tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13883703691878446272024-03-18T06:59:15.848-05:00Homeward BoundMichael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.comBlogger2038125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-47927002462527352672024-03-18T06:58:00.005-05:002024-03-18T06:58:42.373-05:00Unchanging<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">It may not seem like a comfort to some, but as far as I’m
concerned, knowing that God is unchanging, that He is the same yesterday,
today, and forever, provides me with great joy. I don’t have to guess at what
God’s thinking today or whether He’ll be moody tomorrow. He is the same and has
been since Adam first opened his eyes and looked upon the garden God had
created for him and eons before that. He will remain the same for all eternity
because He said He would.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You’ll never get a memo from God informing you that the user
agreement has changed or that due to a rapidly changing financial environment,
your property tax payment has been reassessed, and you owe a couple hundred
more every month to cover it. Everything around us is in flux. Everything
changes, but God remains the same. You’re never going to find hidden charges or
processing fees in God’s contract, nor will there be exemptions for a particular
class or group of people. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">God will never try to bait and switch you, nor will you ever
be expected to dole out more than the prearranged price. Your wretchedness for
His glory. Your darkness for His light. Your all for His all. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It was disheartening to walk into my local Dollar store a few
weeks back and find nothing for a dollar. Their name alone would make one think
that you would, but alas, they had two-dollar shelves, three-dollar shelves,
and even five-dollar shelves, but no dollar shelves. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">People have the same reaction when they believe the things
people tell them that God promised rather than go to the source for themselves
and see what God, in fact, promised. They’ve multiplied of late, being too many
to count, but all have similar messages of you resting easy and God throwing
wheelbarrows of money onto your sleeping form. Some even journey into the land
of heresy by insisting that the reason Jesus had to die on the cross was so
that you could be rich. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The gospel, according to John, makes it clear as to why God
sent His only begotten Son, and it’s not so you could have a six-car garage. Anyone
who tells you that God’s purpose for Jesus extends only insofar as getting what
you could otherwise by the sweat of your brow if only you applied yourself is
lying to your face and keeping you from seeing the glory of Christ and who He
is. The Bible is not a magic lamp, and Jesus isn’t a magic genie. He will not
be treated as such or be used and abused for the sake of a handful of soulless
ghouls to make fortunes off the backs of the naïve and innocent. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Granted, there is an argument to be made that those seeking
fortunes via Jesus are neither naïve nor innocent, gravitating toward those who
tickle their ears and seeking out those who lie to their faces in the vain hope
that the lies may become truth if repeated often enough, but if those
pretending to be servants of Christ did not exist, if the fallacious doctrine
was not made available, then even though they seek teachers whose only function
is to echo their sentiments back to them, they couldn’t find them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Believing God will never disappoint. Believing what people
say about God and the assurances they dole out on His behalf, without His
consent or command, will always disappoint. It’s just a matter of when, not if.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James 5:13-15, “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.
Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call
for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with
oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the
Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James painstakingly outlines how we should react to different
circumstances throughout life so that it might be well with us. The first thing
he mentions is suffering because it’s a reality in the lives of every person,
whether rich or poor, wise or foolish. Suffering is not exclusive to any one
group. We all have our seasons and valleys, and in the midst of our suffering,
our singular response is to pray. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Since James is writing to believers, we can infer that
believers are not exempted from suffering in this life either, but we do have a
recourse, a go-to, something we can do to mitigate and find relief, and that is
to pray. He doesn’t exhort us to wail and pull out our hair or go door to door
and tell everyone willing to hear about our suffering; he doesn’t instruct us
to go on Facebook and put up some mysterious one-sentence post that makes
everyone think we’re suicidal or about to hurt ourselves just for the sympathy,
rather he tells us to pray. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you are suffering, run to God. Entreat Him via prayer,
which is one of the best ways to spend our time, but one that has fallen out of
favor with much of today’s church because it’s neither entertaining nor
exciting to get into your prayer closet and be alone with God. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Every true servant of God, every individual who stood out in
the pages of Scripture as being bold and fearless, had prayer as their
foundation. It was a common and consistent practice to the point that even on
pain of death were they to pray to God, they still did so because they could
not be apart from fellowship with Him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As wise servants, prayer should be our first go-to whenever
suffering occurs in our lives, not our last resort. We run to God in our
moments of hardship and trial, knowing He will comfort us, strengthen us, and
journey with us on our way home.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-28086987383226060542024-03-17T06:42:00.002-05:002024-03-17T06:42:19.316-05:00Yes and No<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We’ve all been lied to at some point in our lives. We’ve all
been betrayed, used, exploited, and taken advantage of, but it stings
differently when a supposed brother or sister does it. Perhaps it’s because you
didn’t expect the attack to come from within the camp, or you’d put your trust
in the individual because they presented themselves as being of the household
of faith, but it seems as though it takes longer to heal from a knife to the
back than one you see coming. Maybe the one in the back just goes deeper. The
one in the front you have a split second to flinch away from, if anything.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Getting blindsided is no fun. It’s happened a couple of times
throughout my life, and I’ve learned enough from those experiences to know that
trust should be hard-earned and not readily handed out. We are more prone to
trust people who say they are of the same tribe, whether that tribe is
ethnicity, nationality, denomination, or local church. It’s why most predators
prey on their kind, and it’s across the board, no exceptions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When we first arrived in America, my dad worked for a
Romanian for six months without seeing a red cent for his sweat and labor. It
was a construction job, and the guy kept putting off paying him until my dad
demanded his back pay, and then he summarily fired him. He spoke no English and
didn’t know the law or any means of redress, so he just walked away, found
another job, and went to it. He’d learned his lesson, though, and never worked
for another Romanian again. Is it that Romanians are disproportionately
dishonest? No, but they prey on their kind, just like the Jamaicans, Chinese,
Hungarians, Poles, and Germans. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We’ve all heard the stories of churches getting taken by Christian
companies who took a down payment on a project only to abscond with the money
or people who the pastor vouched for getting parishioners involved in some sort
of pyramid scheme because the pastor was getting a cut on the back end.
Countless such stories are just a Google search away, and the innocent are
constantly victimized. Whether the little old lady who trusted her bishop and
got bamboozled or an entire body of believers to find the building fund raided
while the church secretary and the pastor are posting pictures from Fiji with
the hashtag ‘Your Best Life Now!’ online, it’s always sad to witness. That it
adds a new bruise to the already black-and-blue reputation and testimony of the
general church goes without saying. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I find it troubling that someone would destroy their
reputation and obliterate their testimony over a payday, but these are the
things we have to navigate in this life. When it comes to church folk, it’s
because some have not taken James’s admonishment to heart. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James 5:12, “But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either
by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and
your “No,” “No,” lest you fall into judgment.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is one of the reasons Christians make bad politicians,
or at least they should. A politician will say one thing today, say the
opposite tomorrow, and do so with a straight enough face, wherein those
listening have to go back and make sure they heard the first thing right just
to conclude that they’re speaking out both sides of their mouth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When you say yes, mean it. When you say no, mean that too.
Don’t be wishy-washy in word or deed, allowing your convictions to be
situational rather than firm and absolute, no matter the situation or
circumstance. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you say yes to something, and the individual you say yes
to requires reassurances, if they demand that you put it in writing or that you
repeat your statement, then you’re likely one of those people who garnered a
reputation for saying yes, then backing out, or changing your mind at a later
date. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The worst words a salesman can hear are “I’m going to have to
sleep on it,” followed closely by “I have to ask my wife or husband,” or “Let
me think about it for a few days.” They know that the chances of follow-through
plummet once those words spill out of someone’s mouth, so they’re angling for a
“yes,” then once they get it as if out of thin air, they pull out the paperwork
and insist that you sign on the dotted line before you leave their presence. If
you’ve ever sat through a timeshare pitch, you know exactly what I’m talking
about. That portable black and white rabbit ear television doesn’t seem like
such a bargain now that you, your children, and your children’s children are
saddled with paying the maintenance fees for the rest of your bloodline. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Never be hasty in saying yes because you’ll have to commit to
the thing you said you would do, even if it becomes an inconvenience for you
down the road. It used to be that a man’s word was his bond. All it took was a
handshake, and you could rest assured that whatever you agreed upon would run
its rightful course. The times are changing, and they already have, until
finding an honest man is harder to pull off than a fat man doing cartwheels. Sadly,
it’s hard to find honest people nowadays, but that shouldn’t be the case within
the church. It is, I know, but it shouldn’t be, especially if we realize that
there is a penalty for not being so. Lest you fall under judgment is no idle
threat. It’s not something James came up with just to drive home the point of
the need to be consistent, but a true and undeniable reality. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There is no place for duplicity among God’s people. It is
something God will judge, for to be duplicitous is to be double-minded, and to
be double-minded is to have a divided heart.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-89869747835817446732024-03-16T06:45:00.004-05:002024-03-16T06:45:58.153-05:00Job<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We can’t deny the reality of what is for what we hope will be
or what we imagine, feel, or would otherwise like to be. It’s how we got into
this mess in the first place. You can’t just identify as a child of God; you
must be a child of God in word and deed for God to acknowledge you as His own. Saved
isn’t a pronoun you can appropriate; it’s something that you become and are
transformed into, having repented and turned your back on the world and
surrendered at the foot of the cross. You become born again, dead to the world
and alive in Christ, with Him on the throne of your heart, rather than in some
competition with the old man for it. You are a child of God. Not a child of God
and the world. There is no shared custody as far as you are concerned. God is
not satisfied with getting you on weekends and the world getting you the rest
of the week. He will not share His glory with another.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’ve always found it telling who people look up to or use as
examples of who they aspire to be like. Nowadays, especially the younger
generation has lists that include either athletes or artists for the most part,
with a handful of those who desire to contribute something to society naming
someone like Ben Carson or Elon Musk. While what Ben Carson contributed to
society is demonstrably positive, whether for ill or good, Elon Musk’s
contribution has yet to be determined. Let’s just say I get a bit leery whenever
someone wants to put chips in people’s brains, but that’s just me. I get
squeamish at the sight of blood or at the thought of being powered down like a
machine. Before you say it’s voluntary, everything is until it isn’t. Remember
masks, and shots, and pronouns? They were voluntary once upon a time too. Now,
in some places, you have to decide whether or not you like the taste of prison
food before you call a guy a guy if he says he wants to be called a gal. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James could have named one of a hundred men as an
illustrative example of faithfulness, obedience, and perseverance, but he chose
Job, who is by far the most difficult to aspire to of all the notable figures
he could have named. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We cannot minimize or trivialize what Job went through. We
cannot look at the life of a man who once had it all and came to the point of
saying that his spirit was broken, his days were extinguished, and the grave
was ready for him and be flippant about his suffering or insist that we are as prepared
to endure likewise. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is humbling, or at least it ought to be when we consider
what others have endured and persevered through, and it should stir an
introspective reflection in our hearts because although, as yet, most of us
have not been called to persevere in such a fashion it is not outside the realm
of possibility. In all fairness, given what Jesus said regarding those of the
world hating us just as they hated Him, the probability that you will have to
endure hardship for Christ's sake is high.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Whatever hardship, struggle, or trial we may be experiencing
presently, we must never forget that the Lord intends an end, which we may not
yet see but the foundation of which is His mercy and compassion. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If your spiritual heroes consist of individuals who flaunt
earthly possessions and use their position to squeeze every last nickel from
the little old lady who’s one busted hip away from homelessness, then when you
read about Job being an example, you likely react negatively, thinking to
yourself that it couldn’t possibly be so. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Perhaps all those people who insist that James, along with
Jude, the Epistles of Peter, the first, second, and third epistle of John, just
to name a few, should be stricken from the canon of scripture because they
grate against the doctrine they’ve fashioned for themselves are right. I mean,
of all the people he could have picked, he picked Job? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s hard to convince people who will not allow for the
possibility of the valley that God is the same on the mountaintop as He is in
those valleys that are hard and difficult to traverse. He is unchanging and
omnipotent, and His ability to see us through is not diminished by our trials
or successes. They equate the mountaintop with God and all else with a lack of
Him. If you ain’t first, you’re last, and we all know God’s kids are supposed
to be the head and not the tail. That’s pretty much the average level of
spiritual maturity you’re likely to run across in many a church. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You are responsible for sharing what you get from God on the
mountaintop with others presently in the valley. You are called upon to look up
and behold His glory shining through in the deepest of gorges because He is
ever the same regardless of current circumstances. No one can stay on the
mountaintop forever because that’s never what life was meant to be. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Men like Job persevered because they understood the nature of
the God they served, knowing Him to be loving, gracious, merciful, and
compassionate. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If they had any doubts about God’s character, if they had doubts
about God’s nature, or if they questioned God’s mercy and compassion to any
degree, then they would have bent and broken, fallen apart, and been scattered
to the winds.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">To persevere, to maintain one’s composure in the face of
quick, drastic, and heart-wrenching changes in one’s life, you must know the
God you serve and not simply know of Him. Knowing Him keeps us from giving up,
from losing ourselves, from relinquishing hope, and from growing ever more
discordant and despondent. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Trials mature us in ways nothing else can. It’s one thing to
talk about theoretical perseverance; it’s another to actively practice it
because you’re living practically what you learned theoretically. It’s not an
easy transition. It’s not an easy mindset to adopt and cling to, but one we
must nevertheless nurture so that when trials come when the valley opens up
before us, we will not despair, grow weary, or lessen our pace toward eternity.
