Masks

 I never understood why anyone would give serious heed to anything an actor said. I understand the celebrity angle of it, but at the same time, these people earn a living pretending to be other people. They are professional mask wearers, imitating mannerisms, accents, cadence, vocal pitches, twitches, and all manner of idiosyncrasies to make you believe they are someone else. The ones that do it the best even get awarded for it.

If you spend your life perfecting the wearing of a mask, why would I believe that you are being honest and forthright those thirty seconds you’re trying to sell me something I don’t really need for money I don’t really have?

For less than a dollar a day, you, too, can have that winning smile! Well, thank you for doing the math for me never was C list actor who played homicide victim number 2 in an episode of TJ Hooker, but that’s still $360 a year. Throw in the cost of shipping and handling, and you’re creeping up on four hundred bucks I can use to feed my kids for a week. Okay, maybe not a week. They’re growing like weeds, and more people are getting priced out of buying actual food, but I refuse to feed my children I Can’t Believe It’s No Meat, even though everyone can and does believe it’s not meat. You’re not fooling anyone. No offense intended to the artificial meat eaters out there, but real meat doesn’t jiggle like jello.

One of the metaphors Jude uses when discussing the ungodly, a word he returns to time and again, is that they are raging waves of the sea foaming up their own shame. Foam is created on waves when they’ve built up enough energy and momentum to crash violently against the shore. Those same waves can come in soft and calm, rolling on the breeze, but come a storm, a gale wind, or something that adversely affects them, and rage they will.

I repeat it often because it’s true and warrants repeating: I’ve been in ministry for a long time. I started at twelve, and I’m pushing fifty like I was Sisyphus with something to prove. I’ve seen ministries, ministers, churches, pastors, and shooting stars come and go, I’ve seen movements swell up and die down, and I’ve seen the rapture being prognosticated dozens of times only to see the dates come and go, so I have what some might call reasonable experience when it comes to the things of which I speak.

Some people seem perfectly normal, cool, calm, and collected until you tap on their pressure point. Once that happens, it’s as though you flipped a switch, and the smiling person before you turns into a snarling, finger-wagging harpy, screaming about how you’re not supposed to judge, everyone makes mistakes, plenty of people do worse, and so on.

You get blindsided by the reaction because what you said, how you said it, and the context in which it was said did not merit such a response. She asked if abortion was wrong, and you said yes, you believed it was murder, then she went off.

An opinion was sought, one was proffered, and suddenly, you’re doing your best not to snap the finger wagging in your face at the second knuckle.

You can discuss a hundred different sins with the selfsame individual while they remain dispassionate and logical, but hit upon that one for which they harbor shame, that one which still has them shackled to it like a lead weight they have to drag around all day, and their reaction will be swift and violent.

Just remember, it’s not you; it’s their sin. It’s not you; it’s their shame. That is what is fueling their anger. That is what is fueling their vitriol. Some people take it personally and react in kind. There’s no reason for it. Their sin and shame have so consumed these people that half the time, they’re mad with uncontrollable rage. Protect yourself and defend yourself if you must, but don’t sink down to their level because you are not a raging wave foaming up your shame.

We’ve all seen the videos, especially at pro-life protests, with people so out of their minds that they scream incoherent things while spittle is flying everywhere. That’s what Jude was talking about, and it’s another telltale sign one could readily look out for.

The clouds without water among us are big fans of the raging waves because as long as they have them on their side, they feel the raging waves will shut down anyone who opposes them personally. Tell a Beth Moore fan that she’s a cloud without water, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

There’s a codependency between the angry contingent of society and those who would profit from the angry contingent of society. There’s an unwritten agreement of sorts wherein you don’t call their sin a sin, and they’ll defend you loudly and enthusiastically even when you happen to be Joel Osteen and have not a clue about the deeper things of God.

Smile on the weekends, cry on the weekdays, muddle through, and be positive, and everything will work out. You’ll see. Even if it doesn’t, Joel will never hear of it, and the raging waves defending him will silence anyone that tries.

There’s a reason it’s so hard to get through to some people. It’s not an accident; it is purposeful because the last thing the enemy wants is for someone in darkness to see the light. The last thing he desires is for someone who is lost to be found, redeemed, and reborn.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Inspired

 Whenever I see someone doing something that exceeds their natural ability, it’s a wonder to behold. It’s not so much the act itself but the realization that, for a moment, they were more than the sum of their parts, and they did something beyond their ability or understanding. It’s one of the subtler ways God reminds mankind of His presence in the universe, and for those who take the time to see it for what it is, it’s a humbling experience.

