son of God, born of a virgin, perfect and sinless, and even He declared that the words He spoke were not with His own authority but that of the Father.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXX

 Currently, we know in part. Although there is a purpose for all things, God is not obligated to explain what that purpose is. Rest assured, it is according to His purpose, whether you currently see it or not. He sees it, and that’s what counts. He knows your struggle, your hardship, your pain, and were they in vain, were they purposeless, He would not be the loving God we know Him to be.

We trust in His plan because we know His character. We trust in His plan because we know His heart. We trust in His plan because we know His love and the eternal goal He has for those He loves and those who are His. Whether it requires chastening, so be it. Whether it requires pruning, refinement, testing, or purifying, He is fully aware of what is required, of what is needed, of what we must traverse in order to reach the other side stronger, more sanctified, committed, and focused on the prize.

God will not cheer us on if we’re running in the wrong direction simply for the sake of encouraging us. In His love, He will point out that although we are running, it’s not toward the finish line, but further away from it.

That’s one of the elephants in the room that the contemporary church needs to acknowledge and remedy: too often, we offer encouragement rather than rebuke out of a misplaced desire to show love. If someone is headed toward a cliff at full sprint, it isn’t loving to cheer them on. If someone’s actions, habits, or lifestyle are leading them away from Jesus rather than toward Him, it’s not loving to ignore it or validate their practices for the sake of feigning empathy.

Yes, all are welcome as they are, but the message must be unequivocally clear that they cannot remain that way if they desire to live godly in Christ Jesus. All are broken when they come before Him, but they must be told that He must make them whole if they desire His indwelling presence.

As Jesus told Nicodemus, you must be born again! There is no other way but this. There is no alternative path leading to the same destination; there is but one, without exception, since the moment Jesus said, “It is finished!”

Those who are His, those who belong to Him, those whom He calls sons and daughters, know that He is near, that His eyes are upon them, and that He hears their cry. They are as sure of this truth as they are of anything in life that comes about with the regularity of a rising sun or the changing of the seasons. There is no doubt or shadow of turning. There is no wondering or second-guessing whether He is present, whether He hears, or whether He is invested.

Psalm 34:18-19, “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have contrite spirits. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”

If you are His, His presence is enough to chase away fear, His presence is enough to chase away despair, His presence is enough to chase away uncertainty and doubt, and replace them with His peace, love, and joy.

Those who do not belong to God have no such respite. In this, Zophar was on point. Since repetition is the mother of learning, generally speaking, Zophar was not wrong about the wicked and what their inevitable outcome will be; where he erred was in assuming that Job was counted among the wicked.

You can say all the right things, but target them at the wrong individual. You can also say the right thing, to the right person, and do it in the wrong spirit. There are nuances and factors beyond the words we speak, and intentionality and purpose play a big part. Is my intention to comfort or wound? Is my purpose to elevate my own self-righteousness in the eyes of others, or to highlight the righteousness of God in the words that I speak?   

Doing more harm than good, even though that’s not what we set out to do, happens often enough when there is no spiritual guidance and only an intellectual reaction to a particular situation.

But, brother, the Bible tells us to speak the truth. Actually, what the Bible says is to speak the truth in love. Yes, you can speak rebuke, you can speak correction, but if they are tethered in love, you are speaking life rather than death, and hope rather than despair. Zophar was not being led by the Spirit, even though the words he spoke were valid as far as the wicked were concerned. He was accusing an innocent man of things he hadn’t done, not correcting or rebuking him for things he had.   

Job 20:20-24, “Because he knows no quietness in his heart, he will not save anything he desires. Nothing is left for him to eat; Therefore his well-being will not last. In his self-sufficiency he will be in distress; every hand of misery will come against him. When he is about to fill his stomach, God will cast on him the fury of His wrath, and will rain it on him while he is eating. He will flee from the iron weapon; a bronze bow will pierce him through.”

Whether it was projection, jealousy, insecurity, or the whispers of the enemy that led Zophar to continue his litany of accusations, given what occurs later in the book, we know without a doubt that he was in the wrong regarding his accusations against Job. God Himself would declare as much, and when God says something, we don’t have to wonder about its veracity. It’s a practical lesson we should all take to heart, and one that would save many much heartache.

Whatever you hear, whomever you hear it from, your first instinct should be to go to the Word and confirm that the two are in harmony, and complementary of each other. If they are not, reject whatever you hear from the lips of men because the Bible is always right.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXIX

 Scripture is timeless. The lessons it teaches us are likewise timeless. To put it another way, the Word of God is evergreen, never withering, changing with the seasons, or with the times. You receive spiritual succor from God’s Word today, as readily as someone two hundred years ago, or five hundred years ago. The only thing that has changed is man’s willingness to humble himself and receive the truth of Scripture. Access to knowledge and its availability have increased exponentially, but those who avail themselves of it have not kept pace. Broadly speaking, it’s undeniable that knowledge has increased, but wisdom has not.

