Place

 The world is full of silly people encouraging sillier people to aim for the stars, shoot for the moon, dream bigger, reach higher, and never be content or satisfied. Our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, our visions of grandeur are bigger than our abilities to achieve them, and no matter how blessed we are, we remain in the perpetual mindset that there’s got to be something more. The grass is always greener, the ox is always fatter, the sun is always brighter, and the snow is always whiter on the other side of an imaginary fence.

Before anger makes anyone waste fifteen minutes in writing an angry e-mail, when I speak of vision, it is not the vision God has for us but the inward monologue that runs on a loop in our heads about how we would be the envy of the known world if only we were given half a chance. I could show the world the greatness in me if only they were willing to open their eyes and see. You make miniature dolls out of belly button lint. I get it, your art is precious to you, but you’re no Michelangelo or Bernini.

A God-given vision comes equipped with all the tools, ability, and wherewithal to carry it to its rightful conclusion. God-given visions, however, usually involve self-sacrifice, toil, humility, and unshakeable faith in His provision to fulfill His vision. I’m sure if some intrepid prosperity pimp ever comes across this, they’ll jerry-rig that last part and make it so it’s clear that if you want to reap a harvest, you must plant a seed. The seed, as always, isn’t being a shoulder to cry on, spending time with the abandoned, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or showing the love of Jesus; the seed must be legal tender; otherwise, no harvest for you.

People are becoming disillusioned, and I don’t blame them, even though, at least partially, they must take accountability for what they chose to believe while the getting was good and the gravy train was rolling toward biscuit town. What we choose to believe matters because there are always consequences tethered to those beliefs that will drag behind us no matter how hard we try to outrun them.

To paraphrase Paul, you are, of all men, most miserable if you anchor your faith in the here and now, in the things you can feel and touch, without regard or consideration for eternity. In other translations, the word used is pitiable, but whether miserable or pitiable, to be number one with a bullet in either category is no laughing matter.

Hypersensitivity is not in your best interest, spiritual or otherwise. I thought I’d lead with that since this is likely to offend some people, but like pulling a stick out of someone’s eye, some things can’t be helped. For some reason, I suspect arrogance and pride, the notion of knowing one’s place has garnered a negative connotation.

If you want to see someone’s hackles rise instantly, tell them to know their place or stay in their lane. Especially if it’s a woman who was told she has a calling on her life, a mantle on her shoulders, or a crown on her head, you can see the transformation from docile, loving sister to pit viper in real-time.

At the risk of getting pushback, it’s good to know your place. If my car starts making a noise, I take it to the mechanic. If my drain starts backing up, I call a plumber. I can try fixing my car or snaking my drain, but buying a drain snake isn’t cheap, and attempting automotive repairs is like physics to me. It saves me both time, money, and a pounding headache to call someone proficient at whatever I need to do and have them deal with it.

Another way of referring to the angels who did not keep their proper domain is angels who forgot their place. Because they forgot their place and left their own abode or habitation, they are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

When men forget their place and leave their proper domain, it’s never in pursuit of more humility, obedience, or labor. By their assertions, they’re constantly pursuing higher callings, wider ministries, with the term global impact thrown in at some point because if it’s not global, it’s not big enough.

They forget that if God called them to ministry, He placed them where He needs them, not where their ego would like them to be. The tug of pride, the pull of the id, must be resisted because if we venture out on our own, following our vision of ourselves rather than His vision for us, we end up alone, without the covering of His power or authority, then the wolves come. When the enemy can distract the shepherd, in that he is following after his heart rather than tending to the sheep, there is no one to stand between the sheep and the wolves.

Sometimes success in ministry, at least as the world defines it, is not a gift from God but a snare of the devil. I’ve known men who lost their families, their wives, and some even their will to endure because they got so caught up in building a brand, in building a ministry, in growth year over year, with charts and figures and all manner of planning that it consumed them to the point of ignoring all else.