Know the God you serve and trust in His providence no matter the present
environment. He sees beyond your today into your tomorrows and will not waver
in His promises to you.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-28530394100058724702024-03-13T05:56:00.003-05:002024-03-13T05:56:21.230-05:00Reactions<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">When you spend enough time in front of crowds, whether preaching
or giving a talk, you learn to read expressions better than most. You know
whether a message is having an impact or they’re just waiting for noon to roll
around and find the nearest exit so they can get a primo spot at the local
buffet. It’s not coincidental that messages that stroke men’s egos, telling
them how beloved and highly favored they are, land better than ones that carry
a word of warning or rebuke, but the messages of warning and rebuke are just as
necessary as those of encouragement if not more so.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Correction is biblical; so is rebuke. James isn’t out of
pocket when he admonishes the brethren not to grumble against one another, but
it’s likely just as many took it the wrong way then as they do today. I’m sure ‘Who
does he think he is?’ or ‘Who is he to judge’ or perhaps even, ‘I agree with
the sentiment, but surely this was meant for someone else’ crossed the minds of
many who read his letter, because whenever we come across something corrective,
whether in the Word or a sermon, we rarely acknowledge that it may just be
talking about us, or to us. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James then proceeds with a layered and vivid illustration,
reminding those who would read his words of those who came before them, namely
the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord and their example of suffering
and patience. It’s easy to look to past generations and see those who served
the Lord as beyond human, giants in their own right, whose faithfulness we
could never hope to replicate, dismissing the fact that they were just as human
as you and I in every way. There was nothing inherently special about them,
whether being physically imposing or psychologically superior; they just
understood the cost, and their obedience was paramount, secondary to nothing in
their life. The blueprint for an exceptional spiritual life is not difficult to
decipher. It’s not a mysterious thing that must be teased out after countless
years of introspection. Every man of God who stood out throughout the pages of
scripture was a man of prayer, faithfulness, and obedience. There you go. I
just saved you years of trying to assemble a puzzle that was never a puzzle but
rather something self-evident and clearly proven in the Bible. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While some had it harder than others, none had it easy. The
messages they were tasked with delivering were not conciliatory or
congratulatory but rather warnings and rebukes for a people who had strayed
from the will of God, who had gone their own way and served their own interests
without regard for the insults they leveled at God, and the rebellion they exhibited
in perpetuity. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you want to know whether you’ll be loved, adored, praised,
elevated, and have an easy life if you are called to be a messenger to a
rebellious nation, all you have to do is look at what happened to the prophets
of old, and what they had to endure for following through and delivering the
words they were tasked with delivering. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Whether it was rejection of the messages they delivered or
physical violence upon their person as a way of lashing out against the
message, there isn’t a prophet in the Old Testament who did not endure some
sort of hardship. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s not as though Jeremiah ever came off as overly dramatic,
but even if he had, you’ve got to be going through something pretty grim to
wish you were never born. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Juxtapose the lives of Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Moses,
Ezekiel, and even lesser-known prophets such as Hosea with those claiming to be
prophets today. Compare and contrast their lives, what they had to endure, and
the obedience they had to live out in order to be entrusted with a message from
God and tell me if they harmonize or rhyme in any way. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When one of these men came on the scene declaring they were prophets
of the Lord, it wasn’t braggadocio or a way to assert some sort of spiritual
authority over others; it was a statement of fact, something they did not
relish declaring but had to because the Lord had deemed them as such. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James admonishes us to look at their example of suffering and
patience, not their rock star lifestyle or how many people they convinced to
sow into their ministry so they might continue proclaiming their sappy,
indulgent, generalized, and unbiblical words of knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">No, I didn’t wake up on the wrong side of the bed this
morning, but too many believers are taken in by the claims of people who have
nothing of God’s authority without taking the time to vet their claims and
determine if the words match the actions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You can’t keep telling people that the Lord showed you
California was going to drop off into the ocean while you’re buying
multi-million dollar beachfront properties. It just doesn’t add up. Either
you’re lying, you don’t believe what the Lord showed you, or you are spurning God's
message personally while declaring it generally. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">No, this isn’t grumbling against the brethren; this is
pointing out inconsistencies that should be as alarm bells to anyone with an
iota of wisdom. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We no longer count those who endure blessed; we count them
suckers and insist that they don’t have enough faith to believe for a mansion and
a Bentley. Yet, the Word tells us we should count those who endure blessed
because they are. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We must learn to discern the difference between truth and
error, embrace the one, and reject the other. Even if the error is sugar-coated
and seems a tasty morsel, even if the lie is flattering and puts us in the best
possible light, even though we know we don’t deserve to be there, it’s still a
lie and will lead to ruination. No good can come from deception. No good can
come of obfuscating the Word of God or insisting that it says something it
clearly doesn’t. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In case you haven’t noticed, half-truths are big business,
and they attract many adherents. They prosper and boast but only for a season,
only for a time, and that time is coming to a swift end.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-1338593507761323222024-03-12T05:58:00.003-05:002024-03-12T05:58:46.775-05:00Grumblers<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Shepherds don’t lead by committee. I take no umbrage with a
board of elders or deacons to whom the shepherd can delegate some of the labor,
but as far as what the sheep are fed, it is the shepherd that must decide, and
not of his own volition but in submission and obedience to the Shepherd. If a
shepherd had to wait for everything he taught to be vetted and decided on by a
committee, the sheep would either starve, or there would be so many differing
opinions that it would overwhelm the individual in charge of providing
spiritual sustenance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Even though James specifically warns against grumbling
against one another lest we be condemned, there have always been grumblers
among God’s people, and they will continue to exist until the Lord returns.
They fail to acknowledge the dire warning that the Judge is standing at the
door because those who are career grumblers see themselves as the ultimate
authority, the ultimate judge, and the one to whom all must bow in deference. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There are various reasons why some descend into grumbling
against the brethren, but from purely anecdotal evidence, I’ve concluded that
much of the time, it’s because they are dissatisfied with their station or
consider their calling inferior to their perceived gifting. They identify as
gifted, just as a homeless man identifies as a billionaire, with much the same
effect. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">God calls. Men answer. Once we answer the call, God will send
us where he needs us and imbue us with the gifting necessary to carry out the
calling to which we have been called. Some of us have natural inclinations
toward the gift God entrusts us with. My mother was always generous, kind to a
fault, and ready to help anyone at any time, so her natural inclinations were a
perfect fit for the gift of service and hospitality God entrusted her with. My
mother died while cooking a meal in her home for visitors who had come to visit
Romania. It was who she was. You’d always find her doing something kind,
something selfless, something that would bring a smile to the faces of those
around her. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Although my wife comes close, I’ve yet to meet anyone who can
make a crape like my mother. She must have made tens of thousands throughout
her life, and all for those who graced her table and accepted an offer of a hot
meal and some fellowship. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When someone insists that they have a calling or a gift but
is inconsistent with their character, you know it’s more of a wish than a
reality. In His wisdom, God places us in roles, positions, and callings
complimentary to our character. In those rare instances where someone is an
introvert yet is called upon to preach the Gospel, He gives them the necessary
gift and wherewithal to carry out their duty faithfully and with aplomb. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Lest we forget, judgment begins at the house of God. If it starts
with us first, then there are those things worthy of judgment among us. If it
were not so, then God would have proceeded directly to those who do not obey
the gospel, as Peter says. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There are those among us who know Christ and those who know
of Christ. There are those among us who are in Christ and those who are near to
Christ. Those near to Christ, those who know of Him, will always take issue
with those wholly sold out to Him because whether they admit it to themselves
or not, deep inside, they know their judgment is near. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">One of the surest ways to know that you will fall under God’s
judgment when the Judge returns is if you are constantly grumbling against the
brethren over personal convictions rather than Biblical truth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I wear a wedding band—I have been wearing one since the day I
was married. It’s not an issue of pride or salvific significance, and I have no
quarrel with anyone who chooses not to wear one. It’s a personal choice and eliminates
the need to explain that I’m married to anyone dropping hints of this or that. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Wearing a wedding band won’t get me into heaven any faster
than not wearing one would, but if I were to start grumbling against those who
choose not to wear one, thinking myself spiritually superior for wearing it, I
would risk being condemned just as James warned. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Don’t make doctrine out of personal conviction or opinion,
then grumble against those who don’t go along with you, no matter how noble
your idea might be in your own mind. Be wise enough to allow for cultural
differences, for the fact that someone grew up on a different continent with
different norms, and be gracious when they show up for evening prayer in a three-piece
suit while you’re in flip-flops and shorts. It’s not pride rearing its ugly
head because they’re wearing a suit; it’s that they were raised with the idea
of showing reverence whenever you come together with the people of God, akin to
being in the presence of royalty and having the requisite attire.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Back when I was still traveling with my grandfather, there
was an instance where we were scheduled to speak at a church. It was the Sunday
morning service, and during worship, everyone stood and clapped and sang, but
my grandfather sat through the entire song repertoire. After he was done
speaking, having a noticeably difficult time shuffling to the pulpit and
leaning heavily on it throughout his talk, an incensed lady came up to us and,
speaking directly to him, said, “I can’t receive any of what you said because
you didn’t stand up and clap during the worship service.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When he asked what she’d said, I told him it was nothing
worth repeating, and I thanked her for her input as we walked away. What she
didn’t know is that I was the one who’d carried my grandfather into the
sanctuary before the service because he was having a full-blown gout attack and
could barely contain himself from all the pain. She was just looking for a
reason not to accept what she’d heard, and she’d found it. She didn’t bother to
ask why he hadn’t stood or clapped along, and evidently, she was so myopic that
she didn’t put two and two together to figure out that since he needed an
interpreter, he likely didn’t know any of the songs in English.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-25275672363681790122024-03-11T05:41:00.003-05:002024-03-11T05:41:58.225-05:00Steadfast<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Have you ever wondered why some situations that seem
insurmountable in your life were readily conquered while others you thought
would be a breeze to get through turned out to be like an albatross around your
neck? It wasn’t accidental or coincidental. It had everything to do with where
you placed your trust and whom you expected to get you through it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When a situation arises that seems outside of our ability to
deal with, we are more likely to run to God. We are more likely to defer to Him
and His will; we are more likely to not lean on our understanding but on His
wisdom. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On the other hand, when a situation seems readily solvable,
our instinct is to go at it alone, find a remedy by ourselves, and never ask
God how He would have us deal with it. We vanquish our Jerichos and get
trounced by our Ais, and those of us with the wherewithal to look back on the
situation and determine what went right and what went wrong come to the
conclusion that in the one case we trusted in the arm of the flesh, and in the
other we trusted in the arm of God. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If we don’t learn from our missteps, we will repeat them.
Thankfully, if the lesson is painful enough, we will recall it for the rest of
our lives. Doing it one time is all it takes to learn that we should never grab
a hot pan off the stove barehanded. Every time after that, we are cautious and
run to the oven mitt before even thinking about grabbing at the pan. It becomes
ingrained in our minds, and we associate the action with the pain it caused and
take steps to avoid that pain. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If only we’d take the spiritual lessons we learn along the
way to heart in such a fashion, there would be far fewer chronic backsliders in
today’s church, but for some reason, we forget the spiritual pain more readily
than the physical, and we find ourselves repeating the cycle of our failure
over and over again. We remember the momentary pleasure of sin and block out
the endless pain it caused so that when we are presented with it again, unless
we are watchful, wholly submitted to God, and resist the devil, we fall into
the same snare. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James 5:9-11, “Do not grumble against one another, brethren,
lest you be condemned. Behold, the Judge is standing at the door! My brethren,
take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of
suffering and patience. Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard
of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord – that the
Lord is very compassionate and merciful.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We have enough enemies on the outside, and we don’t need to
make new ones on the inside. Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of the real
enemy and have broad-brushed everyone who disagrees with us, even on the most
tertiary of matters, as our sworn, lifelong, and irreconcilable foes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James is writing to the brethren. The true brethren, no those
pretending to be, and even among them, even back then, there was enough
contention wherein it warranted a reminder that they should not grumble against
one another lest they be condemned. The operative word in the first sentence of
verse nine is brethren. Not false brethren, not wolves, not pretenders who
would just as readily watch you drown than lend a hand to pull you out, but
actual brethren. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We need constant reminding that we are one body and must
operate as such. That does not mean we have to agree on the slightest detail,
but it does mean we complement each other and function as one unit. The enemy
should be outside the camp. In some instances, he’s crept into the camp as
well, and that’s when things get complicated because the first thing the enemy
does when he’s infiltrated a congregation is proceed to draw people to his
side, form cliques, then drive wedges where none existed prior to his arrival.
