The Principles of Prayer XXV

 Jeremiah 23:23-24, ‘“Am I a God near at hand,’ says the Lord, ‘and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?’ says the Lord; ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says the Lord.”

There is nowhere you can go that God does not see you. There are no words you can whisper that God does not hear. There are no prayers and supplications you can bring before the altar that God is not aware of, or that He does not acknowledge. This is His promise. He sees, He hears, for the whole earth is filled with His glory, and not one among us is deemed insignificant by Him, even if the world might deem us as such. You are not just a part of His creation, but a cherished individual in His eyes.

The lowliest son or daughter of God has the same access to Him as the most renowned preacher, teacher, or evangelist. Nobody gets privileged access because of their calling, or the size of their church or ministry. Nobody gets to cut to the head of the line, or claim exclusivity when it comes to spending time with God and in His presence, because of how much money they give, or how influential they are. God doesn’t have a Patreon. You don’t get special treatment the more you increase your monthly pledge, financially speaking. It’s in the time you spend with Him, and the burning desire of your heart to know more of Him, that God responds to and acts in kind.

One of the most frequent complaints you hear from individuals attending mega churches is that they feel invisible. Even though they’ve been attending the church for years, they never once got to shake the pastor’s hand or speak two words to him. Every time they tried, security got in the way, insisting that they needed to be vetted, because we can’t just have anybody come up and shake the man of God’s hand.

There are no barriers to entry when it comes to spending time with God. There is no security to manhandle you, you will never be told that His schedule is full by a bubbly, overly cheerful secretary, and you will never feel ignored by Him if you come before Him in faith and humility. God is ever present, ever aware, and ever desirous to have fellowship with you. He has no hidden agenda or vested interest. He won’t run your credit score before He agrees to take the meeting, and He will not despise small faith or discordant prayers. You are free to approach Him at any time, in any state, and He will always be there for you.

You don’t have to be perfect to come before God, just perfectible. If the desire of your heart is to be more like Jesus, God will take you through the process of sanctification, of dying to self, of mortifying the flesh, all to His glory. It’s when men resist the molding, the pruning, the sifting, and the transforming of God that progress ceases to be made. It’s when men prioritize this present life, their comfort, their reputations, or their aspirations over the will of God that there is discordance and stalled growth.

When Isaiah recounts the vision he had of the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and that he heard the Seraphim crying out, “holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory,” it wasn’t hyperbole or exaggeration. The glory of God is the manifest presence of God Himself that envelops the earth and fills it. How can we, for a second, consider that God does not hear the cries of our hearts when the earth in its entirety is filled with His glory? If anything can give us boldness to press in and come to the throne of grace, it is this irrefutable truth: He is present, he is engaged, and He hears you!

There is only one requirement when it comes to worshipping God: that we do so in spirit and truth. We don’t have to be in a certain place at a certain time in a certain position. Wherever you are, God is there. Whenever you speak, He hears. That we would rather spend our days arguing needlessly with people we’ve never met than commit to spending time with God is not only telling but indictable.

We can’t go around insisting that God doesn’t hear us when we don’t take the time to speak to Him. We can’t throw up our hands in frustration and insist that we don’t feel His presence when there is no desire to be in His presence. It’s not about feeling your feelings or being compelled to approach Him due to untenable circumstances; it’s about desiring to worship Him in spirit and truth, prioritizing Him above all else, and making Him our everything.

God wants more for you than He does from you. Everywhere you turn, someone’s trying to get something from you. Whether it’s your attention, your time, or your money, everyone’s presenting themselves as the one thing you can’t do without. You need this vitamin! You need this supplement! You need to buy this course, this kitchen utensil, this form-fitting shirt, or this beard trimmer.

The only thing God wants from you is your heart, and even that one thing is not out of selfish motives, but rather because He knows that once you surrender your heart, what He will do for you is incomparable to what He demanded from you.

It's an astounding realization. Dare I say, a life-altering, reality-shattering, realization. Before God ever asked for your heart, He gave His only begotten Son. Before God ever asked for your time, He promised that whenever you came before Him, there would never be a ‘temporarily out of the office’ sign on His door, nor a reprimand for not coming before Him during business hours.

