As Advertised

 My wife places a lot of credence on product reviews. When it comes to the opinions of others about herself, she couldn’t care less, but product reviews, those are indispensable. It doesn’t matter what she’s looking to buy. She goes to the reviews page of the item and reads through whether or not those who purchased it in the past were satisfied with their purchase, and if not, why not? She’s been doing it for so long that I don’t have the heart to tell her that a nail clipper is a nail clipper, whether it has five stars or three or that there are hordes of unscrupulous companies who buy reviews for their products. If you’re getting it for free or paid to review it, chances are you’re not going to knock the guys that just bought you lunch.

The unsavory and unscrupulous were so numerous at one point that the Better Business Bureau was created in order to combat them. If a company rips you off, you can give them a call, and they’ll place the company on a list, but as far as being made whole, that’s a bit more complicated.

As is the case with every pendulum swing, the unscrupulous on the consumer side started coming out of the woodwork as well, demanding free meals, free rooms, and free merchandise, threatening to leave blistering reviews on every website they could find if they didn’t get their way. The whole thing became so convoluted that for most people, reviews have become meaningless unless you’re getting one firsthand, face to face, from the person who either ate where you plan to eat or owns the nose hair clippers you’ve been eyeing.

Even then, their opinion is subjective at best because they might like their Mexican food to scorch the inner lining of their mouth, while one jalapeno seed will send you to the emergency room. If you, as an individual, take everything with a grain of salt and weigh the things people tell you, it would be duplicitous for you to expect everyone you come in contact with to believe everything you say outright. That’s not to say you shouldn’t speak. On the contrary, it is by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimonies that we overcome. One is exclusively a Jesus matter, namely the blood of the Lamb. The other is exclusively an us matter, namely the word of our testimony.

When you tell those you come in contact with that Jesus is as advertised, it undermines the enemy’s narrative. Some may not believe you, and some may have their doubts, but if, on a given day, ten people tell me the same thing, that tenth one just might get me to look into the matter for myself.

It’s even more compelling for those who knew you before Christ and what the power of His love transformed you into after surrendering at the foot of the cross. You can have all the doubts in the world about methodology, viability, or feasibility. Still, someone who was pushing half a ton shows up at your door, having lost a couple of hundred pounds, the evidence is undeniable.

We’re quick to tell anyone who would hear what the devil did to us. For some unexplained reason, however, some of us are reticent when it comes to telling others what Jesus did for us. There is power in the word of your testimony because it is the confirmation that the blood of Jesus isn’t just a placeholder or something interchangeable. The blood of the Lamb has the power to wash you clean of all your sin, and having been made clean, the word of your testimony confirms that present reality.

If He has freed you and brought you from death to life, why wouldn’t you shout His name from the rooftop? Why wouldn’t you glory in the name of Jesus? And while we’re on the topic, that’s how you can also gauge the authenticity of someone’s words. The word of their testimony isn’t about them. It’s not about their achievements, their accomplishments, their education, or the scope of their ministry. The word of their testimony is about Jesus and what He has done in their lives. It always goes back to Christ, the cross, repentance, sanctification, and the need for Him, rather than connecting with them, their ministry, or their vision.

But how will we build an international ministry and become the prophetesses to the nations if we don’t promote ourselves at every turn? What’s the point of interacting with the little people if there’s no ad funnel at the end of the fifteen minutes, with some sort of recurring commitment request to help spread the message of pet dinosaurs in heaven to the peoples of the earth?

I had to learn about all these schemes in order to actively avoid them in ministry. It always elicits a negative reaction when I see ministries and ministers employing them. There is nothing wrong in presenting a need when it comes to ministry. There is something very wrong with attempting to manipulate or guilt someone into parting with their cheddar. There’s a difference between saying this family needs a home; if the Lord leads, please help, and insisting that if you don’t dial that number right now, this family will die! The same goes for presenting the act of giving as some sort of pyramid scheme where you put in a fiver and get back fifty.