Then the backbiting gets ramped up, and those who built a given work from its
inception, those who labored and bled to see the vision God had placed in their
heart come to fruition, are marginalized, vilified, and shunned by those they
served for decades. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The whispers of there needing to be a new vision, a new direction,
someone younger and more vibrant to take the helm turn into full-throated
declarations, and wouldn’t you know it, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, humbled
as he pretends to be, throws his hat in the ring and offers to be that one that
will lead them to bigger and better tomorrows. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Nobody bothers to ask whether bigger and better is what God
had in store or whether that was His will because we’ve been conditioned to
believe that they’re synonymous with God’s will, for why wouldn’t He want a
bigger budget, a bigger sanctuary, a bigger, grander vision? Because sometimes
He doesn’t. God always wants purer; He doesn’t always want bigger. God always
wants more obedience, more faithfulness, more humility, and more brokenness; He
doesn’t always want a bigger building or a grander vision. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Every time I have pastor friends confide in me about their
congregation having turned in a negative direction, every time they ask what
they can do to lessen the contention and the acrimony, my first question is who
the instigator is. Who is that singular individual who comes to mind from whom
the entire drama seems to flow repeatedly and consistently? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Usually, it’s one clear individual, and unsurprisingly, it’s
someone who’s only been attending their church for a few months or a couple of
years. If God has called a shepherd to shepherd a congregation, if they are
rightly dividing the word and their doctrine is biblical, and someone comes
along attempting to cause division based on form rather than substance, defend
your shepherd, and do not lend your ear to those who would see the wholesale
destruction of a body just so they can pick at the leftover pieces.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-4838508400058004342024-03-10T07:00:00.004-05:002024-03-10T07:00:44.308-05:00Takeaways<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Whether you’ve heard it said that repetition is the mother of
learning, retention, or skill, it’s valuable and beneficial to repeat certain
truths until they become ingrained. It’s the reason for basic training when
someone goes into the army or why, as an aspiring chef, you spend endless hours
learning to chop all manner of vegetables. You may not be quick on the draw or
fluid loading and unloading on your first day, but three months in, it’s all
muscle memory, and you surprise yourself at how quick you’ve become. The same
goes for any skill you diligently repeat with consistency and regularity.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The world likewise knows this, and so they repeat and
regurgitate lies often and with great conviction until more and more of the
population believes them to be true. They will even employ the services of
trustworthy and reputable individuals to push their narrative because they know
it works. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There is no shortage of examples, and we are seeing an entire
generation believe demonstrable lies because everywhere they turn, the lie is
repeated by talking heads with fake smiles and no morals or ethics. I guess the
call to believe the science only applies in certain situations. When science bumps
up against the narrative, science is subjective and malleable. When it agrees
with it, it is absolute and unerring.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There are two main takeaways from the first few verses of the
fifth chapter of James’s epistle that are likewise worth repeating because just
as one can retain and learn nonsensical lies through repetition, one can learn
the truth through the same practice as well. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The first big takeaway is that everything in your life must
submit to God’s authority, including your plans, personal aspirations, or
vision for your future. It matters not how right they might look in your eyes;
they must be right in God’s eye. God’s not there just to rubber-stamp
everything you want. He is there to guide you in the way He desires you to go. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The second takeaway is that though you are presently
persecuted, reviled, exploited, marginalized, and abused, your attitude must be
one of patient perseverance until the coming of the Lord. Be anxious for
nothing. It’s hard to pull off, I know, especially given the times we’re living
in, but there is a peace that abounds in the heart that has learned to lean
fully upon Christ that no amount of safety nets we’ve built for ourselves can
match. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The coming of the Lord is at hand; everything else is static.
When He returns is solely God’s purview, but because we know He will, we can be
patient and persevere however long it might take. When our focus is on patience
and perseverance rather than a particular date or a particular year, it
repositions our mindset on our relationship with God rather than an end goal.
Too many believers are living like they’re holding their breath underwater,
hoping they make it to the surface before they pass out, rather than in joyous
unity and fellowship and intimacy with God. The journey is not the destination,
but the journey has its own merits as well. God’s creation is a glorious thing
to behold. Family, friends, brothers, and sisters in Christ are all experiences
we should cherish. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Some people find joy in the direst of circumstances, while
others fail to find it while living lives others would only dare to dream of.
It’s an issue of perception and what we choose to focus on. It’s whether or not
we’re constantly assessing whether the neighbor’s grass is greener or
appreciating our own lawn.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-75163132949467340392024-03-09T05:18:00.002-06:002024-03-09T05:18:25.046-06:00Seed<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">What you plant is what will grow. This is why the seed
matters. If you’re planning on carrots but plant alfalfa, it’s not the earth’s
fault or the seed’s fault that you got a crop of alfalfa; it’s your fault for
not being diligent regarding what sort of seed you planted in the soil. We may
try to blame someone else, we may try to say the seed pouch was mislabeled, or
that there was a picture of a carrot on the bag, but it was likely labeled
appropriately, and we’re just looking for a scapegoat.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That’s why it’s also paramount to ensure that the seed you
allow to take root in your heart is the truth, biblically sound, and
scripturally rooted. Half-truths will produce whole lies. When the heart
becomes overgrown with weeds and brambles, it takes a lot of effort to burn it
out and start anew. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Don’t just accept anything or take someone’s word as to the
source of what they are trying to feed your spiritual man. Double-check, go
into the Word, see if what they say is there, and if it’s not, reject it
wholesale. If the contents were never in the packaging, you can’t trust it.
That’s why there are warnings on foodstuffs that if the seal has been tampered
with or if it’s not intact, you should return it and not consume it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That’s what draws out my empathy somewhat: that there are
individuals who are so hungry that they’ll feed on anything. I have empathy for
this hunger, not their willingness to allow spiritualized fantasies to present
themselves as gospel truth. People who go dumpster diving don’t concern
themselves with whether the seal is still intact on what they find in the
garbage. They’re just happy there are no maggots crawling on it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On the other hand, unlike food, there is no price tag on the
gospel, and you can walk into any church, and they’ll give you a Bible for
free. It’s not being spoon-fed, but then again, when you read the Bible for
yourself, you know what you’re consuming. That’s always the tradeoff when you
trust strangers with your spiritual succor and don’t take the time to study the
Word for yourself: you never know what they’re feeding you and if they have an
ulterior motive in doing so.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By the time Paul and Silas had reached Berea, they’d
encountered enough believers along the way that they were vouched for and had
garnered a certain reputation. They weren’t just strangers who showed up out of
nowhere and started preaching. That didn’t stop the Bereans from searching the
Scriptures daily to find out whether the things Paul and Silas were preaching
were so. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For the most part, we’ve lost that desire to know whether
something is true or not in our modern era. As long as it’s in agreement with
our preconceived notions, we’ll believe it without giving it a second thought
or confirming that what we’re hearing and what we’ve believed is in harmony
with the Word of God. We just want our opinions validated; we don’t care if
it’s the truth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem with surrounding ourselves with yes men is that
yes men usually have a vested interest. There’s a reason they’re defacto
lickspittles who echo your sentiments back at you. Worse still, we expect God
to be a yes man as well since we’ve become so used to them, and when He says
no, we are shocked and appalled that He dared. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Doctrine matters, and it’s the substance of the doctrine that
matters, not the manner in which it’s delivered or whether the individual
teaching it is enigmatic, animated, or well-dressed. We’ve prized presentation
over substance for so long in the church that if the delivery is well rehearsed
enough, if the individual is hip and cool and can squeeze into a pair of skinny
jeans, we’ll amen even the most disturbing of heresies. Oh, look, the guy in
the muscle tee with the faux beard and the lumberjack boots just said we were
God! He must know what he’s talking about; you don’t pretend to be that rugged
without knowing a thing or two. And, like trained seals, a couple of thousand
people clap and clamor even though the insinuation that man can be like God was
the first lie the devil ever told.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A box is a box, no matter how pretty it is or how many bows
it has on it. What matters is what’s inside. Tragically, we’ve gotten away from
that reality to the point that if the box isn’t shiny and doesn’t draw the eye,
we don’t care what’s inside anymore. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We’ve borrowed a page from the world, and it’s all about the
delivery system. From supermodels trying to sell you double cheeseburgers with
bacon as though they’d ever eat such a thing to other more nefarious
individuals insisting that untested and unproven chemicals injected into your
bloodstream are safe and effective just because they tell you they are. They’re
wearing white lab coats, after all; surely, if you’re going to trust anyone,
it’s someone in a white lab coat. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now you have people standing behind pulpits teaching abject
heresy, and we’re supposed to believe it because, well, they’re standing behind
a pulpit. When Paul wrote Timothy, admonishing him to study that he may shew
himself approved unto God, a workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth, it wasn’t exclusive to Timothy but to all who would answer
the great high calling of being a workman in God’s kingdom. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Take heed to the seed you’re planting in the soil of your
heart, and make sure it is the word of truth. This is an imperative that too
few are taking to heart.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-73447684492828777602024-03-08T05:13:00.005-06:002024-03-08T05:13:55.325-06:00Patient<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Patience is a difficult virtue to nurture and grow. It’s
something I’ve been trying to instill into my girls since they were old enough
to walk because although we are living in an increasingly impatient world,
where people react more violently than ever before if everything isn’t done for
them instantaneously, an egg still takes a minimum of six minutes to boil
unless you want to drink it with a straw.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Some things you just can’t hurry, and this up-and-coming
generation who gets everything from its news to its entertainment to its
notable quotables in fifteen seconds or less will have a pickle of a time
sitting behind a desk for eight hours doing data entry or answering phones. The
lazy within Christendom thought it was such a good idea to limit everything to
a one-sentence meme or a thirty-second talk on deep and profound topics such as
salvation, sanctification, and transformation that asking anyone to sit through
a twenty-minute sermon that does not include bottle rockets, smog machines, or
some faux pastor jumping up and down on a trampoline in a leotard to make a
point is deemed controversial and excessive. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You mean he’s just going to stand behind the pulpit with an
open Bible and teach out of it? Where’s the entertainment in that? It was never
supposed to be entertaining; it was supposed to be transformative, challenging,
and spiritually nourishing, but where’s the fun in that? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The sheep are no longer satisfied with being led to green
pastures. They want the grass already cut, ready to eat, in small portions,
with new and exotic spices thrown in, lathered in sauces to the point that it
no longer tastes like it was supposed to because they heard somewhere variety
is the spice of life, and that five or six small meals per day are better than
three. That the same people who came up with the food pyramid that has led to
the biggest explosion in obesity the world has ever seen came up with the
five-meal-per-day model also doesn’t seem to register, or if it does, few are
making the necessary connections. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Some things take time, and there’s no way around it. A good
braise, a decent gumbo, or even a savory Bolognese will take you the better
part of half a day, and if you’re impatient or aren’t paying attention,
constantly stirring and making sure the consistency is right, you’ll end up
with a charred pan and food even your dog won’t consider eating. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James uses the example of the farmer when encouraging us to be
patient, pointing out how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth
until it receives the early and latter rain. Anyone who chooses farming as
their career has my unwavering respect. Anyone who does not respect farmers
doesn’t know what it takes, but as someone who grew up in a rural area where
every family grew crops to survive, I remember the hours my parents put in and
all the chores I was called upon to perform once I was old enough to help. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Even before you plant your seed and pray for rain to come at
the right time, you have to plow and till the soil, back-breaking work given
that back in the day, there were no machines to do it and that it was all done
by hand. You also have to make sure it’s fallow ground and not a patch of earth
that has been used once too often because if it’s not, all your work will be
for naught. It all has to get done early enough that you are not putting your
seed in the ground too late; it must be tended to, weeded, and cared for to
have a chance at a good crop. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">To have the patience of a farmer is to have patience beyond
what the average individual can muster on the best of days, and it is what we
are called to as we wait for the coming of the Lord. The farmer knows he can’t
hurry the process no matter what he does. He knows he’s done everything he was
supposed to, did it in the order it was supposed to be done in, and now he
waits. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Last year, my eldest daughter came home from school with a
plastic cup full of dirt that she was weirdly protective of. When I asked her
what it was, she said it was a basil plant, or at least a seed, that she was
supposed to water, put by the window, and care for until it sprouted. She was
diligent enough in watering it and putting it by the window, and every morning,
her disappointment only grew when nothing seemed to be happening. For the
longest time, it was just a cup of dirt, until one morning, a green sprout
poked out of the top layer, and her excitement at seeing it was barely
contained. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">She’d waited so long that she’d almost lost hope in seeing
anything come of it, but she kept watering it and placing it by the windowsill
even so. Throughout the experience, I kept trying to tell her that it would
sprout in its time, but she wouldn’t hear of it, and every day, she would
inspect it studiously to see if there was any change. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When it comes to the return of the Lord, we know that it must
occur. It’s not a matter of if it will happen; it’s a matter of when. We know
He is returning, and if we’ve done all that was incumbent on us to be counted
among the wise, then all that remains is patiently persevering until He comes.
We don’t have to check daily to see if He’s here; we’ll know when He’s here. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Since they don’t come along often, my little one avails
herself of every opportunity to tease her big sister. Every few days, she’d go
and stare at the cup of dirt and say, “Victoria, I think I see something!” Her
sister would rush to the cup and look at it, only to be let down and
disappointed because there was nothing there. Then, with a grin on her face,
Malina would say, “Ha, ha, got you again,” and run as fast as her little feet
could carry her because she knew her sister would commence the chase. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We’re either constantly checking and getting excited when
someone insists that Jesus is coming on a given day, or we are patiently
persevering until He returns. The highs and lows of taking people at their word
or constantly obsessing over when are not conducive to a healthy spiritual
mind, and this is something that’s been proven out as more and more believers
are becoming despondent because the day they’d believed something would happen
has passed and it was a day just like any other.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-85305988555211296242024-03-06T05:25:00.000-06:002024-03-06T05:25:09.031-06:00Persevering<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Instant gratification is a dangerous thing. Not only is it
myopic, not taking into account tomorrow or the day after, it is likewise
reckless because it does not consider anything beyond the moment, the now, that
instant wherein you want it, you get it, and consequences be damned. It doesn’t
matter what the thing is, whether it is a new car, a new purse, a trip, a belt,
or a new pair of shoes; being impulsive is such a common trait that grocery
stores have impulse buy racks stationed right at checkout.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You may have run the gauntlet, kept from buying the things
you knew you shouldn’t, and that last few yards is where they get you. Candy
bars, gum, magazines, whatever can grab your attention as you’re getting ready
to abscond and get you to spend an extra few bucks even though you never
planned on it, and it wasn’t a necessary thing. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You’re only safe once you’re out of the store, in your car,
key in the engine, or finger on the start button, because until then, there’s
always a possibility that you might relent, give in, and fall into the snare of
the limited time white chocolate king sized Twix. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Vigilance is something we must all possess, and vigilance
coupled with patience will carry you further than you ever thought you could
go. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is said that most car accidents happen within five miles
of one’s home. Although the answer to that is that most people don’t venture
past five miles from home anymore nowadays, I’ve taken long trips often enough
to know that it’s those last few miles that your guard goes down. In your mind’s
eye, you’re already on your couch, kicking off your shoes and breathing a sigh
of relief that you made it safe and sound. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s during that last stretch, those last few turns, that
people stop being as vigilant as they were; perhaps they punch the gas a bit
more than they ought to because they just want to get it over with, and the
statistics prove themselves true because numbers don’t lie. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It doesn’t take much looking to see what’s happening in
today’s world. The evil prosper, those who bring no value to humanity are
raking in millions simply by turning on a camera and being shameless, justice
is perverted, truth is muted, goodness is maligned, and sin is promoted. You
can avert your gaze or focus on something else, but it’s unavoidable. The only
way for anyone not to see it is to deny reality, and that’s becoming ever more
popular nowadays as well. We know what this world has become, what it has been
for long and long, but now, with seven billion people being one click away,
it’s more evident and brazen than ever before. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Men’s hearts have always been dark, but with the advent of
the internet and a few billion more people walking around, it seems as though
we are reaching a crescendo of evil and insanity. Through it all, James instructs
us to stay the course. He admonishes us to keep our eyes on the prize and not
be distracted. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James 5:7-8, “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the
coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the
earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain.