Even with all that He has done and all that He promised He would do in us and through us, we remain fickle and faithless, swayed to and from by the merest of breezes. We yearn for the melons, the onions, the leeks, and the garlic of Egypt, forgetting that we were slaves, beaten, abused, and broken, with no hope, no joy, and no future. Think on that the next time someone says God is not as forbearing and long-suffering as they would like Him to be. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XXIV

 When faith is anchored in the power of God and not in the wisdom of men, it removes all nagging doubt as to whether God can do a certain thing. Men fail all the time. Even those with the best of intentions fall short because their power is limited, and though they might desire to do grandiose and noble things, they are incapable of doing them because they have neither the ability nor the capacity.

God, on the other hand, is not limited in His power. He is not limited in His ability to do all that He desires, speaking worlds into existence, and creating man from the dust of the earth. Once we come to understand that we serve a God of power, we will never again wonder if God is able to do something, no matter how impossible it may seem to human intellect. We are confident that God can do and will do all He has promised, because we know Him to be omnipotent. The question isn’t if He can do it, it’s whether it is His will to do it.

That’s the sticking point for many people, because they’ve gotten it into their heads that they can dictate terms to God, demand things of Him, and He must bend to their will, rather than them having to submit to His. God owes me nothing. It doesn’t matter how much of a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum I act like, He is not compelled to do something He knows will end up hobbling my walk, or shipwrecking my faith.  

God isn’t the Lord of your life only when He does things that seem to benefit you, or things you agree with. He doesn’t cease being omnipotent because He didn’t do the thing you asked Him to do, because, unlike man, He knows the end from the beginning, and sees the final outcome of what would have been had He acquiesced.

God’s primary concern is and always has been your spiritual well-being. Though we might ask it of Him, anything detrimental to our spiritual growth, our maturing, our learning to walk by faith and in His authority will be denied us because He knows it would harm us in the long run even though living on easy street and still having a couple of dollars in the bank at the end of the month after all the bills are paid would be nice for a change.

By the prayers He answers and the prayers He doesn’t, God is daily shifting our focus from the things of this earth to the things above. He constantly reminds us that this present life is but a flicker, a grain of sand in an ocean of time, then eternity awaits. Not to belabor the point, but eternity is a long time. God’s primary concern isn’t whether you can afford the muscle car of your dreams, but where you will spend eternity. There are only two destinations, and no third option exists. Every soul that has ever walked the earth will either be welcomed into His presence or cast into the outer darkness. There is no third option. There is no purgatory, no neutral existence for those who tried to be good people; it’s either or, and the deciding factor is whether, as an individual, Christ is Lord of your life, and you’ve been born again to a new life in Him. You’re not saved by osmosis or grandfathered in because your parents were regular churchgoers. You must come to the foot of the cross in repentance. You must surrender your life. You must deny yourself, pick up your cross, and daily follow after Him.   

Our trust in God’s purpose isn’t baseless. We trust because we know He is already present in our tomorrow, and knows the end from the beginning of all things. God is omnipresent. This not only means He is everywhere all at once geographically, but also in time. It’s both time and space that God is omnipresent in, throughout the universe, at all times. God doesn’t take breaks. He doesn’t go on vacation. He doesn’t delegate the responsibilities of His sovereignty for a few decades because He happened upon a new hobby He’d like to pursue.

Even when it seems to us that God isn’t there, He is. Even when it seems He is not hearing the cries of our hearts, He is. This is a certainty we as His children must possess and anchor ourselves in, knowing that the enemy’s great joy is to sow doubt and make us question whether God is truly there.

His omnipresence confirms that any doubt we have is baseless and unfounded. His love affirms that when we cry out to Him, He hears, and in His time, He will do as He wills.

God’s omnipresence is also one of the attributes that sets Him apart from all other gods. There is no religion in the world, and no deity men have worshipped throughout time, which has made the claim that their god is omnipresent. You can go down the list, to every continent, every deity, and every religion, and you will not find one that has even hinted at what the God of the Bible has declared.

Acts 17:26-28, “And He has made from one blood every nation of men who dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’”

No matter where you happen to be geographically, no matter what continent or nation, God is not far from each of us. You don’t have to go on a quest to find God. He is not far from you, He is not hiding Himself, or so far removed from your proximity that the hope of knowing Him is futile. We approach God with confidence because we know He is near. We desire a relationship with Him because we know it will not be one-sided, but reciprocal.