As I read through Jude’s comparisons and metaphors, I can’t help but see the same inspired moment, wherein it’s no longer him writing these things; it’s no longer his amalgam of experiences that has given way to such poetry but something other. Something more.

We’ve all had those moments at some point along our journey where after we say something or do something, we sit back and realize we didn’t know we knew it. At that juncture, we either acknowledge God's unction, presence, and inspiration or pat ourselves on the back for being smarter than we thought we were. There is no third option.

Jude must have known he couldn’t come up with such turns of phrase on his own. He seems like the sort of fellow who understands his limitations and leans heavily on the presence of God to carry him through.

Every metaphor Jude uses denotes lifelessness. Whether a cloud without water, an autumn tree without fruit, or something twice dead and pulled up from the root, he highlights the absence of life in such a stark fashion that it is undeniable. Jude understands there’s no such thing as a little dead or a bit alive. Either you’re dead or alive, and there is no in-between. No, zombies aren’t real, so don’t even bother.

Another aspect of Jude’s metaphors that leaped from the page was regarding the late autumn trees without fruit. Not only were these trees mature enough to be fruit-bearing, they were expected to bear fruit. When they failed to do so, it was something that stood out. If you’ve ever encountered a believer that says they’ve been walking with Jesus for decades, yet their lives do not mirror it but rather testify against them, you know what Jude was referring to.

Something just isn’t right. The inconsistency is troublesome, and the fruit that was supposed to adorn this individual's life is nowhere to be found. I guess you can do what the godless have taken to doing and identify as a good fruit-bearing tree when you’re not, but I don’t think God is into playing word games or indulging perverse fantasies.

If you’ve ever walked through a forest, you will have seen that not all trees are the same. Some are green and vibrant, with leafy branches and stout trunks, while others are dried-out husks, rotting unobserved until they return to the soil from which they sprang up originally. Not everyone who sits in a church pew is a fruit-bearing tree, and not every fruit-bearing tree in the church bears good fruit.

That’s the caveat. That’s the often overlooked detail that causes some believers to bring the viper close to their breast before they realize its intent. Not only must a tree bear fruit, but it must also bear good fruit. The standard has been so abused that we’ve come to celebrate any kind of fruit at all. Bad fruit is better than no fruit; I mean, he just left his wife of thirty years for another woman. It could have been worse; it could have been for a man.

If they had to live up to the biblical standard of leadership, a good majority of current pastors would be disqualified outright. Even the most lauded and celebrated evangelists of our day are on their second or fourth wives, with so many skeletons in their closets you’d think it was Halloween all year round.

A tree can’t just bear any old fruit; it must be good fruit, for that is the sign of a good tree. Jesus said as much when He reminded us that every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. It would have been wisdom heaped upon wisdom enough if He’d stopped there, but Jesus continued His oration and pointed out yet another thing the church ignores, overlooks, and disregards. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. It is an impossibility.

Matthew 7:17-19, “Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

If everyone insists that someone is anointed of heaven but just has some habitual sin they’re dealing with in their life, then by Christ’s warning, they are not anointed of heaven, no matter how many people insist it is so. They may be entertaining, they may be charming, they may have a way with words, and they dress better than a dapper Dan on his best day, but they are not a good tree!

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit. It is against its nature to do so. If a tree is producing bad fruit, then by definition, it is a bad tree. When we stop defending people over defending what the Word of God says is when things will turn around in the church. When we prioritize God’s instruction over a celebrity, the household of faith will have a chance of returning to righteousness and holiness. Until then, we will continue to excuse bad fruit, insist the tree itself is good, and vilify those who would dare to point out the inconsistency in that logic.

Jesus said that eventually, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, and no amount of excuses and obfuscations will change that reality.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Worse

 There are things worse than death to contend with. Jesus said as much. It’s not those who kill the body that should concern us, but the One that can destroy both body and soul. Thankfully there’s just the One that can do it, but Biblically speaking, it can be done, and He reserves the right to do it. It is within His wheelhouse, skill set, and ability to carry out. There’s no point in threatening something if you have neither the means nor the willingness to do it. God doesn’t make empty threats or say the impossible only to be called out on it. If Jesus said He can destroy both the body and the soul, you can be sure that it is not an exaggeration. It’s not a fun topic to begin discussing and dissecting, but one which is paramount if we hope to understand certain Biblical truths that may cut a bit too deep for some.