You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at
hand.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I know that saying we should have an attitude of gratitude is
catchier because it rhymes, and yes, we should be grateful to God for all that
He is, all that He does, and all that He promised He would do, but an attitude
of patience is likewise warranted during the days we’re living in, not until we
get frustrated or we feel as though we’ve been patient enough, but until the coming
of the Lord. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That’s our goal. That’s our finish line to see the return of
the Lord and to establish our hearts that no matter what may come upon the
earth, no matter what we might have to endure, He would find us as the five
wise virgins, awake, waiting, anticipating His return with our lamps lit and
burning. Everything else takes a backseat to that singular goal. Our plans, our
vision, noble as they might be, must all be subject to the sovereignty of God
at all times. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Proverbs 16:1-3, “The preparations of the heart belong to
man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of man are
pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirits. Commit your works to the
Lord, and your thoughts will be established.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When we establish our hearts, we achieve permanent acceptance
of something. It’s settled, and there’s no going back. It’s not transitory or
situational; we don’t establish our hearts only when it’s convenient or when
His plans align with ours. There is consistency and continuity in our
endeavors, and although James counsels us to establish our hearts, Proverbs
tells us how we go about it. We do so by committing our works to the Lord. In
everything, in every area of our life, we commit our works to the Lord, thereby
establishing our thoughts and hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As Paul reminds the Corinthians, we were bought with a price,
meaning we are no longer our own. We can no longer live as we will, pursue what
we will, and plan as our hearts dictate. Because we were bought with a price,
and the price we were bought with was the blood of Jesus, we must glorify God
in our bodies and in our spirit because they are God’s.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When we focus on glorifying God rather than on the things of
this world, we are not affected by the ebbs and flows of life. Our destination
is set, our hearts and thoughts are established, and we persevere and endure no
matter how hard or easy the road gets. If it’s hard, we know it will get easier
one day. If it’s easy, we know that difficulty is only a matter of time, so we
don’t oscillate from one extreme to another. We remain steadfast and
surefooted, knowing He is there.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-79816116528119710482024-03-05T06:12:00.001-06:002024-03-05T06:12:06.146-06:00Classes<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are all God’s creation, and although we all have the
potential of becoming God’s children, purchased with a price, reborn, and
reconciled to Him, not all who walk the earth are His children. It’s obvious,
given all the darkness in the world and how little light remains. If the
universalists were right, and we all end up in the same place regardless of
whether or not Christ is Lord and King of our lives, then God sending His Son
to die hanging on a tree would have been needlessly cruel.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Jesus laying down His life for the sheep was not one option
among many; it was the only option. It was the only way that we who received
Him denied ourselves, picked up our crosses, and followed after Him could
attain everlasting life. To say that there is more than one way, more than one
path, is to minimize Christ, what He did, and the sacrifice He made on behalf
of mankind. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In order to understand what James is saying at the beginning
of the fifth chapter, you must read it within the context of the tail end of
the fourth chapter. When he wrote his epistle, and that goes for all the New
and Old Testament writers, the books were not divided into chapters, and there
was no delineation or separation between the writings. They were all written as
one continuous letter but were later divided into chapters and verses sometime
in the early 1200s. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Although it makes for easier reading, when we fail to consider
that the original letters were one continuous text, we neglect to properly
contextualize an idea or see it in an erroneous light. What would seem easy
enough to understand had we accounted for the continuity of the text becomes
muddled and easily exploited by those who would weave an entire doctrine out of
a handful of verses. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James 5:1-6, “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your
miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments
are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be
a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up
treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your
fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers
have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived on the earth in
pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you read these six verses without the benefit of having
read the previous chapter, you would tend to throw anyone who doesn’t live
paycheck to paycheck into the same pot and be done with it. Poverty is not a
sign of righteousness. Righteousness is a sign of righteousness. There are poor
wretched sinners, just as there are rich miserable sinners. The opposite is
true as well. The rich James is referring to are those he described in the
previous chapter as those who boast in their arrogance and those who know to do
good and do not do it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If God hated the rich, as some insist, then Abraham could
never have been God’s friend, and Job could never have been a man after God’s
own heart. They were, after all, some of the wealthiest men of their time, yet
their wealth did not define them, and their desire did not revolve around amassing
more of the wealth they’d been blessed with. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James refers to those who trust in their gold and silver, exploit
the poor, and defraud their laborers while being closed-fisted and
closed-hearted to the cries of the poor and needy. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But what about the rich man and the camel and the eye of a
needle? Didn’t Jesus say that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye
of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God? Yes, He did, but
it’s not because of their wealth, but rather because their hearts are consumed
by it; they prioritize it above all else, and they feel as though they’ve
insulated themselves from the hardships of life with the wealth they’ve
amassed. It’s a heart issue, not a money issue, and yes, those who have amassed
fortunes or inherited them are less likely to be open to their need for a
savior. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s not exclusive to the rich. Even the poor live their
lives with no thought of eternity or the hereafter, but it’s easier for a rich
man to adopt the mindset of everything being about living in the moment and
doing what pleases the flesh. James says as much when he condemns those who
have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury and fattened their hearts as in
a day of slaughter. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Is Jesus Lord of your life, or does money lord over you? Do you
extend your hand to the poor, or do you close your fist to those in need? Are
you fair and honest in your dealings, or do you exploit those who labor on your
behalf? These are the questions that need answering; these are the questions
that matter, not whether you’re over the threshold of what is considered rich
or not. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Who rules your heart? That is the question, and if Jesus is
Lord of your heart, then when He blesses you, you will bless others, and when a
season of famine arrives, you will praise Him just as readily because it wasn’t
about what He gave you but who He is.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-89341364133971166582024-03-04T05:21:00.001-06:002024-03-04T05:21:06.753-06:00Plans III<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Those who lean on their own understanding may prosper for a
season. Those who trust in the arm of the flesh may enjoy momentary victories.
In the long run, however, all who trust in their understanding and all who
trust in the arm of the flesh will flail and falter, fail, and fall by the
wayside. It’s not because I want to see them fail but because the Bible says
they will.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">God is smarter than I am. God is smarter than you, too. It
won’t bruise your ego to admit it. It didn’t bruise mine, and if demonstrably factual
truths bruise your self-esteem or diminish your self-worth, then you’ve just
got to toughen up, buttercup. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The distance you or I see is minuscule compared to God’s view
of your life, existence, purpose, and calling. All you may see today is the
rocky terrain before you, the endless climb, the trials upon trials that come
like waves calling upon waves, and if you were alone, rudderless, and absent
direction, surely you would have bent and broken long ago. God knows the end
from the beginning. He doesn’t have to guess at it; He sees the thread of your
life from beginning to end, and if only you would trust Him, obey Him, and
submit to His will and authority, your destination will satisfy your soul in
ways which you never fathomed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s not that those who’ve learned to submit to God, trust
Him, and defer to His will have an easy time of it, but their journey has one
thing that those who do not know Him lack: hope. When considering what the
Bible says, even something as magnificent as hope is insufficient to describe
what we have in Him. It’s a mixture of sorts: parts hope, parts faith, and
parts unwavering knowledge that God will make a way and bring us to a good end.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Romans 8:18-19, “For I consider that the sufferings of this
present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be
revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for
the revealing of the sons of God.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When we eliminate the possibility of suffering on the
journey, when all our expectations extend to are well-paved roads and sunshine
all day, whenever the difficult season comes, whenever the climb becomes
treacherous, we grumble and moan because we were promised something other than
what we are experiencing. What we must remember in those seasons is that it
wasn’t God who made those promises but men claiming to be His ambassadors. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">God never promised days without rain. He never promised a
life without storms, but through the storms and the trials, we eagerly await
the revealing of the sons of God. God promised He would be a refuge to those
who are His. He promised He would be a present help in times of trouble, not
that they would be without trouble.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The process of becoming, the journey from where we are to
where we will be, may require sacrifice, it may require hardship, but once we
arrive, once we attain, once we know the fullness of what God has for His
children, all the sufferings will not be worthy to be compared with that glory.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The arrogant boast. It is their nature, and I’m not referring
to the arrogant of the world but those who insist they are of the household of
faith. Their boasting will be short-lived, and as an added warning, James tells
us that such boasting is evil. Yet another truth worth remembering is when you
see supposed preachers boast of their mansions, jets, cars, diamond-encrusted
watches, and overall fleeting possessions while they’re guilting widows who can
barely survive to send them money for a thousandfold return. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You feed the hungry, clothe the naked, help the helpless
because you know it is good. You give of your time and resources because, to
him who knows to do good and does not do it to him, it is a sin. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m often asked why we are not more aggressive in our
fundraising, and the answer is that it’s not for me to tell someone what is
good. It’s for them to determine for themselves what is good and then do the
good they’ve been shown to do. We make needs known and leave it at that. One
would assume some of the situations we feature would be fully funded because
they seem so desperate. Yet, sometimes they aren’t, and others which are not as
heart-wrenching are, because it’s God who speaks to the individual where to put
their resources and designate their funds, and it’s their duty to respond. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We are all accountable to God. We are all accountable for the
knowledge we possess and what we do with that knowledge in relation to His will
and plans for our lives. It all boils down to submission, obedience, and the
willingness to do the things that are difficult for the flesh and go against
the grain of modern-day Christianity, where everything is about me, I, the
blessings I can get, and the things I can be given. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">God is an excellent accountant with a very long memory. For
some, that is a reason for rejoicing, knowing that the merest kindness is
remembered and accounted for, whether a glass of water for a thirsty soul, an
encouraging word for someone hurting, or a meal for one who is hungry. Nothing
we do on behalf of the kingdom is forgotten. Everything we do for the flesh
remains only as long as we do. We seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness because these are lasting, permanent, eternal, and unshakeable.
All the other things, the things the godless war over and scrounge for, are
mere afterthoughts, and they will be added onto you because God promised it
would be so.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-65760133210886778842024-03-03T06:33:00.003-06:002024-03-03T06:33:48.973-06:00Plans II<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">So, is it sinful to make plans? No, there is no sin in making
plans, as long as you allow for God to upturn every plan you’ve made on its
head and send you in a diametrically opposite direction than where you intended
to go. What may have seemed good and right to you as far as plans were
concerned may not be good and right for you, and the one who knows the
difference, the one who can assess your plans and give you the green light or
stop you in your tracks, is God.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Obedience is better than sacrifice; the Word tells us as
much. An added benefit of obedience is that you will never find yourself in the
wilderness, on the outs, far from where you thought you were going, and
wondering how you got there. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What James points out in those he used as an example is that
they were driven by the notion of profit, of making more, of having more, and
so it wasn’t that people were making a living he took issue with. It’s the love
of money, which the Word identifies as the root of evil, that had taken over
their hearts to such an extent that the plans they made were wholly dedicated
to the notion of more. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">To what end, all this more? Bigger, newer, and faster are all
well and good, but if that’s the singular pursuit your existence revolves
around, then your pursuit is meaningless, and your dream will perish with you. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When you want what God wants, when your plans defer to His
plans, and you walk in obedience, the peace, joy, and fulfillment you will have
will not be tethered to the things of this earth, to possessions or positions,
but to something beyond the world’s ability to affect. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If we’re following our plan and vision, there’s always
hesitancy and doubt when the road gets rocky and the climb gets steep. It’s
inevitable. There has never been anyone, whether prince or pauper, that hasn’t
had some sort of difficulty or unexpected event occur wherein they were stopped
in their tracks. Even the most pampered of the pampered experience moments when
all their influence, power, and resources become useless, and they have to deal
with the situation they find themselves in, whether of their own making or
someone else’s. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When we follow God’s plan, even when the road gets hard, we
know He is there. Even when the climb gets steep, we know He will help us
along. It’s His plan, it’s His roadmap, and if we follow faithfully after Him,
our destination is assured. It’s liberating, it really is. When you follow
God’s plan for your life, you never have to wonder if you should have done a
certain thing, said a certain thing, or gone to a certain place because He is
guiding your steps, and you’re just following orders as a good soldier ought. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When your life revolves around obedience, you never have to
wonder what the Lord is saying because you are in constant fellowship with Him.