The reaction of the redeemed man, once he has been redeemed, is not a protracted treatise on why he was deserving of redemption but overwhelming gratitude for his redeemer. When you make it about Jesus, you have my attention and my respect. When you make it about you, you have my disdain because you are using Christ as a vehicle to further your agenda, not His kingdom.

Learn to be spiritually aware enough to discern between those who come in their name and those who come in the name of the Lord. It’s a good start and will save you much heartache in the long run.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Candid

 The path to victory cannot bypass submission to the will and Word of God. We are victorious against the enemy and the flesh because we submit to the will of God, and obey His word, not because we venture out on our own and attempt to be a one-man army. We used to sing the song well enough, the one about the only thing that can wash away our sins, but we stopped a few years back because it was too on the nose. We needed something more ambiguous, more esoteric, something given to interpretation because some people might take offense at the singularity of Christ and the cross, and we couldn’t offend people. That would be counterproductive to the bottom line, and the whole point of the exercise is to grow and expand and have multi-campus sanctuaries, not preach sanctification.

Hillsong saw a niche, and they filled it with all the gusto of the first guy to come up with the idea of an energy drink. Gone were the simple, biblical declarations about Christ alone and His blood being able to make you new, and we started singing about winds, and impressions, and the feelings in the atmosphere.

We went from telling people that Jesus was enough to telling them that they were good enough, even though bringing a hog into a palace doesn’t change the nature of the hog; it just allows the hog to dirty up the place a bit.

We make allowances for all manner of unbiblical practice if the individual is charismatic enough because it’s no longer about the power of the Word to convict; it’s about the individual’s charisma and ability to spin a yarn. That thing about God saying depart from me, you workers of iniquity, I never knew you, even though they’d performed signs and wonders in His name, that was just God having a bad day; He spoke out of anger. Don’t pay any mind to it. Yeah, that’s it. It couldn’t possibly be that He prioritizes holiness, obedience, and genuine fellowship over bombastic overtures and magic shows.

It’s kind of a weird flex to mock someone for pointing out what the Bible says about a given topic. I know, that pesky Bible, if only it didn’t warn about the sort of times we’d be living in. If only it didn’t warn of false teachers, false prophets, and those with a form of godliness who would flood the household of faith and seduce the gullible into turning their ears to fables.

You can’t claim victory if you’ve never stepped onto the battlefield. You can’t say you are victorious when it was a battle of your own making, shadowboxing in the corner like there was no tomorrow. We have this image in our minds that the victorious believer is resplendent and manicured, when in truth, the victorious believer is scarred, dented, and scored. The only people who walk away unscathed are those who never enter the fray, yet they’re always the most vocal about how everyone else goes about fighting their fight.

I don’t have time to judge your posture, how you hold your shield, how you swing your sword, or how you deflect the arrows of the enemy. I’ve got my own battle to fight, and I’m engaging the same enemy you are. If I see an arrow coming your way, I’ll do my best to warn you or even deflect it if I am able; if I see you are being flanked, I’ll fight alongside for as long as I can swing a sword, but you should know how to fight by now. You should have the basics well in hand so that you might stand against the enemy. This isn’t a synchronized swim contest. It’s not about form; it’s about functionality and survival. The Bible tells you to put on the whole armor of God, not to make sure you’re color-coordinated. Any battle you walk away from, scarred and bruised as you might be, is still a good day. Get some rest; tomorrow is likely to be another bruiser.

There are only two immutable laws in life: the law of sin and death and the law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus. One is required to free you from the other, and whom Christ sets free is free indeed.

Romans 8:2, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”

Either you are free, or you aren’t; there is no middle ground. God is not interested in joint custody, where He gets you every other Sunday, but you’re under the sway of the law of sin and death the rest of the time. The blood of Christ has made you free; why would you return to the bondage of darkness and despair?