Jude 12-13, “These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.”

If we could say one thing about Jude with absolute certainty, it’s that he could never be a politician. There’s none of the smooth oily, slimy, slippery double-tongued speak we’ve become accustomed to from those in the public eye, at least those that can string a sentence together, don’t have dementia, haven’t stroked out, or aren’t so old and feeble that they carry a feeding tube around just for funsies. If you’ve ever wondered why people put themselves through the ordeal of running for office, save for a slim minority compelled by patriotism, it’s because the getting’s good. The average Joe has no clue how good the getting is. Gravy trains with biscuit wheels don’t apply just to prosperity preachers.

Whenever I consider Paul’s instruction to be angry yet not sin, I picture Jude fiercely scratching away at a piece of parchment with a quill as he described those who would attempt to harm the sheep of God’s pasture. You can’t be neutral, indifferent, or uncaring when it comes to those who attempt to deceive the household of faith or confuse those sincerely desirous of a relationship with Christ. Confusion breeds uncertainty; uncertainty robs men of peace. Mature believers ought to feel protective toward baby Christians, but the enemy succeeded in curbing this innate desire by doing away with discipleship in the church.

When discipleship is no longer practiced in a church body, the relational interconnectedness, the bond, and the unity begin to slip until they become nonexistent. Everyone’s just another face, a ship in the night, so generic and uninspired that it’s become like every other neighborhood in America where you know the layout, how it will look, and what you will find even before you get there.

It’s why someone can go from church to church throughout the nation, and if they check a few boxes like numerical size, the size of the worship team, and the one man show atmosphere, they’ll say they feel just like home. You can walk into any Walmart and know where everything is because the layout is the same. You can walk into any mega-church and know what to expect because the branding is the same. It’s like all these guys bought a Popeye franchise, and although some locations look cleaner and are safer than others, you still get the same gristly chicken.

There’s a reason the practice of discipleship has been suppressed in the modern-day church, and it’s nefarious. As far as the enemy is concerned, the less interaction mature believers have with new ones, the better. You don’t form attachments that way; you don’t feel protective; you just make the trek to a stadium, see Joel smile for thirty minutes, hear how your best days are right in front of you, and drive back home to contemplate where it all went wrong, and why your Sunday isn’t feeling much like a Friday.

 I don’t care how you feel about animals in general; if you see someone trying to club a baby seal, you’re going to try to stop them. In the least, you’ll say something, hoping to get the attention of others, and thereby ruin the individual’s plans to beat a baby seal to death.

This is why whenever I hear of supposed spiritual leaders, pastors, and deacons, and bishops, oh my, insisting that everyone else is in the wrong for opposing the murder of the unborn, I can’t help but be reminded of Jude’s proclamation that these are twice dead, and pulled up by the root.

When we strip away denominational dogma, men’s interpretations, and presuppositions, what being twice dead means is simple enough, straightforward even. It’s when we place denominational spectacles on the bridge of our noses, read the text, and refuse to believe our lying eyes as far as what the passage obviously means that things become murky and confusing.

What is the overarching assumption about a twice-baked potato? That it’s baked twice! Well done. Give yourself a gold star.

What is the overarching assumption about being twice dead? Well, you see, that can’t be. Why not? Twice dead means precisely what it implies. That the individuals in question were dead, then alive, then died again, then Jude goes a step further and tells us that they were pulled up from the roots, meaning there is no possibility for them to return to life. When you think about it, it’s a heavy verse, one of a handful within the Bible that spells out the finality of rebellion and deception.

There’s no rehabilitating someone who is twice dead. There’s no bringing back to life someone who’s been pulled up from the roots. They are beyond the point of resuscitation, and no amount of heart massaging, mouth-to-mouth, or electric shock will bring that particular cadaver back to life.

Some people are knowingly racing toward destruction, fully aware of what the Bible says, but their conscience is seared, they are twice dead and pulled up from the root, and their only purpose in life is to deceive whoever they can, whenever they can, wherever they can, by whatever means they can.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Fortune Tellers

 If you’ve ever gone to a prophet, and I use the term loosely, and have never left without a word being spoken over you, they are not real prophets. To presuppose that everyone who graces your doorstep gets a word from the Lord simply because they made the trek is akin to people journeying into Tibet hoping to get a blessing from a monastic monk that has not seen the light of day for three decades.