Even when something looks like a no-brainer, like being offered a promotion or
a new job with a lot more pay, take the time to inquire of God. Take the time
to ask if it is His will. I know the flesh would like that extra zero on the
paycheck every month or that fresh start fully funded by a new employer, but
not everything that glitters is gold, and not everything that looks good is
good for you. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">During one of my lowest points in ministry, when someone had
just tried to hijack the work, and we were close to half a million dollars in
debt, I got a job offer from another ministry that included health benefits,
over double what I was drawing as a paycheck, and free housing since they’d
just bought a duplex and renting one half of it out would cover the mortgage,
and all I’d have to cover was the utilities. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Admittedly, there was a reason for my hesitancy to say yes
even before inquiring of God, and that was that both my grandfather and my
mother had gone to their reward working to maintain this ministry that had been
passed down to me, but when I tell you that the prospects of our survival
looked bleak, it’s an understatement, if anything. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The geographical location of the new job was not without its
allure, given that it was everything my wife had ever wanted, as far as a place
to live, replete with palm trees and a beach within driving distance.
Notwithstanding the reality that my family had bled and sacrificed for this
work for, at the time, a good quarter century, it was still tempting. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If I’d had to make the decision in a vacuum, I could have
justified taking the new job to myself with everything from ample resources to
amplify the message to a promise that I’d be given the freedom to focus on
whatever I felt led to pursue as far as teaching and content as long as it was
Biblically sound. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">From a purely human perspective, weighing the pros and the
cons, it was a tempting offer. But then I inquired of the Lord, and He said no.
That was it; just no. There was no promise of redress for the ministry I was
currently leading; there was no promise that we’d wind up paying off the debt
and being able to continue the work, but I didn’t need any of that. All I
needed was an answer, a direction, and I knew that, as a matter of course, all
these things would be ironed out, and God would make a way. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Was it easy? Hardly. We were driving back from Texas toward
the tail end of the situation that had been thrust upon us, and between the
four of us in the car, we were digging for change in our pockets to come up
with enough gas money to get home. It could have been a moment of desperation,
of surrender, of breaking down and giving up and walking away from the whole
thing, but it wasn’t. The only reason it wasn’t is that contrary to everything
happening in the physical, we knew we served a supernatural God, and He said
this was the way we must go. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That’s the beauty of following God’s plan and not our own.
Even in the darkest of moments, His light shines and leads the way.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-17104832071990217432024-03-02T05:11:00.004-06:002024-03-02T05:11:34.019-06:00Plans<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We all make plans. To a greater or lesser extent, we all have
some sort of calendar we fill in with what we’ll be doing over the course of a
week, a month, and the bold among us for the next five years. I’ve been asked
on occasion what my five-year plan is, and rather than say I don’t have one, my
answer is usually to see every sunrise. That’s the plan, at least. Whether or
not it pans out, comes to fruition, and I will be among the living for another
five years, God only knows.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is also a proven fact that sometimes our plans have to
change. This is why they invented trip insurance; even something such as going
away on a family vacation has to be put on the back burner for whatever reason
from time to time. We are not guaranteed another five years, five months, or
five minutes. It’s all in God’s hands, and we trust Him knowing He is good. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Because we’ve been told we are the captains of our ship, the
masters of our fate, the ones holding the steering wheel and going where we
want to go, we sometimes make plans without consulting God or allowing for the
possibility that our plans conflict with His plans. We are so set on our vision
for tomorrow that we don’t bother to inquire what His vision for our tomorrow
is, and when God steers us toward a destination we had not foreseen, we resist,
bristle, and kick against the goads. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Where God wants you to be will always be a better place than
where you want to be. I thought I’d get that out of the way so there are no
misconceptions. To your human reason, mind, intellect, or logic, it might not
seem so at the time, but God’s ways are always better. His plans are always
superior to ours, and the more we grow in God and learn to trust Him, the more
we see His hand guiding us, the more we will know the truth of it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James 4:13-17, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we
will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a
profit’; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your
life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or
that.’ But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The example James uses is not of someone who said they would
go to such and such a city, spend a year there, and preach the gospel; rather,
they would buy and sell and make a profit. Their focus was not on the kingdom
or the work of God but on career paths, work plans, and things they would do to
make a few shekels. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We can get caught up in the rat race. We can get caught up in
climbing corporate ladders, building businesses, growing ministries, or one of
a dozen other things, but James pumps the breaks on our big dreams by reminding
us that we are temporal creatures, here today and gone tomorrow, with no
permanence on this earth no matter how much we’ve been able to amass and
squirrel away. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If the high-profile passing of billionaires in recent years
has taught us anything, it’s that no matter how much you offer, you can’t buy
an extra second of life. You can’t barter your way to another sunrise or
another sunset even if everything you worked a lifetime for was on the table as
a bargaining chip. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">These words, written by a simple man some two thousand years
ago, likely by the light of a lamp with a quill and some ink, resonate to this
day because of the existential truth they remind us of. The message goes beyond
making plans and speaks to a deeper, more profound reality of man: know what
matters in life! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">People who plotted and schemed and clawed their way to the
top of their chosen field, sacrificing everything else for that singular
purpose, look back and echo Solomon in concluding that all is vanity. Does the
thread count of the sheets upon which you breathe your last matter? Does the
price of the coffin you’ll be laid to rest in count for anything? Does the pomp
and ceremony with which you’ll be put in the ground mean anything? You’ll still
be dead, and so will I, then judgment. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While we are on this earth, we are counseled to prioritize
the things that truly matter, those things that will have long-lasting and
eternal consequences, and to pursue what brings true joy and fulfillment, and
not the wisps and vapors of the baubles that the godless chase after with such
ferocity. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It doesn’t matter how many rooms a mansion has; you can only
sleep in one bed at a time. You can only eat so many meals in your waking
hours, wear one suit of clothes in a given day, drive one car at a time, and
while we spend our days toiling to amass more and more, the most precious
resource we have is slipping from us, ticking away with every second. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How long I live is up to God. That I’ve lived a life worth
living is up to me. Did I use my time to heal or hurt? Did I use my time to
comfort or wound? Did I use my days focused solely on me, or did I pour myself
out for others, being about the Father’s work and pursuing His glory rather
than mine? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is not a judgment; it is self-reflection. It is
something I dwell on the older I get, and I find that it’s easy to get
distracted away from the things that truly matter if I allow it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As history tells it, Marcus Aurelius, a famed Roman emperor,
hired a servant whose only job was to follow him around and whisper in his ear,
‘memento mori’ every day, which roughly translated means, remember you are
mortal. That was it, the man’s sole function, the reason for his employ was to
remind the emperor that he too was mortal. Remember, you, too, are mortal, but
beyond this mortal coil, eternity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. </span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-39330530305132505392024-03-01T05:19:00.002-06:002024-03-01T05:19:11.963-06:00Humble<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Most people are good at humbling themselves in front of
others when needed. Pretending to be humble, especially when their humility may
get noticed and remarked upon, people will bow their heads, avert their gaze, and
act demure and diffident, but usually, it’s just an act. James instructs us to
humble ourselves, not in the sight of others, but rather in the sight of the Lord.
If your humility isn’t authentic and sincere in His sight, He’ll know it just
as sure as He knows the end from the beginning.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There’s a difference if you know what to look for. Some
people see themselves as so humble in the sight of others that they are proud
of their humility. It may take a minute, but you'll get it once you get it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What God is desirous of is not that we make ourselves look
humble before others, wearing raggedy clothing and seeming as though we haven’t
slept for a week, but that we humble ourselves in His sight, that we humble our
hearts and in that humility submit to Him in all things. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">God sees beyond faux humility to the heart of man, and if
true humility is not found therein, He will know it. It still surprises me
after all these years that people still try to trick God, deceive Him, or think
so little of His omniscience that they attempt sleight of hand when it comes to
their spiritual condition. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Telling others you’re humble doesn’t make you humble. Wearing
a shirt or a hat with ‘humble’ stenciled on it doesn’t make you humble, either.
Humility is rooted in submission and obedience. When we humble ourselves in the
sight of the Lord, we acknowledge His supremacy, His lordship, and His
authority. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The side benefits of humility are numerous and long-reaching.
When we humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, we see ourselves as we are,
warts and all, and are more willing to extend grace to those around us,
allowing for the fact that they’re human too, imperfect and flawed, but
redeemed by the blood of Christ just as we are. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James 4:11-12, “Do not speak evil of one another, brethren.
He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law
and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but
a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you
to judge another?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The operative word in these two verses is brethren. James instructs
believers, the brethren, not to speak evil of one another. It’s an important
distinction because some use these two verses to insist that we should not point
out faulty doctrine, that we should not point out when someone is in error, and
that we should not expose sin when it is found in the camp because that would
mean we are judging our brethren. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If someone has abandoned the faith, surrendered to lust, or sinned,
and their sin has found them out, to sweep it under the rug, ignore it, or
pretend it didn’t happen will only lead to worse down the road. Enough stories of
now infamous former leaders who’ve been in ministry for thirty or forty years
are going around, and their sin from long ago is being exposed, destroying
their entire testimony wholesale. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James never says not to inspect the fruit, not to call out
error, and not to expose sin. What he does say is not to speak evil of one
another, and by one another, he means the brethren. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The first instruction James gives is not to speak evil of one
another. Jesus completes the tableau and details what we must do if a brother
sins against you. Rather than go and tell everyone else about it, making sure
everyone within earshot knows we’ve been wronged, we are to approach the
individual in private and tell him his fault between you and him alone. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Matthew 18:15-17, “Moreover if your brother sins against you,
go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have
gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more,
that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’
And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even
to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is the right way of dealing with offense. This is the
proper way of dealing with a brother who has sinned against you. Even if a
brother has sinned against you, if you haven’t gone through these steps, first
approaching them privately, then with two or three witnesses, then before the
church, you’ve not dealt with the situation Biblically. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s easy to lash out when we feel as though someone has
sinned against us. It’s easy to pay back with the same measure we were dealt.
Most often, but not always, what we thought to be a slight or a sin against us
was perceived differently than how it was intended. Because we’ve submitted to
God and humbled ourselves in the sight of the Lord, we will proceed judiciously
when such situations arise and follow the prescribed instructions laid out by
Jesus. We will first approach the brother who has sinned against us privately,
then go on from there if the situation calls for it. You have gained a brother
if he hears you, and no more need be said. If not, go on to step two, then
three if needed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">God alone is the judge. A judge not only hears all the
evidence but also passes a sentence. A judge determines whether someone is
guilty or innocent of the charges brought against them. Our duty is to walk in
humility and obedience, fully aware that not all who name the name of Jesus
belong to Him, but also that He will judge one and all in due season. Not speaking
evil does not extend to condoning, approving, validating, or celebrating
non-biblical pursuits. It is a lesson the modern-day church desperately needs
to learn anew.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-4871780683029975172024-02-28T05:00:00.001-06:002024-02-28T05:00:11.710-06:00Singularity<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">When you submit to one, you are automatically in conflict
with the other. If it helps anyone to understand it better, your heart only has
room for one master, and it cannot divide itself into a duplex. Your heart
isn’t an investment rental that you can divvy up to get more income out of. One
tenant is all it can hold, and you get to choose the tenant. Either you submit
to God and are in enmity with the devil, or you surrender your heart to sin and
are in enmity with God.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s not complicated, but we complicate it. The reason we
complicate it is that our hearts are not wholly surrendered to God, our minds
are not wholly submitted to His will, and we are tempted every time someone
comes around and insists we can make a little side income off book, and no one
will ever have to know. Just for a little while, they promise. All they need is
a room with a bed, and they’ll pay cash, and no one has to know. It takes one
yes, and by the time you realize what you’ve done, there’s a hole in the living
room floor, which is now being used as a fire pit; the walls are spray-painted
black, they’ve brought in a dozen more friends, and when you try to evict them,
they threaten to kill you. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That’s what sin does in the hearts of men. It begins as a
benign, timid, shy thing, but once you let it in, the mask comes off, and you
see the fangs, and the talons and all the niceties are long forgotten because
they were a ruse. That first high turns into something you’re always chasing
but never catching. That first glance turns into such an abusive, unhealthy
relationship that if he doesn’t hit you on a given day, you wonder if he’s
fallen out of love with you. Sin corrupts. Even things that seem wholesome at
first get corrupted by sin because that is its function and purpose. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Where they end up shouldn’t surprise anyone who starts down
the road of sin and depravity, but somehow, it always does. No one ever sets
out to end up homeless, toothless, riddled with disease, and having to struggle
to take in a lungful of air, but they do. Even if they have enough loved ones
around them to set them straight, get them help, send them to rehab, and keep
them from relapsing, the success stories are so few and far between that those
who make it get lauded as being of superhuman will. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Nobody wants to end up where sin and rebellion take them, and
everyone talks themselves into believing that they’ll be the exception. They’ll
be the ones that can play with fire and not get burned. They’ll be the one that
will do the devil’s bidding when they think God isn’t watching and pretend at
righteousness when He is. If anyone was unaware, God is always watching, and
you can’t trick Him into believing you’re something that you’re not. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Those who thought they could pull the wool over God’s eyes
will stand before Him one day and have a laundry list ready for Him to peruse
as evidence that they knew Him, but alas, He did not know them, and that’s the
plumb line. That’s the litmus test. That’s the pass and fail of it all, whether
He knew you and not if you knew of Him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">No, I’m not being mean-spirited, unloving, or unkind; I’m
being direct and Biblical. Just because the world has redefined directness to
mean callous and insensitive, it doesn’t make it so. How could I dare to say I
love you in Christ if I did not tell you the truth? Would I not be proven a
liar by omitting what the Bible says? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Not only does James tell us what we must do, but he also
tells us how we go about doing it. It’s easy to tell someone to draw near to
God, and He will draw near to you, but how we go about doing that is a
different matter altogether. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s like someone asking me how they can save money on their
electric bill and me telling them to find another source of electricity. All
well and good, thanks for the advice, but how exactly do I do that? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is by cleaning our hands and purifying our hearts that we
draw nearer to God. If you want more of God, you must retain less of the flesh
until none of the flesh exists, and all that remains is God. We appropriate the
blood of Jesus because it’s the only thing that will make us clean, but we must
endeavor to wash our hands and purify our hearts. There must be an active
desire to draw nearer to God and a willingness to do all that is required to
achieve that desired result. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Righteousness and holiness unto God are not take-it-or-leave-it
propositions or something we’re willing to pursue when the temptations being
proffered are not up to a certain type of standard. I’m not married to my wife
only insofar as someone younger comes along, as long as she retains her looks,
or as long as she is in pristine health; she is my wife until death do us part,
and it is the vow I made long ago. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Those who serve God only because they believe He will prosper
them, bless them, or give them that promotion at work will stop doing so as
soon as they get what they desire or when what they want doesn’t materialize. Those
who serve God because He is the Lord of their lives and have a genuine desire
to draw nearer to Him will continue to do so no matter their situation, circumstance,
or condition. Everyone knows which type of Christian they are; the hard part is
admitting it to themselves and taking steps to remedy the situation if remedy
is required.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-20594652403563999882024-02-27T05:48:00.003-06:002024-02-27T05:48:47.221-06:00Resist<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Even Jesus had to resist the devil. I know it’s something
those with certain denominational bends would rather forget, dismiss, or
otherwise whitewash, but Jesus had to actively resist the devil in order for
the devil to flee. It’s troubling how readily we cherry-pick the scriptures
that allow for a particular lifestyle, a certain mindset, and a certain level
of commitment, or lack thereof. We dismiss what Jesus said and what Jesus did
because we like the way Paul phrased it more, even though to make what Paul
said fit our narrative, we have to butcher the text and only quote half a
verse.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">One thing I’ve noticed from studying Christ’s encounter with
the devil is that the more direct, to the point, and definitive your
renunciation of him is, the more apt he is to flee and stay gone. We can’t be
halfhearted in our resistance. We can’t resist the devil only when others are
watching, but in the dark of night, we go looking for the same temptations we
resisted only a few hours prior because it made us look spiritual in the eyes
of others. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When you resist the devil, you resist him completely. You
don’t resist just because the guy trying to get your number isn’t handsome
enough or the girl making advances isn’t your type. You resist when afforded
the opportunity to sin with your mind’s ideal, whether that ideal is Fabio or
Frodo. People have types; it is what it is. The point is that some people feel
mighty invincible when they resist the devil’s C-List advances, but when he
sends in his A-listers, they sing another tune. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Become an individual accustomed to resisting the devil and
one who can readily identify when the devil is at work. It can be a small thing
that can snowball into a big thing if you don’t actively resist it, and given
that the enemy knows where our sensitive areas are, he is quick to press them
over and over again. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If I’ve ever given anyone the impression that I am perfect,
it was not my intent. My sensitive area is slow drivers and overly aggressive
drivers, depending on whether I have my girls in the car or not. I grew up
learning to drive in California, then spent almost a decade driving two-lane
roads in Romania, where every drive is an adventure and potentially your last.