If the realization of who our God is in all His wondrous glory doesn’t humble us and stir gratitude in our hearts for the grace bestowed upon us to have fellowship with Him, then we either have an inflated sense of self or do not fully grasp the magnitude of the God we serve.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

The Principles of Prayer XXIII

When we found out my wife was pregnant with our second child, we were still living in an apartment barely big enough for the three of us, with no prospects of finding a bigger place. We were scrambling, realizing we were now on the clock, and in a few months’ time, a fourth member would join our family, and there would be no way around needing to move to a bigger place.

The housing craze had started in earnest, and people were offering tens of thousands of dollars above asking price, waving inspections, and making all manner of exceptions they otherwise would not have, just to sign the papers and ensure they got into a home.

We’d been actively looking for a bigger place for some time, and on more than one occasion, by the time we got to an open house, it had already sold above asking, via telephone, without the individual who bought it ever seeing it in person.

Pursuing something from a position of desperation is never a good idea. When doing so, thinking clearly becomes almost impossible, and only in hindsight does one realize that the desperation drove them to make decisions they otherwise would not have, that in the moment seemed like the right choice, but that have a lifelong negative impact.

We thought we’d finally caught a break when we showed up at a viewing, and the real estate agent was there, informing us that the home was still available. On the outside, the house seemed nice enough, cozy even, but as we started the walk-through, I began to notice a few things that didn’t quite add up. The floor seemed slanted in places, a couple of the doors seemed to stick, but the biggest giveaway was when we got to the basement and noticed a handful of cracks and fissures in the foundation.

I will admit I am no expert in how a home should look, but even I knew that cracks and slanted floors were a bad sign, and something that should be avoided. Our desperation, coupled with my wife’s now-evident morning sickness, and the ever-present thought that we were running out of time before the baby arrived, actually made us consider putting an offer in on the house, but after we got back to our apartment and discussed it at length, we concluded it was a risk we couldn’t afford to take. Cosmetic issues are one thing. Foundation issues when it comes to a home are something wholly different and can end up being very expensive.

You can have a less-than-ideal structure sitting on a good foundation, or you can have a structure pleasing to the eye, yet whose foundation is in ruins. The wise man will always choose the former over the latter because he understands that if the foundation is bad, the entire edifice is at risk, and there is very little you can do to make it habitable once the foundations have crumbled.

For decades now, the Western church has focused on cosmetic issues while ignoring its crumbling foundation. Nobody visits the basement anyway, so why bother? We need to have fresh paint on the walls to cover up the cracks, we need to plush seats to make the people feel at ease, we need to have good entertainment to keep people engaged and enthusiastic, but as far as the foundation goes, the one thing that holds it all together, and allows the house to stand, that’s thankless work that nobody notices, and some people get put off by insisting that foundation matters, anyway.

We need to appeal to emotion, be sensitive to seekers, embrace compromise, and align ourselves with the majority in order to grow. Once we’ve grown, then we can consider the foundation and see if it needs a bit of work. By then, it’s too late. By then, you’ve built a monster you have to feed every month with payrolls and ad buys with air time and billboards. We can’t risk upsetting the apple cart by insisting on proper biblical standards, or unpopular practices such as praying, fasting, studying Scripture, and submitting to God’s authority. We have a brand to think about, and we can’t damage it because we have big plans and we can’t impede our momentum.

All the while, the things that make the faith what it is are being ignored, minimized, and memory-holed for fear of upsetting the vast majority who are only looking for fire insurance and a good time. Any mention of repentance, sanctification, or holiness is met with an onslaught of angry sheep who insist that had they known the pastor would turn into a fire-and-brimstone sort of preacher, they never would have signed up, reminding the elder board that there are plenty of other options within a two-mile radius that are more than happy to take their money and let them live as they will without all that judgmental stuff.

1 Corinthians 2:4-5, “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

If anyone were able to entreat men with persuasive words of human wisdom, it would have been Paul. Known for having written thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, even if we exclude Hebrews, since it’s been a point of contention for so many, his body of work makes his wisdom undeniable. Having been a student of Gamaliel, one of the most renowned scholars of his time, didn’t hurt either, yet he laid all his wealth of knowledge aside, dispensed with words of human wisdom, and came to the masses in demonstration of the Spirit and power of God.