Victory isn’t you pretending to be free; it is you being free. It’s not hoping for a renewed mind; it’s receiving a renewed mind. What victory looks like is you walking in the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, which God promised the believer.

If you have been made free, then you are supposed to feel out of place among those who have not. If you have been made free, then it is natural to feel out of sorts, as though you don’t belong here. If the blood of Jesus has cleansed you, and you are a new creature, any attempt at reintegration into the world you once belonged to will be rejected until you either stop trying or return to your previous state of worldliness.

The world rejects what is not of the world. Be glad that you are rejected, marginalized, and vilified by it. If they’d hated Jesus yet loved you, you’d have something to worry about.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Defined

 The only one in authority to define victory in a given battle is the general in charge. The only one in authority to determine what a spiritual victory is, is God. We’ve all heard the ‘I feel like I did really good’ speeches from friends, family, or acquaintances, which usually prefaces why they feel they failed in a given pursuit or endeavor. Once the story unravels and more details are known, you typically come to suspect that even they don’t believe they did really well or that they even tried to accomplish what they’d set out.

My opinion as to whether or not I succeeded is arbitrary and will always tilt toward making allowances for myself. I will always see my endeavors, my striving, my attempts, and my consistency in the best of lights because the ego tries to protect itself at the expense of facts more often than we would like to acknowledge. God’s conclusion is not arbitrary, however, and when He defines victory for the believer, that is the standard toward which we must aim.

Revelation 12:9-11, “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.’”

Not only is the Word clear on how God defines victory, but it also underlines why He is the one who gets to do it. Because victory can only be had by the blood of the Lamb, no one can claim they are victorious without it or independent of it. That’s why it’s wise to be skeptical whenever someone insists they’ve been victorious through a given program or a handful of steps because the Bible is clear that without the blood of Christ, no victory can be had.

That’s not to say some people don’t trick themselves into believing they are victorious; some even do it for a protracted period, but save for the blood of Christ, any perceived victory is an illusion. Morality may keep you out of prison, but only the blood of Christ can keep you out of hell.

There are moral people, some more moral than certain professing Christians who, save for repentance and being made clean in the blood of Christ, will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Morality isn’t salvific. Being washed in the blood of Christ is. Having been washed in the blood of Christ, the subsequent fruit of said transformation become evident.

When the rich young ruler came to Christ asking what he needed to do in order to have eternal life, he was already keeping every commandment Jesus told him he should keep. He checked every box, he was moral by the standard of the law, but then Jesus told him he must do something that was not contained within the law itself.

Nowhere in the law does it say you should sell what you have and give it to the poor, yet it’s what Jesus asked of the young man because He knew that’s what his heart was tethered to. You can do all the right things, the moral things, the lawful things, yet, if your heart does not wholly belong to Him, if you are not made new, born again, and made clean, true victory will always be out of reach.

God’s promise of victory is declarative and prescriptive. Not only does God promise you’ll be victorious, but He also tells you how you’re going to do it. Like any tactician, He has identified the weaknesses and reinforced them. He has identified the enemy’s line of attack, so you might not be caught unaware. He provided the weapons, the training, and the gear, and all that’s needed is for you to follow orders.

I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to have the promise of victory, to have the means of victory, to have the roadmap to victory, and yet see so many wallow in defeat, a hair’s breadth away from giving up because the enemy wormed its way in and made them believe their situation was hopeless.

The enemy knows that the only way to keep you from having victory, the only way to keep you from standing on the promise of God that you will, is to convince you to give up. As long as you put one foot in front of the other, as long as you press in, as long as you faithfully follow even when the road gets hard, victory is assured.

That’s not to say victory is effortless. It is incumbent upon you to fight the good fight, to finish the race, and to keep the faith. No one can do it for you. These are not things you can outsource or hire out; these are things you must do in order to receive the crown of righteousness on that Day.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Victory

 There is overwhelming consensus as to what victory in battle looks like. By most accounts, Vietnam was not a win for America, nor was Afghanistan for the Russians. A clear-cut victory involves either the decimation of your enemy or a surrender of their military leadership on the field of battle. When we get into allowing one side or the other to define victory, then it becomes absurd, and both sides can claim that they won and the others lost because everything becomes subjective.