When I’m by myself, my feet tend to get heavy, leaden even, and since I’m
always on my way somewhere and I like to be punctual, I don’t subscribe to
driving under the speed limit. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It seems as though all the octogenarians with eye problems
get the same signal simultaneously, and it’s when I’m leaving to go somewhere.
Fifteen in a forty-five? Why, please, and thank you! I’ve come to realize that
something as seemingly innocuous as someone crawling along in front of me or my
having to swerve to not get t-boned can serve to sour my mood and shift my
focus toward the negative. I’ve come to recognize the situations for what they
are, and I will not allow myself to get angry or aggressive, knowing that it’s
just the devil probing, being petty, and trying to distract me in some small
way. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The same goes for when I have my girls in the car, and I’m as
law-abiding as a guy out on parole who knows he’s done something naughty. Their
safety is my primary concern, and getting wherever we’re going in a timely
fashion is a distant second. It’s in those moments that the guy in the Dodge Charger
with a death wish zips by at eighty miles an hour, passing on my right, giving
me death stares as though I was responsible for him getting kicked in the head by
a mule when he was a kid. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I recognize it for what it is and don’t take the bait. I
don’t rise to the challenge, and it passes just as readily as it came. It may
seem a small thing, but I’ve seen the aftermaths of enough road rage incidents
to know that it can snowball into a big thing. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Be aware that the enemy probes every area of your life every
moment of every day, looking for a chink in your armor, a way to get at you,
and plant a seed that will grow into a sycamore. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I have a preacher friend who did a conference not far from
where I live, and I went to hear him speak one of the evenings he was scheduled
to be there. Ask any preacher, and if they’re honest, they’ll tell you that
some sermons land better than others. If they’re remotely aware of their
surroundings, they’ll be able to feel the audience and gauge whether the
message is received or rejected, accepted or ignored. They know it when it
happens. My friend gave a good sermon. The people were hungry, receptive, and
eager, and the message was anointed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When he was done, and we were standing in the back catching
up, one of the men who’d attended came up to him and said, “I just want to
shake your hand and say that was amazing. It was a great sermon.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My friend shakes the man’s hand, and rather than thanking him,
he says, “I know; the devil already whispered it in my ear as I was walking off
the stage.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It was an eye-opening exchange for me because he recognized
that as well-intentioned as flattery was, he was prone to pride and would not
allow the seed of it to be planted in his heart in the least. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Humility will keep you grounded. Giving all glory to God for
anything He might do through you will keep you from allowing the enemy to plant
a seed, and knowing when he is attempting to worm his way into your heart and
resisting him will keep you from having to root out those things hard to remove
once they’ve burrowed in and bloomed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. </span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-63902163164277520772024-02-26T05:34:00.001-06:002024-02-26T05:34:05.001-06:00Onus III<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">If I’d ever had to work for someone, I’m sure I would have
been remanded to sensitivity training by now. Either that or fired outright,
because I don’t suffer fools, and everything in life, save for a couple of
things, are binary choices that most people choose to complicate to feel
self-important or be able to justify their victimhood.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When it comes to being a child of God, either you are, or you
aren’t. When it comes to submitting, obeying, and doing what He has commanded
you to do to receive what He has for you, either you are, or you aren’t. It's
binary. Only two paths are possible. No third option exists. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s only when the unscrupulous realized there was an
opportunity to be exploited that the niche market of ‘spiritual people’ was
created, where it was proffered that you can be spiritual without being saved,
you can know a higher power without knowing the God of the Bible, and a special
class, a whole new heaven, an entire religious concept was created out of whole
cloth, and no one batted an eye. Prayer was replaced with positive
affirmations, obeying God by trusting your feelings, and submitting to God by
following your heart. Dante ain’t got nothing on us when it comes to the hell
we can create for ourselves when we think we are as God doing as we will, believing
that the tab will never come due. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You have a bunch of dopey people talking about how they are
very spiritual and that when they die, they will ascend to the oneness of the
universe, meld into the eternal mind, and return to some sort of hub or nexus
where all the gods you could ever imagine will share an antechamber. Everyone
will have a space reserved exclusively for themselves so they can bask in the
glory of Zippy, the Space Lord, their deity of choice. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">These are people who didn’t want to submit to God, who didn’t
want Jesus as Lord, but who needed some sort of assurance that when they pass,
it will be to something akin to heaven, but not quite heaven because they’re
not willing to give up the things of the flesh in order to acquire heaven. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">All I can do is tell people what the Bible says. Whether they
follow through and do as instructed is wholly up to them. I know; choices and
accountability-who’d have thunk it? The world is currently in the mess it's in
because a small number convinced a large number that they can live
consequence-free and do as they will without repercussions. By the time they
realized it was a lie, an impossibility, it was too late, and now they are cogs
in a machine that seeks their destruction. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Being humble today is considered counterculture. You have to
be brash, and in your face; you have to claw your way to the limelight and nail
yourself to the floorboards once you’ve arrived. You have to tell everyone
about how great you are just in case they haven’t figured it out. People need
to see your uniqueness, glom on to your brand, idolize you, and tell others you’re
the bee’s knees, and in all that push for personal relevance, Jesus gets lost
in the shuffle. Now, do you understand why humbling yourself in the sight of
the Lord is so important? Now, do you see why it is one of the requirements
James highlights as a necessary virtue? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Forced submission is bondage. There is no love in forced
submission; this is why God will never force someone to submit to Him or humble
themselves. Yes, there are occasions where God humbles us, but humbling oneself
and being humbled are two different things, which, although similar sounding,
are not. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I know it’s a stretch, but humor me. If I walk into a gym and
put six plates on each side of a bench press bar, get under it, and try to lift
it, chances are I’d crush my trachea and hope someone will come along to save
me from myself. Having tried and failed spectacularly, I was humbled. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If, however, I walk into a gym and acknowledge that I can’t
push that kind of weight and limit the number of plates I pack onto the bar to
one or two, then I was humble enough to acknowledge my shortcomings and didn’t
need to be humbled. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sometimes, God needs to humble us for our own good, but it’s
an object lesson, a learning opportunity, something we are meant to grow from.
Unless you are willingly and willfully participating in humbling yourself in
the sight of the Lord, you will bristle and balk and be an otherwise bitter
servant who drags his feet and does the least he can get away with without
being reprimanded. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There is a caveat to humbling oneself, a promise God makes,
and that is if we humble ourselves and follow through with the intention of
doing it and actually do it, He will lift us up. How, how high, or the manner
in which God will lift us up is uncertain, but one thing is beyond doubt: when
God lifts a man up, it is in such a way and to such heights that the individual
himself could never have achieved it no matter how hard he tried. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When God lifts you up, there’s no scrambling for the
limelight, no clawing your way to the middle, no undermining others just so you
get ahead, no underhanded tricks, no machinations, just God elevating a man
above his station, above anything he could have envisioned given where he
started. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When God lifts up the humble man, he doesn’t have to fret or
worry about reach, branding, and all the other foolish things of the world that
have seeped into the church. The only thing he has to contend with is to submit
to God, draw near to Him, and walk in humility. God takes care of the rest.
It’s what He promised.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-22993053911086123102024-02-25T06:06:00.000-06:002024-02-25T06:06:01.015-06:00Onus II<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">If you’ve been running through the mud all morning, with the
requisite slips and tumbles, and come into the house, the first thing you do is
wash yourself and make yourself clean. It’s a simple concept, one that the
older you get, the more likely you are to practice regularly, but anyone with
children can attest that it’s one of the most challenging things to convince
your children of.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">They come in from playing outside, and you can barely tell
what color their skin is; they’re covered in what you hope is mud, but we have
enough squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and deer running around that you can never
tell, and when you tell them to go and wash their hands, they look at you like
you just got dropped onto your head. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“But they’re not dirty,” is usually the answer, to which you
point to the mud and bits of grass and other things covering their hands and
under their nails. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“You can’t sit down to lunch looking like that,” you insist,
“go wash up, then come eat.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Grudgingly, ever so grudgingly, they do as they’re told,
leaving a ring around the sink that would make a mechanic proud. When you ask
them if they can tell the difference, they usually respond that it wasn’t so
bad. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James lays out one precept, building upon another, so that
you go from submitting to God to resisting the devil, to the devil fleeing from
you, and once he has fled, proceed to cleanse your hands and purify your heart.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If anyone can honestly say that they are not sinners or
double-minded while still living in the world, as the world, and for the world,
then they don’t have to follow through with cleansing their hands and purifying
their hearts. Still, it’s highly doubtful that anyone would say something like
that and mean it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Are we not double-minded when we say, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus,”
with one breath, then go about ensuring our lifelong comfort with the next? Are
we not double-minded when we ask God to show us His ways, only to balk at them
when He does? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Friendship with the world makes us enemies of God, but
somehow, we talk ourselves into believing that God will overlook it. We’re such
good friends to have around that God will have to make allowances and share us
with the world. There’s no deception more difficult to rid oneself of than
self-deception. When someone deceives us, it’s one thing. We shrug it off,
avoid the person, perhaps warn others about them, but when we deceive
ourselves, it becomes an issue of pride. Surely, we could not have been so
myopic as not to have seen it. Surely, it’s beyond us to be deceived in such a
manner. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is why the Word of God must be the final arbiter, the
final authority, and have the final say. While we humans can err, God and His
word cannot. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The reason there is so much confusion in the camp, the reason
there are ten thousand voices saying ten thousand different things, and most
people don’t know who to believe, is because they’ve not done the first thing
James instructs us to do, which is submit to God. Ten or twenty years of going
to church and sitting in a pew, people are still talking about their feelings
when it comes to what the Word of God says. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I don’t care how you feel about a given thing; if the Bible
says you must do it, then you do it. Your feelings don’t come into play; they
are not part of the equation because the Bible never says if you feel like
repenting, repent, or if you feel like obeying, obey. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We’ve brought so many worldly concepts into the church and
have spiritualized so many things that have nothing to do with spirituality;
we’ve pandered to so many for so long that nowadays, quoting the Bible is
revolutionary in the church. We feel the need to qualify, quantify, and have a
disclaimer regarding scripture, and heavens help you if you don’t. The Cat Mom
Alliance and Beth Moore fan club will be out for blood. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Reading the Word of God in a church setting ought not to be
an act of courage, and the fact that it’s deemed as such tells us all we need
to know about how far the church has fallen from the way of truth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’ve had people ask me why they don’t feel saved after years
of sitting in a contemporary church, and when I ask if they’ve repented,
submitted to God, drawn near to Him, or purified their hearts, they answer that
they walked the isle once when they were teenagers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Everyone wants eternity, but nobody wants to do anything for
it. We all want to claim we’re friends of God, but only in certain settings,
only when it benefits us, and only when we have something to gain from the
relationship. If, perchance, that friendship begins to cost us something,
anything, whether the loss of the world’s acceptance or the praise of
faux-friends, we back-pedal, guffaw, and deny Him as readily as Peter before
the rooster crowed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We are living the very definition of Laodicea in our modern
era but somehow have the shamelessness to insist that we are the pinnacle of
all that is spiritual and divine. God broke the mold when He made you sister
Beth; there’s never been another so powerful and strong. It would be funny if
it weren’t so sad: fools encouraging other fools to continue in their foolishness,
insisting that they see themselves as different from the fools they are. Don’t
believe your lying eyes; whatever you do, don’t believe them, but eventually,
you’ll have to because sooner or later, the realization will dawn that
distasteful as it may be, you’ve been seeing the truth of it all along.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-88812723653282701842024-02-24T06:10:00.001-06:002024-02-24T06:10:17.580-06:00Onus<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Taking personal responsibility for anything has become
anathema not only to those in the world but far too many within the church as
well. Whenever anyone brings up the idea of accountability or that the onus for
certain things is on us as individuals when it comes to a true and lasting
relationship with God, we bristle and balk, obfuscate and deny, thinking that
if we can be loud enough, if we can get enough people on our side, then it will
make the truth void.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s always someone else’s fault when things go wrong. It’s
always someone else’s doing when we don’t experience the intimacy we were
promised because we heard it clear enough: all we had to do was touch our TV
screen, send in a check, and we would know the fullness of the power of God. We
would feel the Holy Spirit coursing through our veins; we would level up and be
able to declare, bind up and loose, cast down, and build up as we will. No more
humbling ourselves in the sight of the Lord. No more denying ourselves and
picking up our crosses; we would ascend to our rightful places. Bring on my rod
of iron; I’ve got some smiting to do!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Our participation in any of it was not required. We are too
busy to add something like growing in God to our ever-burgeoning schedule, so
all we needed to do was consent to being transformed. It was supposed to be
God’s job to do everything else. As such, anyone who mentioned repentance was
shunned and became persona non grata. Being a child of God is all well and
good, but not if it comes at a cost. No, sir, we will not believe that report,
even though it is rooted in Scripture. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James 4:7-10, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and
he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse
your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and
mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What James reiterates may not be popular, but it is Biblical.