He clearly states the reason for this, wherein he declares that his desire was that their faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Comparatively speaking, Paul was a wise man among his peers, but he understood that the wisdom of God so far transcends the wisdom of men that it’s not even worthy of mention.

The wisdom of men dictates that compromise is necessary in order to build a church or a ministry. The power of God, however, proves that God can do through one man what the world cannot accomplish with ten thousand, as long as that one man yields, submits, obeys, follows, and keeps the lines of communication between him and God open at all times.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

The Principles of Prayer XXII

 If all one ever has is declarative faith in God, they are no better off than the demons. Not only do the demons believe that there is one God, they go one step further and tremble, understanding more about His authority than most superficial believers do, and acknowledging His sovereignty over all things. It’s a heady thing to realize, yet it is nevertheless true.

James 2:19, “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe – and tremble!”

When we walk by faith, having full assurance in His guiding hand, and possessing complete trust that He will lead us to green pastures and beside still waters, we have gone beyond a declarative faith, into the domain of experiential faith wherein we act upon that which we believe, and not merely declaring that we believe it.

Making a statement regarding a certain thing and following through with action, proving that they were more than words, are two different things. Some time ago, there was a popular song that got so much airplay that you couldn’t escape it. Whether it's the grocery store, your local coffee shop, or cars passing by, on any given day, you were likely to hear a crooner insist that he believes he can fly. Oddly enough, he never acted on the sentiment, even though he sang it often enough. If he had, we’d know, because his falling off a building while attempting to take flight would have likely made the news.

Men can claim they believe, but their lives tell another tale. Saying it is often easy. Doing it is less so, because it involves the mortification of the flesh, and the denial of oneself in order to walk in faith.

Praying in faith isn’t crying out to God, not really expecting anything to happen, and being uncertain as to whether God hears you. Sure, if your prayer is answered, it will be a pleasant surprise, but it was one of many avenues you pursued in hoping to resolve your situation. You threw a bunch of stuff against a wall and waited to see what stuck.

God is not a last resort. He is not who we run to after we’ve exhausted all other options. For those who possess active, experiential faith, He is the first and only one we run to because we know that none other can do what He can.

The idea that we can keep God in a box, out of sight and out of mind, until our hubris leads us to an untenable position, and only then bother to let Him out and expect Him to fix what we broke, isn’t what faith or the Christian walk are about.

I am the captain of my ship, I’m in the driver’s seat, I am piloting this craft, and no one can tell me any different! That is the attitude of many people today, and only when they find themselves nosediving toward a rock cliff do they relent and give up control because they see themselves as having no other options. Love of God, submission, obedience, or faithfulness never entered the equation. They just need a Mr. Fix-it, and not only are they surprised but grow outright bitter when the God to whom they haven’t spoken in a decade isn’t quick to put the broken pieces of their life back together, even though their rebellion and disobedience were the cause of it in the first place.

Prayer is the means by which we foster, nurture, maintain, and grow our relationship with God. An individual without a prayer life, or one whose prayer life is sporadic, and who only approaches God when they have need of something, isn’t interested in a relationship but in exploiting and manipulating God to serve their ends.

I traveled with my grandfather for ten years. I was his interpreter, and whenever we were on the road, we would share a room. More often than not, whenever I would wake up at random hours of the night, I’d find him kneeling by the side of his bed in prayer. These weren’t five-minute prayers, or something so habitual as to become ordinary, but oftentimes for hours on end, he would kneel by his bedside, and have fellowship with God.

It wasn’t because he had a need or was in some existential crisis, but because the desire of his heart was to have communion with God and be in fellowship with Him. No one demanded this of him, no one was watching, no one was keeping track of how many hours he prayed. There was no competition, he wasn’t trying to make the leader board, and there was no prize for most hours prayed in a given month; it was what gave him joy and peace. It was what satisfied the soul, and even when his body was wracked with pain, and he could barely move, it was the one thing he did consistently and without fail.

I’ve heard some people insist that God wakes them up at odd hours of the night to pray. Personally, I believe that is a misnomer. It’s not so much that God woke them up to pray; it’s that upon waking, their singular desire was to be in His presence and dialogue with Him. Yes, there are times when we get an urging to pray for a specific individual, or a specific situation, but those who are consistent in coming before God before they do anything else on a given morning are doing so not because they were compelled but because it is their true desire.