Is God growing a work, or is it ego, pride, and an inflated sense of self? If it’s God, His yoke is not heavy, and His burden is light. If it’s you, it will be a slog on the best of days.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Old

 Given how he met his end, I don’t know how much stock we should put in Caesar’s ruminations. Still, given that he was both a general, a politician and, for the briefest of moments, dictator of Rome, it’s likely unwise to wave him off as some ignoramus of the ancient world. It was none other than Gaius Julius Caesar who said that experience is the teacher of all things. If we hold his claim to be accurate, then the enemy knows you better than you know yourself.

He’s been at it since nearly the beginning, doing his utmost to pervert creation. As is his nature, after God created, he came along to pervert it. After God built it up, he came along to knock it down. Hatred fuels him, both hatred for God and for His creation, and so determined was he in his endeavor that the first fully human person to be born by the first couple God created turned out to be of the wicked one and a murderer to boot.

As I said, Jude distilled the origin, purpose, and destiny of evil in one verse, and that in itself is a feat given that evil has existed since the dawn of time itself, and its influence and presence have been visible throughout history. We have an old enemy who’s got a whole bag of tricks and is not shy about a bit of blood, or a lot, for that matter. The devil doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t tire, and he’s persistent to the point of obsession. Since Adam and Even roamed through the garden, humanity has been his singular target, and it has not changed over the millennia.

If the devil doesn’t quit, you can’t quit either, no matter how many others are or how tempting it might be. It may just be me that needs to go off on my own and pour my heart out to God occasionally. It may just be me that gets weary sometimes. I’m sure everyone else is a spiritual juggernaut who eats exhaustion for breakfast and weariness for lunch.

1 John 3:10-12, “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.”

Two brothers, born of the same parents but markedly different in one attribute. One’s works were evil, the other’s righteous. But that was then, this is now, and we needn’t bother with the past, some might say. I would agree if not for the fact that John prefaces the retelling of Cain and Abel by saying that whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

And Martha just put the sharpie back in the drawer.

I’m not trying to start a fight; I’m telling you what the Bible says. We Can’t ignore half the Bible just because we don’t like what it implies or what it outright declares. Another way of saying “in this they are manifest” is that you will know them by their fruit. If you do not practice righteousness, you are not of God; if you do not bear good fruit, you are not a good tree.

You can call it whatever you want. You can call it mean, unloving, calloused, inconsiderate, upsetting, or even frightening, but the only metric you should consider is whether or not it’s Biblical. Does the Bible confirm and substantiate these truths, or does it not? I showed the receipts. I took time to type out Scripture passages just so I don’t get accused of misquoting the Bible.

The default reaction by some will likely be, yeah, but that’s just John. Maybe, but it was also Jude, James, Paul, Peter, Jesus, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, so the nail some insist on hanging their theology upon grows flimsier still.

God will often use the past to telegraph the future for those in the present. Some of the New Testament authors approached it in a roundabout way; others were straight to the point, each scripture building upon and undergirding the others to the point that if you read first John, then Paul’s second letter to Timothy, with Scripture interpreting Scripture, you realize why Paul was so alarmed by the prospect of people within the church being unloving, proud, blasphemers, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. 

These are people filling pews, believing themselves to be children of God because someone assured them they were while being of the devil. Show me another way to read that. I’d love to be wrong.

If those who do not practice righteousness and do not love their brother are not of God, how can someone saying otherwise make it so?

Either we submit to the authority of Scripture, or we don’t. Partial submission is total rebellion.

It doesn’t matter how warm and fuzzy it makes you feel; a false sense of security is still false by its definition. It does make the devil’s job a lot easier, though, convincing folks they’re not supposed to resist him or strive against sin, doesn’t it?

The Lord may know those who are His, but the devil knows those who are his as well. Always be suspicious when a child of darkness promotes a supposed child of the light. The lion does not instruct the zebra on how it can avoid being dinner. The children of the devil won’t promote those who train others to resist their father.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Defined

 The Word makes it clear that the enemy’s intent is not to befriend you but to destroy you. Since that’s one of the most brutal truths the contemporary church is unwilling to accept, it must be repeated often and with conviction. The devil doesn’t like you! He doesn’t think you’re cute, witty, bubbly, intelligent, engaging, or entertaining. By the same token, he doesn’t believe you are rugged, masculine, classically handsome, well-built, charming, dashing, or chivalrous. It may have gotten lost in translation along the way, but striving against sin and flirting with it doesn’t mean the same thing.