Usually, the more popular something is, the less Biblical it is, especially in
our day and age, so if we gauge something by its popularity, chances are we
will believe things that have no Scriptural basis or foundation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The first thing James counsels is that we submit to God.
Partial submission is total rebellion, so when we submit to God, we do so
wholly, completely, in every area in which He has a say. We can’t submit to God
only in the easy things, but even those that would peel back the flesh and
cause us great discomfort when we do them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Doing the easy thing is easy. We gravitate toward the easy
things because we know they do not require much exertion or sacrifice. It’s why
the one pill every morning to get back to your beach body pills are so popular
because they require so little of us as individuals. You don’t have to
exercise, and you don’t have to watch what you eat. Just pop a pill in the
morning, and it will undo all the abuse you’ve foisted upon yourself for the
past two decades. They must work; they come with a money-back guarantee, so
anyone who says differently is just a naysayer. When you dare to point out that
if they did work as advertised, obesity wouldn’t be raging out of control in
the West, they just call you misinformed and go back to their stuffed crust
family-size meat lover’s pizza. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If all James instructed was to submit to God, then I could
see myself going along with the idea that all one really needs to do is consent
to being made clean, but he continues in his letter and points out a handful of
other things we must do, and explains why we must do them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">After submitting ourselves to God, it is our duty to resist
the devil. When we’ve submitted to God and resisted the devil, then the devil
will flee. The word resist is a verb. A verb is a word used to describe an
action. When James counsels us to resist the devil, he is not encouraging us to
be passive but to actively withstand the actions of the enemy and the effects
thereof. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’ve heard it asked once why God doesn’t make men stop
sinning, and the answer is that it’s man’s job to resist the devil that he
might flee. When you withstand the devil's actions, God will give you the
strength to continue doing so. When the devil sees that he is actively being
resisted, he will flee because he knows that he can’t force someone to sin.
Contrary to popular belief, the devil can’t make you do it; he can just present
you with the opportunity. You choose whether to resist him or give in. You
choose whether to withstand his temptations or surrender to the impulses of the
flesh. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s easier to blame the devil and insist he made us do
something or another than to admit that we failed to withstand him and that in
our struggle, we did not resist unto blood striving against sin. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The onus is on us to draw near to God. The onus is on us to
resist the devil. The onus is on us to make sure that we are doing what the
Word of God insists we must so that we might obtain what it promises we would. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you’ve never obeyed God, followed through, done what He
commanded you to do, and remained consistent in it, you can’t blame Him for
your failures, shortcomings or for His not having revealed Himself fully to
you. It’s not a God problem; it’s a me problem, and the only thing that will
fix it is humble obedience.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. </span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-17887712177461763092024-02-23T05:20:00.002-06:002024-02-23T05:20:27.946-06:00The Secret<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s only a secret to those who think they can coerce or
somehow twist God’s arm into giving them what they want, but for anyone else
who’s read the Bible once or twice, it’s no secret at all. The way we get the
things we ask for from God is to ask for the things that are pleasing to God.
The way we receive is to ask according to His will and plan for our life, and
we will receive all that we ask for abundantly. How we come about doing that is
drawing nearer to Him. The nearer you draw to God, and the nearer He draws to
you, the things you desire will no longer originate from your flesh but from
your spiritual man. Your spiritual man, in turn, will desire those things that
will aid him in growing and simultaneously mortifying the flesh all the more,
and because you desire the things of God and not of this world, His hand will
always be open to you.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The idea that we can guilt trip, blackmail, or coerce God
into doing our bidding is foolhardy and childish. My daughters used to do that,
but they grew out of it. It seems some Christians haven’t. We can’t go before
God with the equivalent of “I cleaned my room, now can I watch some TV?” That’s
not the way it works, and that’s not the kind of relationship God wants with
His children. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My daughters know full well that there is no television
watching on weekdays, and on Saturday mornings, they get thirty minutes of
something wholesome like Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry. We limit the amount of
screen time because we love our children, not because we’re trying to be
needlessly harsh, mean, or intent on keeping them from achieving true
happiness. They are children. Their understanding is limited, and even though
they pout and huff when they are told no, it must be so because the momentary
satisfaction of sitting in front of a screen will have long-term repercussions
throughout their life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Back before they realized we were serious about it, the
little one would put her hands on her hips, huff through her nose, and say,
“That’s not fair! You always say no. Why do you do that?” to which I would
answer, “Because you always ask the same question!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If they’d asked a different question or had a different
request, perhaps they would have gotten a different answer. If they’d wanted to
read books, draw, go outside, and play instead of watching television, I would
have told them they could do those things to their heart’s content. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you keep asking God the same question, you’ll receive the
same answer. Don’t grow bitter and angry because God is being consistent; ask a
different question, and perhaps you will receive a different answer from Him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Always remember that you are His, and He loves you. James is
trying to get this point across and does an excellent job. It’s not because God
can’t give what we’re asking for; it’s because we ask amiss. We ask for the
wrong things, the things that will do nothing to grow us spiritually, and for
our own good, God says no. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It took a while for my daughters to understand the truth of
it, and it’s taking the modern-day church longer than it took my daughters. God
is not a genie in a bottle. You don’t get your wishes granted by doing the
equivalent of rubbing the bottle with prayers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sometimes, God has to say no for your own good. He has to
deny your request because He knows where granting it will lead. Because we’ve
redefined what God’s desire for His children is, we feel as though we are
constantly at odds with Him and that He is not keeping up His end of the
bargain. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you believe that God’s desire for you is to be happy,
rich, and comfortable in this world, you believe a lie. That’s not to say God
wants you to be poor, ill at ease, and miserable, but the way your flesh feels
during the little time you are here is irrelevant to Him. God’s purpose for you
and me was laid out in the most often quoted Bible passage ever, and it’s
simple enough for anyone to understand. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the
world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If whatever you’re asking for would in any way hinder you
from not perishing but having everlasting life, then God saying no to it is a
blessing and a grace. The purpose of Jesus being given isn’t so we could brag
about cars and watches and diamond rings; the purpose of Jesus being given is
so we might have everlasting life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Mark 8:36-38, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the
whole world, and loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his
soul?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">These are two questions the prosperity pimps never seem to
consider. They are two questions they avoid at all costs because the answers
would be detrimental to the fallacious doctrine they’ve built up over the
years. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The finish line isn’t fame or fortune. The finish line isn’t
getting that new car or that new house. The finish line, the goal, the purpose
of it all is everlasting life. The entire point of the exercise is not to
perish but to be with Him in heaven throughout eternity. Anyone whose message
and focus is something other than eternity falls short of the great commission
to preach the gospel and make disciples of those who heed the call to
repentance.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-71566143314375878022024-02-21T06:27:00.003-06:002024-02-21T06:27:26.216-06:00Remedies III<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">God is not indifferent to the proud. He actively resists
them. There is a difference, and not a very subtle or nuanced one, between God
actively resisting someone and God merely being indifferent toward them, their
actions, and their existence. To put it mildly, God is not a fan of pride. It’s
corrosive, destructive, and deadly. Just ask Lucifer.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pride and servanthood do not mix. Being a proud bondservant
of Jesus is just as diametrically opposed as saying you ran across a cold sun,
or hot snow. Once one of these things is combined with the other, it changes
the nature of it, making it something other than what it was. Hot snow is no
longer snow but melted snow that has been turned into boiling water. As far as
a cold sun is concerned, that would be the moon, and it’s very different than
the sun. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Not only will God not give grace to the proud, but He will
actively resist them. The humble, however, He blesses with grace because they
acknowledge a need that only His presence in their lives can meet. Once that
need is met, the humble do not take credit for their breakthrough or having
escaped the shackles of their sin but give all glory and credit to God, as it
should be. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Churches today are filled to the brim with spiritual
adulterers and adulteresses, and no one calls them on it because the elder
board has mortgages to pay and bonuses to dole out, so they are unwilling to
upset the apple cart and call it what it is. For every new fad or perversion,
we make a new allowance, we carve out an exemption, and we insist that everyone
else go along. Otherwise, we will label them unloving. The enemy already knows
that compromise has become a mainstay of the modern-day church, so he is
pushing the envelope with ever greater fervor, to the point that good and evil
become interchangeable, and sin deemed a relic of the past that will nevermore
be mentioned among the religious class. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s hard to call others to repentance when you, yourself,
are living a life of debauchery. It’s hard to tell others to love their wives
as Christ loved the church and cherish them for better or worse when you’ve
been seeing the new secretary and have already filed divorce papers from your
wife of thirty years. Whether they can justify it anecdotally by pointing to
some other pastor or preacher who likewise did it, it still does not make it
Biblical, nor does it mean that God approves of it. Compromised leaders lead to
compromised congregations, and we’ve only just begun to see the damage wrought
on what we deem the household of faith. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Why should I submit to God when, for most denominations, that
is no longer a prerequisite? I could say because the Bible says to, but you
already know the truth of it, and I don’t have to beat a dead horse just to
make a point. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The church is in the shape it is in because the opinions of
men took precedence over the Word of God. We did not resist the proud as God
does, but gave them platforms and praise, deferred to them on spiritual matters
while rejecting the Bible, and followed them off the cliff because, unlike the
Word, they didn’t insist that we should resist the devil but that we could call
a truce, a ceasefire, an armistice, and learn to coexist. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James is laying out the basics. This isn’t special forces;
this is basic training. First, humble yourself. Second, submit to God. Third,
resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Once you’ve done that, once you’ve
resisted the devil and he has fled, the next step is to draw near to God, and
He will draw near to you. Stopping short along the way and not following
through in the outlined order will not garner you the desired results. You make
the dough before you put the sauce on it, put the sauce on the dough before you
put on the cheese, and complete the pizza before you throw it in the oven. You
don’t pick the order in which you do it. There is an explicit order in the
Word, and we would do well to follow it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But I want to draw close to God first then I’ll resist the
devil and submit myself to Him. I need some sort of proof, some sort of
promissory note. God needs to woo me first, then I’ll consider humbling myself.
Once again, that’s not the way it works. Even if you really want it to work,
even if you think it may, going out of sequence will keep you spinning your
wheels and experiencing little, if any, of the presence of God in your life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But what about Paul? Exceptions to the rule are just that.