Do you hunger for God? Do you hunger for His presence? Does He have the place of prominence in your hierarchy of needs wherein everything else pales in comparison to spending time in His presence? These are questions only you can answer for yourself, but know that regardless of where you are in your spiritual walk, the more you desire God, the more of Himself He will reveal to you. He will not force you into fellowship. He will not twist your arm to spend time with Him. It is something voluntary, and must be done with purity of heart, without vested interest or hidden agendas. God sees the truth of it, for all is laid bare before Him.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XXI

 As children of God, our allegiance is exclusive. Our allegiance is not to ideology, denomination, a political party, or an individual, but to God. We serve Him, we obey Him, and we worship Him because He is worthy of all these things and more. Because our allegiance is to God, our singular focus is to be pleasing in His sight, not in the sight of men, or a certain demographic that seethes with hatred for the God of the Bible, but is willing to make use of those who ally with their cause until they are no longer useful.

Any man who places anything or anyone above God is no longer serving Him but serving their cause d'jour, or the creation rather than the Creator. If your feelings, emotions, or opinions are in opposition to the Word and will of God, it is not God who must change in order to accommodate you; it is you who must submit to His authority and do as He commands.

It takes a special kind of hubris to insist that the everlasting God, the one who spoke the universe into existence, He who is omnipotent, should do a sudden heel turn because His standard, if He were to maintain it, would hurt your feelings, or keep you from doing the things the flesh yearns to do. Yes, men take it upon themselves to widen the narrow path, including men who others see as spiritual authorities, but it does not mean God suddenly changed His mind or that He’s gone back on what He deems sin.

It would be nice to have a deeper relationship with God, it would be nice to walk in authority, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to devote myself to prayer, so God has to make an exception for me. No, He doesn’t. That’s not the way it works, and anyone who thinks themselves more special than anyone else and deserving of a special carve-out is only deluding themselves.

Pride has a way of warping men’s minds to the point that they see themselves as indispensable, and because they believe that God’s entire plan for mankind rests on their shoulders, and would surely fall apart without them, they allow themselves liberties that Scripture never signs off on.

We may be short on equal application of the law when it comes to men nowadays, but when it comes to God, the same rules apply to everyone, and there are no exceptions. The soul that sins will die. That’s what the Book says! It’s not the soul that sins, will die, with the exception of Bill or Janet, who can do as they will and still get a pass.

I understand the following may sting a bit, especially if you’re from the generation that was told incessantly that they were special by everyone from their auntie to granny, to mom, dad, and the mailman, but you’re not. You’re no more special than anyone else, regardless of your pedigree, social standing, net worth, or digital footprint. We may all have different gifts, different intelligence levels, different aptitudes and abilities, but in the eyes of God, those things don’t make us more special or deserving of special treatment.

We all start out as wretches, whether rich wretches, poor wretches, smart wretches, or wretches of average intelligence. We all start out needing a savior, needing redemption, and needing rebirth. It’s the same starting line for everyone, but the finish line differs from person to person because while some receive the gift of salvation, others dismiss and reject it as though eternity didn’t hang in the balance.

No man who understands grace, salvation, and the price Jesus paid on the cross is arrogant or boastful of the gifts God has bestowed upon him. Every time I hear a braggart, regardless of the context, alarm bells start going off, and that’s doubly so if it has anything to do with the spiritual.

A vessel is a vessel. What makes a vessel valuable is what is placed inside it, and the vessel itself has no agency over its contents. God decides what He pours into a vessel after it has been made clean. If God has given you a gift, what right do you or I have to boast of the gift as though it were acquired by our own prowess, and is now proprietary to us?

Faith is the essence of prayer. It is the environment in which prayer transcends someone talking to a wall, and opens the lines of communication between man and God. We are not like the Greeks of old, praying to every god under the sun, and even to an unknown god, just to cover all the bases. We know who we pray to and have faith that He hears. We have faith that when we cry out, He is there to comfort; when we are broken, He is there to restore; and when we forfeit this life for the life to come, He will bestow it upon us and abundantly so.