It is because we don’t believe that sin kills that we’re so willing to blur the lines and shamelessly flirt with it. It is because we refuse to acknowledge the truth of Scripture when it lays out what the devil wants and how ruthless he is in his quest to get it. It’s not because God hasn’t warned us that so many are becoming ensnared in the enemy’s web; it’s because they didn’t heed His warning.

That most churches today avoid talking about sin, repentance, sanctification, and holiness as you would shaking hands with a leper doesn’t help matters. We avoid these topics because we think it will alienate people, then wake up to discover that by not addressing them, our churches are bleeding members like stab victims. Those who are there for the entertainment will find that the entertainment grows stale after a season. How often can you sit through a hacky version of a rock concert before it becomes tedious and repetitive?

Because we’ve given in to the notion that people won’t come to church unless we entertain them, those who come expecting to be fed, feeling the spiritual hunger rumble deep inside their gut, leave just as empty as when they came in, eventually seeking nourishment elsewhere. You can’t entertain the hell out of people, no matter how good sister Jean is on the banjo.

Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

If the word of God is not preached, then it is not heard. If it is not heard, faith cannot come. If faith cannot come, we will perpetually conform to this world, never knowing the transformative power of God over our lives, hearts, and minds. If you were the devil, which would you target? If your goal was that men remain in a perpetual state of conformity to the ways and will of the world, would you not attempt to either silence the preaching of the Word of God or water it down to the point that it no longer resembles it?

At the risk of ruffling some feathers, striving against sin is not works salvation. Resisting the devil is not works salvation. If you were of that opinion, consider your feathers fully ruffled. I get that we’ve all become petulant children ready to strike out at anyone who upsets us, but before you do, it’s the Book telling you to do these things, not I. I’m just the messenger. I’m just the Uber Eats schmuck that delivers the burned pizza. I didn’t burn the pizza, don’t get angry with me. It’s not like I have an oven in my trunk for just such an occasion.

Hebrews 12:4, “You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.”

James 4:7-8, “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.”

If you’re drowning in quicksand and you reach for the arm that’s reaching for you, that’s not works salvation; that’s not wanting to die. I don’t care how daft you are; when you’re dying, you know you’re dying. The sad reality is that some people just want to die, and others don’t quite grasp what it all entails. If the only thing that happens is that the lights go out, then that’s not so bad, is it? See how clever, now nefarious, how subtle the plans and schemes of the enemy? If he were to admit the truth and confirm eternity and the lake of fire where the worm never sleeps, do you think perhaps some people would be more judicious about the choices they make?

There are times when Jesus reaches out, and people, in their stubbornness, refuse to lift a finger, sinking ever deeper into the abyss of darkness and despair. God commands all men everywhere to repent. That’s a big tent, yet, many refuse to obey, to surrender, to humble themselves in the sight of the Lord, and repent before His throne.

Acts 17:30-31, “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

Whether submitting to God, resisting the devil, drawing near to God, cleansing our hands, or purifying our hearts, these are all actions required of us as individuals.

We have two choices here: either we take a sharpie and blot out these verses and many like them, including Jesus, telling both the woman caught in adultery and the bed-ridden man who’d been sick for thirty-eight years to go and sin no more, or we can accept that as with everything else nowadays, we’ve reformulated salvation to be palatable to the modern Christian.

If it’s cauliflower, can you still call it rice? If it’s not salvific, can you still call it salvation? More questions than answers, but questions are a good start when honestly desiring clarification.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Depth

 I’ve been living with the Book of Jude going on a couple of months now. The more I ponder his writings, the more respect I have for his body of knowledge, especially regarding the spiritual, as well as the enemy’s ongoing war with the household of faith. It’s not easy to encapsulate the origin and ultimate destiny of evil in one verse, but Jude did it without breaking a sweat.

Jude 6, “And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day;”

The devil doesn’t just hate you. He’s not exclusive that way. The devil hates everyone and everything that God ever created. He roams, seeking to devour the children of God because He knows their destruction is the one thing that will hurt God worse than anything else.

