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.