The central pivot of the altar of prayer, upon which a strong and vibrant prayer life hinges, is faith, for without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith itself can be declarative, experiential, or both. Someone who says they believe in God, but never quantifies which god they are referring to, has made a declarative statement about an abstract notion with which they had no intimate encounter or interaction. Excluding the outright atheists, most people today fall into this category. They believe there is something more, but they cannot define what that is. Whether God, a higher power, or a force, they believe in the existence of a deity of some sort; they made a declarative statement to this effect, but they’ve never known the one true God or felt His presence.

Those who possess experiential faith, however, likewise have declarative faith, wherein, having experienced the presence of God, having known the goodness of the Lord, they declare boldly that He is, that He lives, that He transforms and saves. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

The Principles of Prayer XX

 On the heels of having fed the multitudes with the fishes and loaves, and having mysteriously crossed the sea to Capernaum, because the people had not seen Him enter the boat with His disciples, the people came to Jesus and asked, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”

Contrary to modern-day practices, Jesus did not refer them to his course on spirituality, hand out cards with QR codes where they could purchase an in-depth study on the topic, or ask them to become Patreon members so they too could unlock the secrets to working the works of God. His answer wasn’t long, drawn out, or needlessly complicated, and He summarized what they needed to do in no more than one sentence.

John 6:29, “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom sent Me.”’

Since Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, He knew that the message would fall on deaf ears unless those who heard it believed in the God whose gospel and kingdom He was preaching. One cannot separate God, the lordship of Christ, and the salvific power of His death, burial, and resurrection from the works of God and still present it as gospel.

There are many types of gospels being preached nowadays. There’s the social gospel, the tolerance gospel, the inclusive gospel, the good works gospel, the prosperity gospel, but only one gospel has the power to save, heal, and restore, and that is the gospel of the kingdom of God.

People can be charitable and still end up in hell. They can be tolerant and affirming and still end up in hell. They can be rich and prosperous, have everything their grubby little fingers could point to and claim, and still end up in hell. The gospel of the kingdom of God is about none of these things, but one thing exclusively, and that is the person of Christ Jesus, who He is, what He did, what He said, and the promises He made to those who would daily deny themselves, pick up their crosses, and follow after Him.

The message of the gospel of the Kingdom of God has been clear and resonant since the early church. Rarely have we seen any generation so dedicated to chipping away at it, twisting it, and dismissing it as this one.

Acts 3:19-21, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”

Men with self-serving agendas will complicate the gospel, salvation, faith, prayer, and anything else they think they can monetize or funnel people into. Men whose only desire is to do the work of the Kingdom will point the way to Jesus and give Him the glory He rightly deserves.

There was never an inconsistency between the words Jesus spoke and the life He lived. He did not subscribe to the do as I say, not as I do model of faith, because He was not interested in impressing anyone, nor was hypocrisy something He was willing to consider.

When we desire to be Christlike, we are desiring true sanctification and transformation, not the ability to put on airs or pretend at being something we know ourselves not to be. It’s why so many today give off the stench of hypocrisy, whether in leadership or their day-to-day interactions with those outside the body of Christ. We talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, and it shows. The mask inevitably slips, and people get a glimpse of what lies beneath that is so off-putting as to make them recoil.

Jesus was the Word made flesh. When we believe in the words of Christ, the actions of Christ, and the character of Christ, we are actively fulfilling the work of God. We must possess all three in order to be complete. Some believe the words of Jesus but do not have His character. Others strive to do the works that He did, without believing His words. Two out of three won’t cut it, and if we do not strive to possess His character, believe His words, and do the works to which He has tasked us, we will always be stunted in our growth and incomplete.

John 5:24-25, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My words and believes in Him who sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.”

It’s not enough to hear; we must act upon that which we hear. Faith comes by hearing. We hear the Word of God, we hear the words of Jesus, but to have everlasting life, we must believe. Only those who hear and believe will not come into judgment, because they have passed from death to life.