It’s one thing to defile, pervert, and mutilate the things God created, whether man or woman, natural desire, or maternal instinct. It’s another to warp and twist the minds of those from within His family.

Lions don’t care what they eat. Meat is meat. They stalk, hunt, and bring down whatever’s available at a given time. The enemy, however, having awareness, not only seeks to devour but also to devour those whom God’s heart would hurt at seeing felled the most.

Why do you think the devil takes such perverse pleasure in corrupting innocence? Why do you think the wholesome and virtuous are his number one target? The person seeped in sin and depravity is already his. Their destruction brings him no particular kind of pleasure. The death spiral is just the consequence of sin and indulging in it. Sin is death and has a 100% mortality rate. Jesus is the cure, and He has a 100% survivability rate.

When you are saved, your nature is transfused from the old man to the new man, from the nature of the sinful creature to one of a child of God. This doesn’t mean the devil leaves you alone, never to bother you again. From that point forward, he is looking for a way in, a crack, a chink, a compromise, something that will allow him to transfuse the old man back in and the nature of Christ back out. He can’t force the reverse transfusion on anyone; it’s not like he’s some kidney harvester in the Philippines. Some, however, for whatever reason, volunteer for it. As heartbreaking as it is to witness, when people backslide, it is with their full knowledge and consent.

The human heart is not an ever-expanding container. There’s only so much room in it, and it’s either full of Christ or the world. When the old gets pumped out and the new pumped in, we usually extend a season of grace to the new believer who is learning to walk, see, and hear for the first time. The process, however, the transfusion, must be completed at some point, and the new man must emerge whole, equipped, and ready to do exploits on behalf of the kingdom.

If the process never concludes, if there is no terminus, then the individual in question shut off the drip coming in so that no more could go out, and they’re in a half-state of being, more commonly known as lukewarm. God’s desire is always to infuse you with His nature. If the process pauses, it’s because there is resistance, and He will not force Himself on anyone.

How do you know when the fullness of God resides in you? When every decision you make takes His glory into account. When what you may have wanted out of life no longer matters, and the only permanent goal is that His will be done in your life instead.

There are exceptions to the rule, such as Paul, where God hoovers out a heart and fills it instantaneously, but usually, it’s a growth process of learning to trust and understanding the nature of Christ. Baby chicks aren’t expected to feed themselves the day they are hatched, but eventually, they are.

It took a minute for Peter to make the journey from coward to being known as the original Rock. Having heard him deny Christ before a servant girl, would anyone have guessed that this was the man upon whom Christ would build His church? Even if they’d heard Jesus declare it so, seeing him now, fearful and cowardly, would they still have believed it would be so?

The presence of God in one’s life is transformative. You cannot remain as you were once you encounter Him and still maintain that you’ve been transformed. There must be less of me and more of Him every day until it’s all of Him and none of me. The inward transformation will manifest outwardly because when Christ is in you, He will radiate from you. Men will know you’ve been in the presence of Jesus without you having to declare it.

If you eat garlic or curry, you don’t have to tell people about it; they’ll catch a whiff and know. If you are imbued with the nature, character, life, and will of Christ, it will show, and those around you will be able to tell. I cannot continue to be as I was if I hope to become what He desires me to be. Transformation, sanctification, growth, and progress are necessary components of our spiritual walk, and if we’re no longer growing or becoming more like Him, it is a reason for concern.

Self-awareness coupled with honesty will aid anyone brave enough to utilize them in determining why their walk has stagnated and why their love has cooled. When you discover the reason, because it becomes apparent, be merciless in removing it from your life. Don’t let roadblocks get in the way of the fullness of Christ in your life. Lukewarm is no way to meet your maker.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Sense

 The quickest way to frustrate me is to insist upon something that doesn’t make sense. If, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, then it goes to reason that the action must directly correlate to the response. If you’re carrying an umbrella, I’m assuming you’re assuming it’s going to rain at some point. If I go through the trouble of making conversation and asking if it’s going to rain and you answer that you have no idea, I’m likely to ask why you’re carrying an umbrella. If your answer is because of the aliens, I’m just going to assume you escaped from a mental institution.