He may have broken my nose and shattered my orbital socket, but I got him with a good haymaker. I think, at worst, it was a draw, but I feel like I kind of won. But he walked out of the ring of his own volition, and you had to be carried out. You need three months of recovery, and he’s carded for another fight in a week. How was that a victory?

Besides the delusional that insist they won even though they lost because they demand to define what victory is, and if they’re still breathing, it’s a win in their book, there are also the Pyrrhic victories we must contend with in life. A Pyrrhic victory is a technical win, but a win that came at such a high cost that it wasn’t worth it.

Sure, you won the argument with your neighbor about where your property line is versus his, but it came at the cost of your house getting burned down, your wife leaving, and you ending up in a mental institution mumbling something about not my land, not my land. That’s a Pyrrhic victory. It would have been a lot less painful if you’d just trimmed the hedge and not insisted it was your neighbor’s responsibility because they extended into his property.

Some people devote entirely too much time to fighting for things that aren’t worth the fight and surrendering things that are hills to die on. Some things are worth defending to the death, then there are others we should give up on, but our pride won’t allow it. It is wisdom itself to identify which is which and swallow our pride when necessary because even if you were to win the battle, you’d lose the war by focusing on tertiary things that have no salvific bearings.

We’ve all heard the saying pick your battles. We’ve likely heard it because it’s timeless and is apropos both in the natural as well as the spiritual. When more time is spent infighting than fighting the enemy, the chances of a victorious outcome dwindle daily. I have neither the time nor the energy to get into a war of words with you over whether it’s wrong to call Jesus, Jesus when degenerates, psychopaths, and perverts are trying to indoctrinate four-year-olds. 

Is it because we know we can’t get hurt that we start picking fights with other believers? Is it because we know they won’t fight dirty, so we just poke and poke at them until they get fed up and pursue origami instead? If something is unbiblical, wrong, or can lead others to destruction, call it out, and be clear about it. If the disagreement is between Jesus or Yeshua, and if Jesus only answers to one of the two names, you just have too much free time on your hands.

Before we can begin discussing victory and what it looks like, we must first identify the enemy and make sure we’re not just shadowboxing ourselves into a corner. Make sure whom you’re swinging at is your enemy and not an ally, a foe, and not a friend.

Friendly fire isn’t just a thing in a sandbox half a world away, it happens regularly within the household of faith, and the hurt in the eyes of those who were the victims of it is real and raw. It’s the surprise more than anything. Here you were, thinking you were standing shoulder to shoulder doing battle against the darkness, and out of nowhere, those you were supposed to be standing shoulder to shoulder with start sticking knives between your ribs because the enemy’s offer to switch sides was just too tempting.

At least call it what it is, and don’t pretend you did it for the sheep’s sake. When supposed shepherds demonize those preaching the gospel and label them unloving, insensitive, caustic, divisive, or intolerant, they’re not doing it to protect the sheep. They’re doing it to keep the sheep docile while feeding them to the wolves.

You cannot make concessions to what the Bible says are absolutes and then still expect the victory God promised you would have. You cannot serve another master, follow different teaching, and pursue an alternate path, yet act surprised when you don’t end up where you thought you would.

The troubling thing is that I don’t believe you can fight for the wrong side unwittingly. I don’t think you can accidentally reject the truth and embrace the lie, hating and despising those who still insist that God meant what He said and He will not change His sentiment just because spoiled children demand it.

Perhaps we need to be reminded that we are in a war, and in a war, there are spies, and infiltrators, double agents, and misleading narratives, because the goal isn’t to make friends with the enemy, it’s to be victorious against him.