The same goes for the thief on the cross. You can’t point to the one time
someone didn’t die from biting down on a live wire and use it as the standard,
insisting that it’s safe. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In trying to do it out of sequence, in trying to make it up
as we go along, and playing it by ear, we’ve proven to everyone that we’ve
neither humbled ourselves nor submitted to God. Our pride still has free reign,
and it is the pride of man that thinks it knows better than God. It is the
pride of man that thinks God will have to bend to his will rather than him
bending to God’s will. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Before you start screaming it’s not working, check to see if
you followed the directions and did it in the order it was prescribed in the
Word. Chances are you didn’t. If you had, you’d be at the point where you drew
near to God, and He drew near to you, and you understood true love for the
first time in your life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When God says, “This is the way; walk in it,” and we decide
to hoof it on the rocky terrain, we can’t blame Him when we twist our ankles
and scrape our knees. That’s when we choose to return to the path He has made
smooth or stubbornly press on through the shrubs and the thickets away from our
destination.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-30005117660467800992024-02-20T05:24:00.003-06:002024-02-20T05:24:25.179-06:00Remedies II<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Your yesterday may not define your tomorrow, but your
tomorrow cannot be a carbon copy of your yesterday. If your natural state is
being defeated, dragged through the mud, just holding your breath, hoping you
make it through another day, for that to change, you must do something
different today than you did yesterday. We keep doing the same thing, expecting
different results, and when they don’t materialize, we get all the more dour,
despondent, and deflated.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s a downward spiral, and the only way to break the descent
is to reach out and grab the arm that’s reaching for you. Jesus is always
reaching; not everyone grasps His hand. Some think they can stop their freefall
on their own. Others believe that Jesus may bruise their arms while holding onto
them, and they’d rather be crushed by the stones below than humble themselves
and admit they need help. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With each passing day, the flesh grows stronger, and it
becomes more difficult for the individual in question to call out for help, to
admit he needs it, or to lay aside his pride and surrender. While the flesh
grows stronger, the spiritual man grows weaker and malnourished. This is why
the longer someone practices habitual sin, the more difficult it is for them to
wrench themselves free of their addiction or habit and run into the arms of
Jesus. The devil doesn’t want you free; Jesus does. The devil doesn’t want you
whole; Jesus does. The devil doesn’t want you clean; Jesus does. The devil
doesn’t want you to have life and have it more abundantly; Jesus does. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There is a way to prevent the flesh from growing stronger,
asserting control, and undermining your spiritual growth. In fact, it is a
running theme throughout the New Testament and echoed by every contributor to
its pages, including Jesus. That said, in recent years, it has fallen out of
favor because humility has become something we try to avoid rather than
embrace, and humbling ourselves is seen as weakness rather than virtue. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James 4:6-10, “But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:
“God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Therefore submit to
God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will
draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you
double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to
mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and
He will lift you up.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The remedy for every deficiency we might have, for anything
that might ail us, is encapsulated in these four verses. It doesn’t take a
degree, higher learning, or diplomas; it only takes a willingness to follow
through. God’s prescription is clear, but you have to take the medicine. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I have a friend who was diagnosed with high blood pressure
the last time he went in for a physical, and the doctor prescribed something
for it. A few weeks later, as he was rubbing his chest and saying he was not
feeling his best, I asked him if he’d been taking his meds, and he said he
hadn’t gotten around to filling the prescription yet. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">God tells us what we must do to grow our spiritual man. He
tells us what we need to do to have more grace. He tells us what we need to do for
Him to draw near to us, but we must follow through and do as He instructs. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you’ve not done as He instructs, try doing it before
insisting that God no longer moves as He once moved or draws near to His
children as He once did. The level of hubris required for someone to insist
that God has gone against His word, His nature, and His promises all so He can
accommodate one man’s preconceived notion that God simply doesn’t do those
things anymore is beyond my ability to fathom. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Just because we are too lazy to follow through doesn’t mean
God doesn’t do those things anymore. If the enemy has bruised you, it wasn’t
because he was stronger than God; it’s because you did not resist him to the
point that he fled. Running into the devil’s arms isn’t resisting him. Playing
with sin as though it were not deadly isn’t resisting him. Convincing ourselves
that we will strive against the darkness come tomorrow, isn’t resisting him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Most people don’t overcome because they have no desire to.
They don’t overcome because their sin has already overcome them, and they must
be rescued from it before they can acknowledge how damaging it was for them.
While they’re in it, it is pleasurable. While they’re in it, they do not
consider the adverse effects of sin on their spiritual man and, in most
instances, their quality of life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The first steps to restoration, healing, wholeness, and
freedom are to humble ourselves and submit to God. We humble ourselves by
acknowledging we need help, that we can’t do it on our own, and that we are
rudderless save for His intervention. By doing what He instructs and commands,
by repenting, and by turning our back on the things that once consumed us, we submit
to Him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Some people do well enough with the first part. They humble
themselves and acknowledge their need for help, but it’s the second part they
have a problem with. They still want to be the captain of their ship; they
still want to be in control, and they want to have authority over their sin
only insofar as they can choose to practice it less but still practice it all
the same. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You can have one or the other. You can have God or your
carnality. To think that you can have both, that you can divide your heart in
such a way where one does not attempt to overthrow the other, is foolhardy and
unbiblical. Choose this day whom you will serve. Choose while you still can.
Choose while there is still something in you that acknowledges the road you’re
on only leads to darkness and despair.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-73935635594376320952024-02-19T05:59:00.003-06:002024-02-19T05:59:43.448-06:00Remedies<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s often been said that an ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure. Although it can’t be proven true every time, it has an overall
ring of truth. Don’t wait around to get sick and then scramble to do something
about it. Rather, take preemptive measures to ensure that you’ve done what you
can to keep yourself from doing the things you know will have repercussions
down the road. It’s an easy thing to say; it’s a bit more challenging to do,
but the older I get, and I hear the bones popping and cracking, the more
inclined I am to follow through and be conscious of the things I once took for
granted.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That we spend more time obsessing over our physical health
than our spiritual health is telling in itself. Spiritual health deteriorates
just as readily as physical health if it is not constantly cared for and
matured in an environment of righteousness and holiness. What you consume
spiritually matters as readily as what you consume physically, if not more so.
If your diet consists of donuts, Twinkies, cookies, and pies, and you wash it
all down with a sugar coffee that has no coffee in it but lots of sugar, your
overall physical health will suffer eventually. Your sugar high will fall off a
cliff at some point, your body will likely develop insulin resistance, and the
more you keep going down that path, the worse it becomes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When the spiritual food we consume lacks the building blocks
necessary to mature our spiritual man, we are on a similar diet as we would be
if all we were eating were fun cakes and cotton candy. It tastes good in the
moment; it feels good as you're eating it, but fifteen minutes later, your
stomach is growling, you’re still hungry, and now you’re battling a sugar coma.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s not hyperbole to say that we have an entire generation
being raised on the spiritual version of Peeps, dragging, lethargic, unfocused,
unmotivated, getting a sugar rush once in a while, then going back to sleep for
a year. While we’re eating dyed marshmallows, the enemy has been refining his
attacks and his ability to mimic truth to such an extent that before they know
it, you have entire congregations imploding because it doesn’t take a lot of
poison to kill you, a drop or two will do. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Just as one can get back into shape one day at a time if they
are consistent in their endeavor, one can digress, degenerate, and grow distant
one day at a time as well. What matters is the direction you’re headed in. To
know which direction you’re headed in you must be honest in your
self-assessment, and if change is required, do not put off until tomorrow what
you should start today. Some people know they’re not where they’re supposed to
be in their relationship with God; they acknowledge the reality of their
situation as well as the need to change, but they get caught up in the snare of
tomorrow. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s a brilliant last-ditch effort when you think about it.
The enemy knows he’s about to lose control, that a soul is about to slip
through his fingers, so he goes along. Yes, you’re right you need to change.
You need to read the Bible more, pray more, fast more, and learn to hear the
voice of God more, but not today. You had plans for today. You have those
concert tickets or that date, or that test you were planning to have a crib
sheet for. Wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow, you can start fresh. Then tomorrow
comes, and it’s a repeat of today. There will always be some reason the enemy
will bring up for you to delay repentance and getting serious with God.
Recognize it for what it is, and don’t fall for the trap. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There is a misconception in the Christian world that once
you’ve gotten saved, as the kids like to call it, that’s all you need to do.
That it isn’t the beginning of a journey but the end, replete with tinker tape
and swooning spectators. You’ve reached your destination, and that’s that. No
more needs to be said, no more needs to be done, and you can return to your
previously scheduled program without missing a beat.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Never mind that Jesus said you must deny yourself and pick up
your cross daily. Nowadays, it’s a one-and-done, in and out; raise your hand
and commit to tithing to our church, and you’re saved forever! It’s not even
that those people climbed halfway up the mountain then stopped; they just
discovered there was a mountain to climb, stood at its base, then turned around
and went back to their lives. One day, God will call every pastor, teacher,
evangelist, and preacher to account for omitting the truth that salvation is a
lifelong journey, not a one-time experience. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">After almost forty years in ministry, I’ve encountered all
kinds of people. Among them are those who got distracted, sidelined, or detoured,
and what was once an individual on fire for God became barely burning embers,
at risk of being put out altogether by a soft wind. It was never a sudden
thing. It was always gradual, a bit here and a bit there, one compromise
leading to another, and the more control the flesh asserted, the easier it
became to compel the compromise. It’s the reason people say doing something
you’re not supposed to do a second or third time is easier than the first time
you do it. The flesh grows stronger, the spirit grows weaker, and the things
the flesh leads you to do become increasingly egregious until, to your surprise
and everyone else around you, you are empty, hollow, broken, and chained.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1388370369187844627.post-21191403976619222212024-02-18T06:44:00.003-06:002024-02-18T06:44:59.992-06:00Direct<p> <span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">James doesn’t say that in certain extreme circumstances or in
some cases, friendship with the world can be construed as enmity with God; he
comes right out and says it and leaves no room for debate. Friendship with the
world is enmity with God, every time, without fail, and without exception. If
there were exceptions, the Word would have told us it was so because the last
thing God wants is for His children to be confused, uncertain, and
second-guessing their principles.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While some people find directness uncomfortable and
off-putting, I find it refreshing. I’ve been in churches where the mindset of
the world had so permeated everything that people took umbrage when someone
would read a Bible verse verbatim that they didn’t agree with or that hammered
at their conscience. You could see their face change as they took on a pallor,
and it was all they could do to walk casually out of the sanctuary and not make
a beeline for the nearest exit. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When someone speaks directly, whether from person to person
or from the pulpit, they are not trying to hurt your feelings or make you uncomfortable;
they are rightly dividing the Word, and it’s not something to be looked down
upon and jeered but something to be appreciated and valued. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We’re surrounded by deceit and obfuscation every day. From
advertising to politicians to the little old lady insisting it’s not her dog
leaving little surprises on the sidewalk because her baby is civilized and would
never do such a thing, lies have become such an ever-present reality that when
we hear the truth, it grates, and we bristle at its directness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Unlike the guy on TV who’s trying to sell you the equivalent
of magic beans, the truth is the truth, self-contained and unyielding. It’s not
looking to make a dollar off of your naiveté, it’s not looking to talk you into
a timeshare, nor is it trying to ingratiate itself by deception and flattery;
it just is.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Jesus came to set us free from the influence, control, and
ways of the world. He didn’t come hoping we’d share a piece of our heart with
Him, maybe a corner in an upper room somewhere, far away from prying eyes and
our more erudite friends. It’s the way of some today. They keep Jesus locked in
a room somewhere for fear of Him embarrassing them at an inopportune time, like
when one needs to stand up for the truth or defend His name. We can’t have
that. People don’t need to know that you’re a follower of Christ; it would just
create tension, wouldn’t it? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We have enough excuses to choke a whale when it comes to not
being outspoken about our faith, don’t we? We don’t like the awkwardness; what
if someone unfriends us on Facebook; we don’t deal well with confrontation, and
the list goes on for miles. The truth of it is that Jesus said if we deny Him
before men, He will deny us before the Father. Is the rejection of your fake
friends a more fearful prospect than being denied by Christ before the Father?
If not, then be bold and fearless in declaring to the world that you have been
redeemed, sanctified, and reconciled to God. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Perhaps if more people told the truth, if more people were
honest, if more people were more concerned about the veracity of the things
they say instead of whether what they say placates the individual they’re
sitting across from, the world would be different, and we could all
collectively say that water is wet, the sun is bright, men can’t get pregnant,
and the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There is a difference between faithful, obedient, saved,
sanctified, and religious. There are plenty of religious people in the world.
You see them every weekend in their Sunday best, going through the motions and
sitting in a pew, but come Monday, they blend back in with society, doing as
they do, speaking as they speak, and delighting in the things they delight in.
Other than that hour on Sunday, there is nothing different in what they pursue,
prioritize, or are passionate about than those of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What you pursue, what you devote your time to, what you
devote your energy to reveal what the desire of your heart is. We can either be
friends of God or friends of the world, but we can’t be both. To befriend one
is to be in enmity with the other. If you want to be a friend of the world, you
make yourself an enemy of God. You might not want to; you might think you can
play both sides against the middle or walk that fine line between not wholly
God’s and not altogether worldly. However, James insists that it’s impossible. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">To befriend one is to make an enemy of the other. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">James 4:5, “Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain,
“The spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?”’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We make the conscious choice of pursuing either God or the
world. We pursue one at the expense of the other, whether we want to admit it
to ourselves or not. The spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously, but the
flesh has other ideas. It’s why we must always be aware of the tug and pull of
both the spirit and the flesh and choose the spirit over the flesh. The flesh
knows that the more you grow spiritually, the weaker it will become. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The more you seek God, the more you will turn your back on
the world, and the flesh knows that once you discover the glory of God, once
you discover the beauty of being in His presence, nothing the world has to
offer can hold a candle. This is why the attacks come hot and heavy any time
someone begins to seek after God and draw closer to Him.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With love in Christ,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Michael Boldea, Jr. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Michael Boldea Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09695469447648193872noreply@blogger.com1