This may leave a mark, but we need to figure out the difference between prophecy and fortune-telling mighty quickly because the notion that the two are interchangeable has been building up steam, and it’s not a good thing. There is a difference between a prophet and a fortune teller, a prophet and a soothsayer, and a prophet and a diviner.

Going back to Balaam, he started out a prophet of the Lord, but at some point crossed the line into soothsaying because people with money showed up for a word, a word never came, but since they’d already paid their diviner’s fee, he felt obliged to tell them something.

Sometimes God doesn’t have a word for you. That’s just the way it is. I know. You’re special. He has to have a word for you, and if He doesn’t, you’ll get really mad, but even His silence is a message in and of itself if you know how to perceive it. God doesn’t owe you anything. That’s not unloving; it’s just the truth. He doesn’t owe you a dream, a vision, a word of prophecy, or a written declaration delivered by someone’s pet dinosaur, straight from the halls of heaven.

Most of the time, it’s because they don’t like what God already told them that people go searching for a fresh word, hoping that the fresh word will countermand the preexisting instruction. God doesn’t stutter, and He’s not double-minded. Don’t tempt God or his servants by making a sport of prophecy shopping and offering gifts to encourage a word from on High.

If God has nothing for you on that day, a couple of hundred bucks isn’t going to change His mind. Stop trying to goad a prophet into becoming a soothsayer, and go home and read your Bible instead. There’s plenty of instruction, direction, and correction in there to keep you busy for a decade or ten.

“Does the Lord have a word for me on this day?”

“No,” the man of God answers.

“Are you sure?” asks the man pulling a wad of crisp hundred-dollar bills from his pocket, “can you check again?”

But they’re men of God. They should be above all that. Balaam wasn’t, and he didn’t have a wife and seven kids to feed. No one ever stops to think that the devil may be using them to try and tempt a servant of God. The onus is always on the man with the gift to be stoic and reject the king’s gifts and favors.

In a perfect world, it would be so, but this is no perfect world, far from it.

Those who know me know my deep respect for my grandfather, not because he was my grandfather, but because of how he lived his life and that he would allow for zero compromises to shadow his service toward God in any way.

My mom cleaned homes, my dad held two jobs, and we lived in a run-down gang-infested neighborhood in Southern California when a well-known entertainment family flew us out to Branson, Missouri, where they had a theater at the time, offering limitless resources with which we could do as we saw fit if only we’d distribute the Book of Mormon in Romania. Easy Street was a yes away. What could be the harm after all? People could choose to read it or not; the onus was on them. You could make a case that, technically, you did nothing wrong, pocket some cash, and live in an actual house with actual air conditioning for once and not just a square box affixed to the wall that made a humming noise and belched out dust every so often.

The offer was summarily rejected, and we got sent packing, but looking back, I think it’s because of the things my grandfather went through at the hands of the Communists that he was able to remain steadfast when it wasn’t the stick that was being proffered, but a giant, picture-perfect carrot.

A fortune teller will gladly take your money and give you some general word about how God is smiling on you, and you’re going to rule the nations. A true prophet of God will speak what God tells him to speak when God tells him to speak, and no amount of money will compel him to speak from his belly and pass it off as a message from the Lord.

If someone insists that if you come to such and such a place, at such and such a time, you’re guaranteed a word from the Lord, it’s already a red flag. No man can speak on behalf of God or schedule when He chooses to speak to His servants. To insinuate or hint at the possibility of this happening is lunacy on its face.

Since when does a servant dictate terms to his Master? Since when does a soldier give orders to his commanding officer?

If God has a word for you, He’ll get it to you. One way or another, by direct message or via a messenger, if you need to know something, you’ll know it when He deems it appropriate. Chasing after people looking for answers that contradict what you already know to be the truth because the truth is too difficult a thing to contend with isn’t fleecing God; it’s tempting Him, and that’s not something you should take lightly.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Even Keel

 I’ve learned to be as unaffected by praise as by criticism. Whether men speak well of me or all that comes from their lips is slander does not affect me in the least as long as I know that what I’m doing is in line with the Word of God and obedience to the will of God for me as an individual.

You can’t control what other people think, nor can you control what they say, how they perceive you, or whether they like you or not. What you can control is whether or not you are obedient and faithful. Coincidentally those are also the metrics God will judge us on as individuals. God won’t be concerned with whether or not I was liked, but whether I was obedient. He won’t be concerned with how many people thought well of me but whether I was faithful to the calling He called me to.