There will come a day when those who were duped or otherwise led astray will return to those who lied to their face and demand an explanation. What they’ll get is an eye roll and a shoulder shrug. You assumed they cared when they just pretended to. If they’d really cared, they would have told you the truth.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Source

 If you want to learn how to lose weight, ask a fat person. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but I promise you it’s true. Most husky fellows I know, including myself, have lost hundreds of pounds throughout our lives. It’s not taking off the weight that is a struggle; it’s keeping it off. As with everything else, consistency is key. That, and changing your eating and exercise habits, not for a month or a year, but for life. It doesn’t matter what diet you choose to follow; everyone begins with the task of clearing out their cupboards, refrigerator, and pantry of all the things they’ve been eating thus far. Why? Because the things they’ve been eating are what made them have to step through doors sideways.

Some people just can’t bear to part with so many goodies and insisting that it’s unseemly to waste all that money by throwing away perfectly good Twinkies, they decide the best course of action is to eat their way through all the junk food first, then start their journey to a slimmer, healthier self. Three months and twenty pounds later, having gone through most of their stockpile, they decide it’s time to replenish and go to the same store, buying the same things, with the cycle repeating endlessly until the only option is a mobility scooter.

If you’re serious about dropping weight, you don’t put off clearing out your house of anything you know you shouldn’t be eating. You don’t delay, you don’t wait until the first of the month, or until after your birthday, because it would look odd if you didn’t have any cake. You grab a trash bag, and you start throwing things in. There’s always a homeless shelter or a charity willing to take dried goods, so the excuse about waste doesn’t hold water.

If the environment you create for yourself affects the chance of failure or success when it comes to the flesh, why would you think the spiritual environment you create for yourself doesn’t affect your success rate when it comes to the spiritual man?

When you begin a diet, you make no provision for your sweet tooth. You do your best to insulate yourself and avoid the temptations that would make you fall off the wagon before you even start. You are diligent in what you eat and how much you eat and begin to exercise more than you normally would because your purpose is to transform yourself into something other than what you currently are.

You don’t get rid of the old junk just to replace it with new junk. The source of your nutrition must change, as must what you define as nutrition. You commit, you have a goal and a purpose, and you keep track of your progress because that is the ultimate judge of whether what you are doing is working or not.

If, a month into your diet, you weigh more than you did when you started, then something is amiss. But that’s not right, fat man. I replaced fat with muscle, and muscle weighs more than fat, and that’s why I weigh more. Then why are your pants tighter? You put a lot of muscle on around the midsection and nowhere else. It must be a new technique you’re using.

Because we are so unwilling to put in the time or effort, there is a myriad of snake oil salesmen promising a quick fix for something we know there is no quick fix for. Take this pill, drink this tonic, stand on your head, and recite the alphabet backward, and in three days or less, you’ll be back to your fighting weight from thirty years ago. You can pay in full or make three easy payments; the choice is yours, but act now because supplies are limited.

Is it reasonable to spend more time on this fleeting thing called flesh than it is on our eternal soul? Is doing more for the here and now than we ever thought of doing for the eternal Kingdom in any way justified?

I know these are uncomfortable questions, but they are questions we must answer for ourselves if only to prove that we’re nowhere near having done all to stand. Every time we get a bit winded, we plop down onto the nearest permissive doctrine that allows for slothfulness and idleness and begin to look at those pushing onward with a critical eye.

Oh, he’s just self-righteous and rejects grace because he is actively resisting sin. Is he, though? Is it self-righteousness and works salvation, or is it a sincere desire for continual sanctification? The guy that lost a hundred pounds didn’t do it because he is trying to fat shame you. He did it for himself. The fact that we think it’s all about us and everyone must be sensitive to our lack of spiritual progress says a lot more about us than about those striving to enter through the narrow gate.