If the children of God were in no danger of being deceived, led astray, or otherwise sidelined by the enemy, why are there so many warnings in the Bible about being vigilant, on guard, and aware of the devil’s machinations? If you were Superman, why would every New Testament author warn you against getting shot? You’re the man or woman of steel; after all, you’re bulletproof. You’re impervious to anything and everything, and you ought not to have a care in the world that the enemy roams as a roaring lion. Yet the One who knows the situation better than you ever hope to saw fit to warn you against growing indifferent, lackadaisical, or lukewarm.

Your vigilance and awareness are supposed to be active throughout your journey of faith, not passive or nonexistent. Make it make sense. Please explain it to me in such a way that I don’t have to succumb to cognitive dissonance to accept your theory.

Matthew 24:4-6, “And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”

Jesus wasn’t speaking to strangers; He was speaking to friends. He was speaking to His disciples, the closest people on the planet to Him, and His first warning was to take heed that they not be deceived. Oddly enough, none of them asked Him what He was talking about. None of them rolled their eyes or attempted to correct Him saying, “You don’t get it, boss, we can’t be deceived, we got this game on lock, ain’t nothing gonna break our stride, ain’t nothin’ gonna slow us down.”

Would Christ not have worded His oration differently had He not allowed for the prospect of the effectiveness of deceivers? Why spook His disciples needlessly? Why warn them of something that posed no danger to them?

Jesus is warning His disciples, telling them that they’re not bulletproof. Being bulletproof is one thing, but dodging bullets is another. Jesus is nixing the former but confirming the latter.  He is telling them that they can dodge bullets. If you can’t be bulletproof, being able to dodge them is the next best thing. In order to dodge the devil’s shots, you have to see them coming, and in order to see them coming, you must be aware, on guard, and vigilant.

Perhaps this is why Jude felt compelled to write about contending for the faith once delivered. Maybe even in his day, there was a predisposition to coast, to do less than the bare minimum and feel accomplished because disreputable souls insisted that you were doing great, killing it, so far ahead of the pack that you couldn’t see anyone behind you.

Again, self-awareness and honesty must play a part because most people who are told they’re excelling have the sneaking suspicion that they’re not, because if excelling is showing up for two out of five church services, what of those martyred for the faith?

It’s because we like to have our egos stroked that we allow lies to fuel our pride and walk about as though we and not Christ are the cornerstone upon which everything rests. Anyone who tells us the truth is the enemy; anyone who insists upon walking humbly with the Lord is standing in the way of our priestly calling. We’re just a bunch of fools swallowing lies about ourselves because acknowledging the truth requires dramatic change, and who’s got that kind of time?

We’d rather believe flattering lies than challenging truths, and in our quest to maintain the status quo, we reward handsomely all who would betray the cross and tell us what we want to hear. Tell me my sin is of no consequence. Tell me my duplicity will be overlooked. Tell me that God will recognize me even though I don’t know Him when I stand before Him, and I’ll write you a check for that overflow building right now.

Why do you think celebrities and people with money and influence gravitate toward a handful of so-called pastors and churches? The guy who was supposed to be the shepherd to the stars turned out to be a serial adulterer. Do you think, knowing himself to be what he was, he ever confronted his parishioners about their infidelities?

We’ve gotten to the point that calling someone out on their sin because you don’t want to see them go to hell is offensive and unloving. Cheering someone into the flames of Sheol, however, is the height of love and compassion.

And yet, we still beat our chest, calling ourselves the greatest generation to have ever preached the gospel, assuming that all others who came before us must bow before our prowess and global reach. This is spiritual greatness we declare, cars, and clothes, and fancy things. Never mind healing the sick or casting out demons, or preaching Christ’s gospel; we got stuff, and it satisfies us. Make it make sense. I’m waiting.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Desire

 We like to think that our generation invented everything from the wheel to the lightbulb to motivational sayings, ala Tony Robbins or Joel Osteen. How did the world survive before syrupy clichés about best lives and personal empowerment? The truth of it is that such purveyors of superficial musings have always been around, but with the advent of the internet, they’ve multiplied like mushroom pores after a warm spring rain.