That we would go out of our way to endear ourselves to the godless, that we would betray the truth to be accepted or validated by the world is beyond my ability to process, yet, somehow, people do it daily, craving fellowship with the darkness they ought to have rejected outright.

God has a plan and purpose for every one of His children. He does not see my purpose as lesser than yours, nor your purpose lesser than someone you might look to as the ideal of spiritual tenacity and accomplishment. My job is not to compare myself to others, nor is it to attempt to fill the shoes of those who came before me. My job is to obey God's orders and do so to the best of my ability.

We spend far too much looking over the fence to see what our neighbor is doing and too little time tending to our own gardens to ensure that what grows there is pure and undefiled by the enemy. If everyone is distracted, then no one is paying attention, no one is watching, no one is warning, and so we have a noticeable decline in every metric that signifies a healthy believer, a healthy church body, and a healthy community.

You can’t have a healthy community without having a healthy church body, and you can’t have a healthy church body without having healthy members of that body. It’s like a ripple effect that begins with the individual, then cascades from there.

We don’t like to admit it, we might not even want to, but the reason for America’s moral decline can be traced back to the American church’s moral decline. Once the church failed to hold the standard, once the church failed to maintain the plumb line, everything else got dragged down into an abyss of degeneracy and hedonism, the likes of which have not been seen since the days of Marquis de Sade. Yet, somehow worse, because now every errant thought, perversion, or distasteful compunction can be broadcast instantly to millions and called virtuous and idyllic.

The contemporary church has been beguiled into believing that its sworn enemy has its best interest at heart. Because those who’ve crept into the household of faith unnoticed have risen to positions of prominence and power, they are consistently trumpeting that the devil wants to be your friend if only you’d let him, and those who would revel at seeing the children of God laying bleeding in the street, aren’t really that combative, just misunderstood. Everyone wants to coexist until they have the upper hand. Then, it’s either submit or perish.

We’ve been taught not to be skeptical when the devil or his minions praise us, and that’s something I never understood just from an objective point of view. If your master’s enemies are praising you while despising Him, why would you be enticed by their praise or think it’s okay?

We’ve gone from fiercely defending the sheep from the wolves to cutting backroom deals with them for a slice of the proverbial pie. That the slice comes at the expense of the sheep doesn’t seem to bother the so-called shepherds as long as they get theirs.

All the things they boast about, the cars, mansions, jets, and such, came at the price of souls. They came at the expense of the innocent, who trusted them to point the way to Jesus and instead manipulated the unsuspecting into making them physically rich while they remained spiritually poor. It needed to be so because had they gained spiritual insight, the sheep would have seen the vacuous emptiness of those they once held in esteem and hoisted upon pedestals. They knew from the start that their teachings contradicted the gospel, and so the last thing they wanted to do was encourage their followers to read their Bibles or study to show themselves approved. No need to ever crack it open; you have more important things to do. Just wave it in the air and say a few meaningless words once in a blue moon; that should suffice. Now, for the taking of the offering.

Everywhere you turn, someone is trying to exploit the children of God and much of the time, it is done with the knowledge and consent of those tasked with shepherding them. So what if the lives of the sheep are ruined, and they’re left with a permanent bad taste in their mouth after the whole ordeal? There’s always another flock to fleece, another group of gullible people to talk into a pyramid scheme, all with the word ‘Christian’ somewhere in the title to make it seem spiritual and above board.

It’s a sad day when the sheep must protect themselves from the shepherds just as readily as they would from the wolves. Then again, there is One Shepherd who’s already proven His selfless love and unbridled affection for the sheep by hanging on a cross and dying so that they might be redeemed. Perhaps the time has come to put aside childish things and follow after Him. He’ll never ask you to invest in a Bible-themed theme park, Jesus coins, sanctified crypto, holy sandals, or underground hovels to live out the apocalypse, but He will ask you to deny yourself, pick up your cross, and go where He goes.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Weeds

 Catching up on the lives of others is always a two-edged sword. Especially if you’ve been away for a while and haven’t really kept up, it can be a kick in the teeth to find out that couples you thought would outlast the end of the world ended up divorced, kids who showed aptitude and promise ended up sheepherders, and believers who seemed to be the tip of the spear as far as preaching the gospel to the lost and dying, fell by the wayside.