Whether it’s cutting weight or resisting temptation, you have to make the choice. It doesn’t matter how many doctors tell you your heart’s pumping canola oil. It doesn’t matter how many shepherds ask you to stop riding the fence; ultimately, you must choose the path you walk with all the implicit and explicit consequences.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Clothed

 I had my own personal tailor for the first few years after arriving in America. Before you steam with jealousy, it’s not as glamorous as it sounds. It was my grandmother, and her creations didn’t have what some refer to as mass appeal. It was the cheapest way she figured out to keep me from going to school in drawstring shorts. I had plenty of those. The local Montgomery Ward had a clearance on shorts, and my grandmother bought them out for one dollar per piece. The only issue was that they were strange colors like orange, squash, and flamingo pink and not made of the best material. If you’ve ever shopped clearance, you know that all the good colors are gone by the time the price gets that low. No black, blue, or even green for yours truly, just odd, bright colors that stung the eyes and made people stare with pity.

By her reckoning, it wasn’t respectful to wear shorts to school anyway, so after finding an Asian market that sold pinstripe polyester by the yard, there was not a day until I started earning my own money that I didn’t go to school in slacks.

Half the time, I hoped the California sun would not ignite them; the other half, I wondered how it felt not to sweat profusely if the temperature got anywhere near eighty degrees. I know she was doing her best, but they were hideous pants on the best of days, and my elementary school years were spent developing a tough skin.

Kids can be brutal, especially to an odd duck wearing slacks every day with a button-down shirt to match on most days. By the time I turned fifteen, I was making my own money and swore off the homemade slacks for Bugle Boy denim jeans. Those were the days. I got to choose what I wore, what I put on, and how I clothed myself, and it was liberating and exciting all at once.

Unless you are eleven, penniless, and have an overbearing grandmother, no one can force you to wear what you don’t want to wear. You get to choose what you put on, what you clothe yourself with, and accept the cheers or jeers that follow. With men, it’s simple. You pick up a shirt, give it the sniff test, and if your eyes don’t water, it’s good to go. If you’ve got a Walmart nearby, you can do your grocery shopping and get a whole new wardrobe all in one trip.

With women, it’s a bit different, and yes, I know I’m generalizing, but there you have it. The shoes have to match the dress, the dress has to match the earrings, it’s all very complicated and time-consuming, but truth be told, between seeing a woman in a hoodie and sweatpants or a sundress, the sundress wins out, hands down. Husbands, show grace and let them take their time. It’s worth it.

I once knew a man who insisted God picked out his wardrobe and told him what to wear every morning. If it’s true, then we have an entirely wrong image of heaven in our minds. Given the man’s daily attire, it would seem God has a penchant for ten-gallon hats and big belt buckles. Bolo ties also made regular appearances, so maybe not togas and halos after all.

What I do know is that the Word counsels us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is attire that is non-negotiable if you want to overcome the enemy.

Romans 13:14, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”

Most people get in trouble in the spiritual as in the physical when they try to layer. You have to have a keen eye for color, texture, and pattern to be able to pull off layering, and most people don’t. In the spiritual, issues arise when folks attempt to put on the Lord Jesus Christ without putting off the old man. You can’t layer one on top of the other. They don’t go together. They clash and do so in such a vivid fashion that people notice.

There are examples a plenty of individuals purporting to be of Christ and living like the world, and the world calling them out on their hypocrisy and inconsistency. It’s the godless pointing the finger and asking about their conduct. That is an attempt at layering Christ over the old man and thinking no one will notice.

Ephesians 4:20-24, “But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

There’s no such thing as a divided heart. That’s just something people tell themselves to keep from acknowledging they’re living in rebellion. The Book is clear; no one can serve two masters, but folks today sure are trying. It always ends badly, but somehow everyone thinks they’ll be the exception to the rule.

You must put off the old to put on the new. You must disrobe yourself of the old man and his corruption that you might put on the Lord Jesus Christ without consideration for the old you. That’s the thing; we like to quote the first part of the verse but refuse to acknowledge the latter. Not only are we to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, but we also make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust.