It was actually Abraham Lincoln who was quoted as saying you can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be and do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose. If he’d added within reason, it likely would have taken away from the statement’s impact, but let’s face it, a midget will still be a midget, no matter how much he wants to be five feet. And with that, I’ve added the little people community to the growing list of groups I’ve offended.

Because some can’t accept that certain things are not possible given their intelligence, athletic ability, or body composition, they dive headfirst into the land of make-believe, pretending to be what they’re not and demanding everyone else feed their delusion as well. Sorry, you can’t be a Chihuahua, a porcupine, or a unicorn, because you’re human, and unicorns don’t exist.

The difference between man and God is that when God says you can attain something, it is not out of reach, imaginary, or unattainable. God’s not trying to play keep-away with His children, nor is He looking to make it difficult for them to receive what He promised.

Proverbs 2:3-6, “Yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.”

It matters what you cry out for and what you lift up your voice for. It matters what you seek after as for a hidden treasure or as silver because you will find what you’re seeking after, and if you’re seeking after something fleeting and temporal, once you get it, you will discover the futility of it.

It’s not because discernment is not available to today’s church; it’s that today’s church isn’t crying out for discernment. We’re standing there like man babies yelling for money to come to us, but rarely a request for discernment or understanding. All we need is the dollar, dollar bills, and, if possible, without incorporating the sweat of our brow into the mix.

We’re raising a generation of spiritual cripples who are fully convinced they are marathon runners for Jesus. How do you think this will end? Between a full-scale global revival and a great falling away, because they were taught lies for so long that they’ve come to believe them to be the truth, I’d go with the falling away rather than the revival. Do I wish it weren’t so? Would I rather see a global revival? Yes, and yes, but then again, if wishes were horses, I’d have a whole stable.

We don’t need discernment as long as we have prosperity. That’s the clear message of today’s church, and those who crept in unnoticed are rubbing their hands and licking their lips because they’d thought it would be harder than this to deter people from seeking the truth.

If people are willing to trade eternity for baubles, if they’re willing to trade the life to come for a present life of ease, the enemy’s minions won’t have much difficulty in decimating today’s church. That’s the reality of it. It’s not pleasant, it’s not nice, it’s not cheery or optimistic, but oftentimes reality is none of those things. It just is what it is. 

What are you crying out for? Be honest with yourself. It’s just you and a screen, so you don’t have to pretend for anyone. What we seek, desire, and cry out for matters, as does the intensity with which we do it. Case and point, some people are so obsessed with who the antichrist is that they haven’t noticed how far they’ve strayed from Jesus. Their life is consumed with a name rather than The Name, which shows in their spiritual growth or lack thereof.

No passivity is implied in how we seek and search for understanding, knowledge, and discernment. We are to seek after them as we would a hidden treasure.

As I’ve mentioned on occasion, I wanted to be an archeologist when I was younger. I was also fascinated by people’s stories of perseverance when it came to treasure hunting. One that impressed me back then, and still impresses me to this day, is a man by the name of Mel Fisher. He’d heard a story of a sunken galleon off the Florida Keys when he was a child, and as an adult, he searched for it for sixteen years. When he finally found it, it turned out to be the largest underwater treasure found in history.

Imagine dedicating sixteen years of your life searching for something you could not know with certainty existed. It was just a story he’d heard as a child, after all. Why is it that we won’t dedicate an hour seeking after, desiring, and crying out for something that we know does exist because God assured us it is so?

It’s not God’s hand that’s short, nor is God hard of hearing. We’re not asking. We’re not searching. We’re not pressing in. If we don’t acknowledge that understanding, discernment, and knowledge are treasures, even if God were to bestow them upon us without our asking, we wouldn’t value them as we ought, thinking them irrelevant and of little value.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Neutralized

 A surefire way to conquer your opponent is to neutralize their defenses. If they have no defense against your siege, they cannot push you back, and eventually, the inevitable occurs. The enemy has known of this for millennia. With each generation, his preeminent goal is to neutralize the church’s defenses, making it incapable of defending itself against the lies, the deception, and the falsehoods.