We hear the gospel, then submit to it, obey it, follow it, and give it reign over our hearts and minds. Hearing only, and not allowing what we hear to stir us to action, and spark faith in our hearts, leaves us as empty, hollow, and rudderless as we were before we heard the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Prayer works in much the same way. We can read the testimonies of others who prayed and what God was able to accomplish through them. We can study the theory of prayer and even read the prayers themselves, but unless we commit to pressing in and acting upon what we’ve learned, actively nurturing a life of prayer and prioritizing our time alone with God, all we will possess is the knowledge of what God did through others, or how others prayed, but it will have no effect upon our spiritual growth.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XIX

Anyone insisting that the growth of your faith or understanding of God is solely dependent upon them is neither your brother, your friend, nor someone who has your best interest at heart. They are attempting to replace Jesus, not pointing you to Him, and that makes for someone to be marked and avoided at all costs.

1 Timothy 2:5-6, “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”

One! A singularity, one of one, without the possibility of being replicated or replaced. This singular role of Christ as the Mediator is a testament to the unique and irreplaceable relationship each of us has with Him. Jesus didn’t come to bring good news; He was the embodiment of the good news. There has never been, nor will there ever be, another like Him to walk the earth. The singularity of Christ confirms what the Word has oft repeated, that there aren’t many paths to the same destination, but one path, one way, and that is through Him.

Apart from Christ, there is no hope. Apart from Him, man can never be reconciled to God. It doesn’t matter who says otherwise, how respected they might be in certain circles, or how many followers they have on Instagram; they’re still wrong, still liars, and one day they will have to stand before God and answer for the deception they perpetrated upon the household of faith.

That should be enough for most to understand when they are being manipulated, lied to, and steered off course, but the promises of those who come in His name but are not His, the charisma of the false Christs who insist that theirs is a better way is so mesmerizing as to make many suspend common sense, disregard Scripture, and follow after them with far greater fervor and zeal than ever they followed the true Christ.

It’s eye-opening to see so many speak out in defense of men who demonstrably committed indefensible acts, with a passion they would never speak in defense of Jesus with. Would that some would defend the name of Jesus with the same zeal they defend men, there would be a renaissance of individuals standing up for the faith and boldly declaring the lordship of Jesus.

When it comes to faith, it is one of the attributes that transcends and bridges the Old and New Testaments. Although many things changed with the advent of Christ, as far as rituals, traditions, or the ability of all who would believe in Him to be grafted in, adopted, and called sons and daughters of God regardless of race, nationality, or ethnicity, faith remained a prerequisite for those who desire to know Him, grow in Him, and walk in His authority. Faith is a requirement for everything concerning man’s relationship with God.

It is the primary and indispensable ingredient. Just as you can’t make an omelet without eggs, you cannot be pleasing in the sight of God without faith.  

Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

There is no wiggle room in this declarative statement. We are not told that without faith it’s difficult, hard but still doable, or that you can please God without faith as long as you substitute it with good works, charity, or wearing some itchy, rough-spun underclothes at all times. Without faith, it is impossible to please God!

The faith of which the author of Hebrews speaks is not generic, general, or unfocused; rather, it is a targeted, well-defined faith that has God as its purpose. One must believe that He is, have faith in Him, and not in their abilities or their accomplishments. God responds to faith. He is neither indifferent nor unmoved by it. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, who walk by faith and not by sight, trusting in His mighty hand and submitting to His sovereign will.

Because I have faith in Him, I know that God sees my struggle, He sees my pain, He sees my weakness, He sees my insecurities, He sees my desire to know more of Him and grow in Him, and He responds in kind without delay.

Faith is an attitude of complete trust in God. It extends beyond hope into the domain of full assurance. When my daughters were younger, to their mother’s chagrin, they liked climbing the furniture to the highest point possible, yelling “catch me, daddy”, then jumping off, not once thinking that I would let them fall to the ground. They were fully assured that I would catch them, and there was not a shred of doubt in their hearts as to this reality. To their credit, they made sure I was close enough to hear and catch them, but once that was out of the way, there was no hesitation in their leaping from the counter, the edge of the sofa, or the kitchen table.

The question isn’t whether God can catch us, but whether we are close enough so that He hears us. The question is whether we are His sons and daughters, not just in word but in deed. God can, and God will. His hand is not short, and His power is limitless.    

There is no area of our lives wherein we can withhold faith, or conclude that God cannot intervene or is unable to rectify. Faith is man’s answer and response to what God promised, to who He is, and to what He is able to do. He promised eternal life to all who would believe, and we have faith that it is so. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and we have faith in His permanence. He is omnipotent. Therefore, we have faith that He can do all things and is not limited by the understanding or abilities of man.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.