Even when it comes to knowledge, not all knowledge is created equal. There is worldly knowledge, then there is knowledge that comes from God. When God points out that His people perish for lack of knowledge, it’s not knowledge of how to work a universal remote, but rather knowledge of Him, His character, His will, and His attributes.

Knowledge has increased, but it’s knowledge of the wrong things. As far as wisdom is concerned, by all available evidence, it seems as though wisdom has fallen off a cliff, rolled down the side of a mountain, and tumbled its way into a deep crevice.

That doesn’t keep us from beating our chests until we’re bruised and screaming “look at me, look at me, I’ve built a better mousetrap” from the top of our lungs. It wasn’t broken. We just didn’t like it in its original form. There was nothing that needed fixing, but we took to changing it with gusto nevertheless. That, in a nutshell, is the crux of the madness. We’ve gone from “look to Him” to “look at me”, and because there’s only so much market share to go around, we needed a hook. We needed something that would make us stand out.

Given that I’ve run across both, I can say with a high degree of certainty that the gypsy fortunetellers in the old country possess more real power than many of the so-called prophets of today, who are being raised up on pedestals as the newest spokespersons for the divine. At least the gypsy women can guess your name, your age, your birthday, or your dog’s name without the aid of Facebook. This is what ignorance of the word gets us, and since there is never a mention of repentance from those pretending to be the next Oz Pearlman or the next Amazing Kreskin, the sheep lap it up hungrily.

What does guessing the first three numbers of your home address have to do with Jesus? What does guessing how many children you fathered have to do with repentance, righteousness, or holiness unto the Lord? We don’t want God, just our own spiritualized version of bread and circuses. We don’t want sanctification; we just want a carney act to tell us how special we are, because that just reinforces our beliefs.    

Our conceit has convinced us that we know better than God, that we can take liberties with the written Word as we will, do away with the parts we don’t like, abolish context altogether, dismantle the text, then clobber it back together in a way that best suits us, insisting it’s still as originally intended, just an upgraded version. The hubris is mindboggling, yet here we are.

Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

That just won’t do; it won’t do at all. Piercing and cleaving, even to the division of soul and spirit, sounded too painful, so we found a workaround to mitigate the corrective attributes of the living and powerful word of God. Rather than have the Word pierce us to the depths of our hearts and expose the thoughts and intents of the heart, we decided to take a hatchet to the Word itself, make it say things it never did, and so avoid its sharpened edges.

It took a generation or more, but we’ve gone and done it and couldn’t be prouder of ourselves. We managed to blunt the sharpness of the Word, tone down the controversial bits, roll our eyes whenever anyone happened to remind us of them, convincing ourselves that we’d gotten one over on God. Hi fives all around; we’ve perfected the magic sauce. You can now have revelation without relationship, be a servant without submitting to the Master, and live like hell and be guaranteed heaven.

Isn’t that more appealing to the masses? Isn’t that more palatable? No more talk of the Word being sharper than a two-edged sword. No more talk of the Word having the ability to pierce even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, or the most troubling part, discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart.

It’s easier to wag our fingers and point at what the world is doing than to look inward and see the catastrophic tragedy the contemporary church has become. As far as God is concerned, however, his first priority is His house, and that is where judgment will begin, flowing outward to the wicked and the godless. God deals with His own kids first before taking the rod to someone else’s kids.

1 Peter 4:17, “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?”

It makes no sense that we want to change the world while resisting and refusing to be changed by the Word of God. It makes no sense that we expect the wicked to be more righteous than those declaring themselves to be ambassadors of Christ and prophets to the nations. Physician heal thyself, indeed.

It is the church itself that must return to the living, powerful Word of God, and not shrink back from its sharpness. It is the church itself that must clean house and tear down its idols, and the altars at which they worship that are as a stench in God’s nostrils, before it can be useful to the Kingdom and preach the gospel with the power and authority that have been missing for so long.

Will it? Will the church have a come-to-Jesus moment, a moment of true epiphany wherein it not only realizes how far it has strayed from the truth, but repents of it, acknowledges it, and returns to the basic tenets of Scripture? Given what the word tells us, given what we can see with our own eyes, it is unlikely. The getting’s too good, the vanity too deeply rooted, the praise of men too intoxicating. The hubris has metastasized to the point that we think we can dictate terms to the Creator of the universe. Rebellion has become so commonplace as to have been normalized, and wickedness is now considered par for the course, something we willfully ignore and sweep under the rug because exposing it will risk the income streams we’ve made our de facto gods.

Even so, a remnant remains, the few are being sanctified, the bride is being prepared, and those striving to enter through the narrow gate will see what their heart yearns for, their Redeemer, face to face, and hear two of the most profound words they will ever hear, well done!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

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.