Some of them still serve, but only halfheartedly; others gave it up altogether because anyone will tell you there’s a window you must exploit to make your fortune, then it’s gone. Once the shekels get sorted, and we’re flush and set for life, then, maybe, in our twilight, we will have a few moments to spare for the Kingdom. Hopefully, we won’t be incontinent and wearing a diaper by then, asking the nurse who brings our pudding if she remembers the good old days when rotary phones were still a thing.  

We hope Jesus understands and that He’ll be patient and wait on us to do the things He commanded, but deep down, we know He’s got a schedule to keep to, and if we remain silent, the stones will cry out. He said as much.

Our actions will find us out just as readily as our sins. What we prioritize is what we value. What we devote our time, energy, and resources to is what sits on the throne of our hearts, not what we declare with our lips. If a man says he loves you but spends all his time with another, showering her with gifts and flowers, he doesn’t. I’m sorry I had to be the bearer of bad news, but just because he drops in unannounced for some Netflix and a hot meal doesn’t mean he loves you.

On the flip side, if a woman says she loves you, but all you ever feel like is a wallet with legs, if she shows more affection for a stranger’s labradoodle than she does for you, then though she might declare, with the passion of Juliet, that you are her moon, her stars, the fuel that makes her heart go pitter patter, you likely aren’t.

Then there are the others. The ones that Jesus, Paul, Jude, and Peter warned of repeatedly and without equivocation. The spots, the snakes, the clouds without water. Those who feign brotherly love and imitate godliness; having a form of it but denying its power.

My dad has taken to calling them the weeds. Whenever someone who was as one of these comes up in conversation, my dad just shrugs his shoulders and says, “Just another weed.”

You will have tares among the wheat, just as surely as you will always have the poor among you. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of how much, and in some instances, whether there is any wheat to speak of left. It is naïve to think that the enemy will leave the work of God alone, unharmed, unhindered, and unperturbed.

If God planted a fellowship, a church, or a family, be sure that the enemy will attempt to come in the night and sow tares among them. While they are still in the ground, before they sprout and grow, it’s hard to tell the difference between the two. Once they sprout, once they begin to grow, the difference becomes clear and unavoidable. If you know what wheat looks like, and you know what weeds look like, you’ll know the difference from a mile away. It’s not as though weeds can mimic wheat, and wheat will never attempt to mimic weeds.

The key is to know the difference between the two and what one is supposed to look like versus the other.

There’s a chocolate maker in Europe whose mascot is a purple cow. I think it’s called Milka, and their claim to fame is that all of their milk chocolate is made with real milk. A friend who lives in Vienna, Austria, has an eight-year-old daughter whose class went on a field trip to a working dairy farm last year. They live in the city, don’t own a car, and use public transit for everything, as do most of the families of the children she goes to school with.

My friend’s daughter had been to the home country often enough to know what an actual cow looked like. However, some of the kids in her class had never seen a real cow up until that point. All they’d ever known was the purple cow on the wrapper of their favorite chocolate treat. When they got to the farm and exited the bus, one of the boys in her class looked around, spotted the cows, and said, “They’re not purple. Why aren’t they purple? I don’t think these are real cows.”

False doctrine has so permeated the modern-day church, and it is so prevalent and invasive that oftentimes when someone hears the true gospel, their reaction is to decry it as false.

When you have an entire generation of lazy, entitled, lukewarm and indifferent Westerners looking their noses down on those who are being beaten, tortured, and martyred for the sake of Christ, insisting that it’s because they don’t have enough faith or because they haven’t learned to unlock their prosperity mindset, you know something has gone horribly wrong.

If all you’ve ever known and all you’ve been told is that cows are purple, it’s a shock to the system the first time you see one up close. The same is true for those who see the true gospel for the first time after years, perhaps decades, of subsisting on a diet of lies and half-truths about the gospel.

Know what makes a stalk of wheat and know what makes a weed. Avoid one, and be in fellowship with the other. That way, you won’t risk being tossed into the fire when the weeds are gathered up.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Fakes

 Imagine how frustrating it must be to know that no matter how hard you try or how much you may want to, the best you’ll ever accomplish for all of eternity is to imitate, forge, fake, or otherwise counterfeit something real. Creation itself will forever be out of reach, and speaking things into existence an impossibility. No matter how elevated your opinion of yourself, you are still a created being, and that will never change. Worse still, as a consequence of your rebellion, your judgment is set in stone, and your time is running out.