It’s either one or the other, not one more than the other.

With love in Christ, 

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Brass Tacks

 Being an immigrant who hails from a country whose language is basic, I’ve always been fascinated by the richness of the English language. Granted, Romanian is not as basic as Bantu, but as far as nuance goes, there isn’t much there to work with. Even so, we’ve had our share of poets and writers, and what we didn’t have in our toolbox of words, we borrowed from other languages and made our own.

Words have meaning, and the power of the word cannot be understated. While a harsh word might stir up anger, a soft word turns away wrath. Proverbs even goes so far as to say that death and life are in the power of the tongue, which is no small thing.

Just because we don’t like what a word means or implies, we cannot take it upon ourselves to transform it into something it was never intended to convey. By the same token, just because the flesh recoils at certain Scriptures, it does not mean we have the authority to twist them to the point that their meaning becomes uncertain and their light is dimmed.

When it comes to overcoming temptation, the Word tells us that we can and we must and that God has given us all the necessary tools to see this endeavor through to the end. That’s the one that gets some people, the end part. We can all start a race, no matter our physical condition. We can’t all finish that race; inevitably, some will fall by the wayside because either their heart, their lungs, or their will, will give out.

2 Timothy 4:7-8, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge, will give o me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

You fight to win, you run to finish, and you keep the faith throughout because the prizes are handed out at the finish line, not at the starting line. You can’t bribe your way to the finish line, you can’t cheat your way there, the path is clearly marked, and you must adhere to it, lest you be disqualified.

We’ve come to this perplexing crossroads where most professing Christians believe they can create their own race route, make it as short as they deem comfortable, stop for snacks and do some window shopping along the way, then get the gold when they declare themselves the winner. As I am forced to remind my kids at least a dozen times a week, you don’t get to make the rules. If you invent your own race, you’re not running His race.

Anyone running a race, ad running it to win, will do their best to have the right shoes, the proper clothing, and not carry anything on their person that would weigh them down. If you show up to a marathon in steel-toed boots, a parka, and a fur hat, chances are those who showed up in shorts and sneakers will outpace you to the finish line.

Although God never promised the race would be easy, there are certain virtues we can possess that make it less difficult. One of these is being full of the Spirit because only by being full of the Holy Spirit can you possess the fruit of the Spirit. Granted, it’s not the most popular of the fruit, but self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit. We want to laude and heap praise on love, kindness, peace, and joy, but self-control also has its place, especially when overcoming temptation.

So many relapse and return to the mire because after they first succeeded in chasing the enemy away, they do not pursue being full of the Spirit. When the devil returns, he doesn’t see a No Vacancy sign on the door of their heart and strolls right in, bringing a few friends along for good measure.

There will always be a resident in the heart of man. You always have a tenant, an occupant, someone who dwells therein. Whether it’s the light or the darkness depends upon you.

Another way we can resist temptation is to avoid the situations, places, and individuals that the enemy can use to tempt us. That’s not revelatory by any means; it’s practical, but perhaps practical is what we need in today’s day and age. Nobody drove you to the club; you drove yourself. You can tell yourself you’re just there for the music, but then why are you freshly showered, manicured, quaffed, and made up?

Most people get in trouble because they are in places where they aren’t supposed to be, interacting with people that are detrimental to their spiritual walk. Even so, they won’t acknowledge this obvious truth because to do so would mean having to choose between following their flesh or following after Christ.

James 4:7, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

If submitting to God and resisting the devil makes him flee from you, what would doing the opposite accomplish? A harsh truth is still truth. It is because men resist God and submit to the enemy that the enemy has free reign over their wants, desires, and lives. Rebellion is a cruel mistress and will take from you more than you were willing to part with.

The Bible tells us we are to flee evil, not limp, pretending we twisted an ankle, hoping it catches up to us and overtakes us. A matter of life and death is still a matter of life and death, no matter how much we pretend otherwise.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.