The surest way to flood the household of faith with deception is to remove the filter of truth the Holy Spirit provides. Without the presence of the Holy Spirit, there is no discernment, and men use human reason to determine whether something is divinely inspired or the machinations of mal intentioned souls.

Why wouldn’t God want you to be rich beyond your dreams, live to a hundred, and still run marathons into your nineties? Why wouldn’t God want to spare you trials and persecution? Because the purpose of man is to glorify God, the Holy Spirit would whisper if He were still welcomed in today’s churches. Since He is not, human feelings and emotions decide God’s purpose for His creation, and it’s never sanctification or righteousness; it’s always excess and a form of godliness.

The Holy Spirit guards men’s hearts against the plans and devices of the enemy. It acts as a shield against deception, and whenever something not tethered in truth attempts to take root, it serves as the most effective weed killer known to man.

The devil’s always known that the Holy Spirit stands in stark opposition to his plans, so for the longest time, he’s done his utmost to remove Him from the equation. When the Holy Spirit is absent, so is discernment, and when discernment is absent, confusion and deception are a given.

This isn’t about some denominational bend or another; this is about spiritual survival in a time when those within and without what we would consider the church are hostile to the gospel of Christ. I don’t care what denomination you belong to, except perhaps for the Anglican church. Any denomination that started because the pope wouldn’t grant a king a do-over when it came to his marriage isn’t really a denomination you should bother with.

We like our little color-coded boxes, but the devil doesn’t seem to care which box you belong to. He’s out to devour anyone within reach, and he will not pull up short if you suddenly slap a Baptist, Methodist, or Pentecostal sticker on your forehead.

Things do become problematic, and we’re likely to have words if anyone decides to put denominational creed above the Word of God, but otherwise, as long as whom you’re listening to preaches the gospel, the fact that they have a beard or don’t doesn’t matter at all to me.

The purpose of a fellowship is brotherly love, unity, and spiritual nourishment. Those things can be had in someone’s garage or living room as readily as within a building with a bell tower and a cross on the roof.

Christ’s declaration was direct and straightforward enough that anyone could grasp the meaning thereof:

Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

There was no addendum to His promise. There was no further fine print that said He would be present only if the gathering was denominationally sanctioned and taking place in a Sanctuary with the appropriate acoustics and a hipster worship team that took worldly melodies and spiritualized the verses. Granted, they’re not even bothering to do that anymore nowadays; they’re just singing Highway to hell during Sunday service because the lead pastor’s trying to be edgy and make a point.

Do what God says, love what God loves, spend time in His presence, and be satisfied in Him. It’s not complicated, but it’s grating to the flesh, and it limits its ability to manifest itself and sup upon the things God has declared forbidden.

I used to listen to stories of when my grandparents were young, during the war when both the Russians and the Germans used Romania as a doormat, and how thankful and grateful they were whenever they could get something hot to eat, even if it was some runny corn mush or some boiled pearl barley. Scarcity made them appreciate the most basic things, and they savored them, not knowing when they would enjoy them again.

Whenever my daughters argue about whether they want my wife to make them pancakes, crepes, or waffles for breakfast, I think back on my grandparents’ stories and retell them, hoping to make them see how blessed they are.

We’ve lost sight of how blessed we are when it comes to access to the Word of God. We have a glut of exhaustive commentaries at our fingertips, translations upon translations from the original Greek, and tools that can cross-reference any word in the Bible, yet rarely do we even bother to access them. That guy on the television said I’d be rich if I sent him a seed faith of $120 representing the twelve tribes of Israel as a type and shadow of their covenant with God, and I could think of worse things than being rich. Perhaps we need a bit of scarcity to make us appreciate the gospel. Is that scarcity on the horizon? I believe it is, not because I want it to be, but because the Bible says it will.

Amos 8:11-13, “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it.”

I often wonder if we’re already living in those days. I wonder if all most people consume has no sustenance or ability to sustain them but rather reprocessed theories that do nothing to feed the soul. Perhaps when they start to starve, they’ll realize that what they’ve been eating isn’t sustaining them. Some will, I think, but many will wither into nothingness, glutting themselves on lies.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.