The world likes painting pictures. It likes establishing narratives, then telling the same lie over and over again until more and more people begin to believe it. Their commitment to the lie is so absolute and unflinching that you have supposed college graduates, people with unimpressive degrees in worthless specialties, insisting that men can have babies just as readily as biological women.

The narrative the world has been peddling for the longest time is that hell’s a fun place, and the devil is the cool kid on the block. On the contrary, hell’s a place the devil himself doesn’t want to go to, and as far as him being the cool kid on the block, he’s just hoping that the adage is true and that misery loves company. It’s why he’s trying so hard to bring as many folks along for the ride as he can. Why would I believe anyone who willfully represents the father of lies? Why would I think they have noble intentions toward my person or those I love?

Seeing through the lies and deception takes a second of thought and introspection. It takes a breath, a moment to change the trajectory of someone’s eternity, and I think this is why most people are overwhelmed, distracted, and kept busy doing much of nothing. If they had a moment to breathe, think, contemplate, and process what they heard, they’d realize how big of a lie it really is. They’d sense the danger in the sugary words and syrupy lines; they’d see the sharp points of the spears lined up to pierce them through if they happened to fall into the pit.  

I’m not denying that the devil is good at what he does. He should be. He’s been at it for millennia. However, even on his best day, he’s still just a confidence man trying to sell knockoffs to sweaty tourists in Hawaiian shirts, thinking they got the deal of a lifetime on a Patek Philippe from the guy with three teeth in his head. At some point, you have to wonder if the tourist just wanted to be taken. Sure enough, the guy’s dental hygiene might not be up to par, but why would anyone, even someone with three teeth, sell you a thirty-thousand-dollar watch for two hundred bucks and a Longhorns cap? You may be a shrewd negotiator, to be sure, but everything has its limits.

I’ve come to realize that even if the watchmen were watchful and the shepherds protective, even if every liar, deceiver, and two-bit huckster claiming to have ridden on the wings of unicorns and taken the judgment throne itself for a spin were to be identified and summarily expelled from within the church, there would be those among us who would go out of their way to seek them out. They’d set up tents and shops and all manner of boutiques like the palm readers of old and have people lining up to get a little something more than humble obedience and perpetual faithfulness.

If they happened to have a fanciful burrito dream, they’d want an interpretation; if they’d skipped the burrito and no dream was forthcoming, they’d go out looking for one, and the peddlers would find ever more fanciful ways of snaring their prey, and bleeding them for every shekel they have and even some they don’t.

That’s not to say that genuine and authentic do not exist. If the enemy took the time to imitate and counterfeit something, be it tongues, prophecy, dreams, visions, healing, or casting out of demons, then the authentic exists, albeit in far smaller quantities than we are given to believe by those who have a financial motive for insisting that you, your grandma, your second cousin, and your one-eyed puppy can all be demon slayers extraordinaire. Just take the course, pay your fees, get your degree, and like everyone else who thinks a piece of paper gives them value, worth, and gravitas, start beating the bushes for demons. If you happen to find one, show them the piece of paper, and that’ll be enough to scare them silly.

Where’s the balance? That’s the question, really. How do we guard our hearts against deception while at the same time not closing ourselves off to the real as well? How can we tell the real from the fake, the truth from the lie, the authentic from the counterfeit?

If you’ve ever tried to sell gold to a professional, whether jewelry or coins, you know that they all have testing kits within reach. Before they make you the offer or consider purchasing what you’re selling, they’ll test the object to ensure it’s real. It’s not that they don’t trust you specifically. As a general rule, they don’t trust anybody, and I’m guessing if their long-lost auntie showed up trying to sell a gold chain, they’d test it just as thoroughly as if a stranger had walked through the door. It’s nothing personal; it’s business. The reason they are so diligent in testing every item they offer to purchase is that if they fail to do so and it turns out to be fake, they’re out a lot of money that they could never hope to recover.

The Bible is your testing kit. It doesn’t matter who approaches you with a new thing, a great thing, the greatest movement in the history of movements to rival the apostles in the book of Acts. Take the time to see if it’s Biblical and if it stands up to Biblical scrutiny, then decide the path going forward. It doesn’t matter how much you may want it to be authentic. If the Bible doesn’t prove it so, move on, for only loss, heartache, and disillusionment are found at the end of this particular rainbow.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.