Consistent

 Water sustains life, but it can also drown you. Fire keeps you warm, but it can also burn you. What matters is the intent and purpose with which they are used. Nobody drowns in a glass of water or gets burned to a crisp by a flickering candle. Likewise, the tongue can be used to bless or to curse, but if it has chosen a course, it must stick to it, for it cannot curse with one breath and bless with the other.

James 3:8-12, “But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitterness from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.”

Back when I was still a kid and living with my parents in Southern California, there was a corner bodega that served 75% alcohol, and the rest was chips, candy, and various sponge cakes with mystery filling. On any given day, you’d find a handful of neighborhood kids and a few alchies in there, the kids digging through their pockets to see if they had enough for some Twinkies and chocodiles they could divide among themselves, and the alchies begging for hooch on credit promising they were good for it. One day, one of them even went so far as to say he left his wallet in his other car, which got a good laugh from the Indian fellow running the joint.

Then, one spring, everything changed. The Indian gentleman decided to invest in his business and managed to cram a soft serve machine into the already crowded shop, and for the small, small price of twenty-five cents, you had your option of vanilla, chocolate, or the swirl. Granted, this was no custard or dairy-based ice cream. It tasted like sweet water with a bunch of coloring, and that was the vanilla. The chocolate didn’t taste like chocolate, but a quarter was a quarter, and when it got hot, the kids would be lining up.

All the kids in the neighborhood were some flavor of immigrant. There weren’t any real, authentic Americans except for the landlord, who would come around to collect the rent every month. Among the motley crew of kids left home alone because their parents were at work was Tran, a Vietnamese boy who had an analytical mind. He concluded that if he asked for vanilla on the bottom and pretended to change his mind halfway through, he’d get more ice cream overall because whoever was pulling the lever couldn’t stop the machine fast enough. I tried to explain they probably wouldn’t do it since that’s what the swirl was for, but he’d heard from somewhere that the customer was always right.

Shortly after the bodega opened, Tran put his plan into motion. He went in and innocently asked for vanilla, waited until the cone was over halfway full, and then said, “Oh, I think I want chocolate.” Without missing a beat, the man threw the cone with the vanilla in the trash, pulled a fresh cone from the box, and filled it with chocolate.

“Vanilla, chocolate, or swirl,” the man said, handing the cone to Tran. “No fourth option.”

When it comes to the tongue, the swirl is not an option. It either speaks life or death, hope or despair, healing or hurt. James calls out those out of whose mouths proceed both blessing and cursing, insisting that it ought not to be so.

What we strive for isn’t to tame the tongue with practiced silence or hacks like counting to five or taking three deep breaths before we say something but to transform our natures, thereby nullifying the tongue and the predisposition to use it as a poison whip.

Even the best-trained tiger is still a tiger. Perhaps he has been tamed temporarily, but his nature is still that of a carnivorous predator. If you doubt it, ask Siegfried & Roy. Any man who believes he’s tamed his tongue without a transformed nature is akin to the tiger that made a snack out of their handler’s face. You may think you have it under control and that it is yours to command and do your bidding until you find yourself halfway through a monologue that burned every bridge you’d ever built in two minutes flat.

What James is trying to explain echoes Jesus when He said you will know a tree by its fruit. A spring cannot send forth fresh water and bitterness from the same source. It must be either one or the other.

By the same token, no matter how much it may want to, a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. It may try to, it may desire to, it may attempt to mimic what the good tree bearing good fruit is doing, but unless it too becomes a good tree, it will never bear good fruit.

An individual can try to work on themselves, they can go to therapy, learn to love themselves, let go, meet their inner child, grow as a person, or whatever other buzz phrase is popular on a given day, but unless they are born again, that particular train is going to fly off the tracks and crash into whatever is standing in its way.

It’s the people who think they can make themselves bear good fruit when unregenerate that end up saying, I’ve been trying to be so good for so long, but then something happened, and it all got derailed. If you want to spring forth fresh water, you must change the source of where the water that flows through you comes from. There’s no way around this truth, though many have tried to find other avenues.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Alignment

 God shows us His ways that we might walk in them. It’s not so we find shortcuts or what our flesh considers easier paths, but that we come into alignment with His word and will to the point that any deviation from them is unnatural and deeply disturbing. We walk the narrow path of faith with diligence and determination, feeling the holy conviction we ought any time our foot slips off the path and we deviate from the course God has set out for us. When a man chooses to ignore the conviction, it becomes easier to do so with each iteration until they no longer acknowledge the voice or urging of God to return to their first love and rekindle the fire that once burned in their hearts.

When your mindset is right, and your will is in submission to His, when the desire of your heart is more of Him, then the tongue becomes easier to bridle. Although no man can tame the tongue, the tongue can be bridled, brought under control, and its poison effectively neutralized.

But how do we do that? How do we get our mindset right and our will in submission to Him? Knowing what we need to do is half the battle, after all. How to do what we need to do must be figured into the equation; otherwise, we will never be able to come to a definitive conclusion.

How we get to that point in our walk has everything to do with what the desire of our heart is. What do you desire from God? Is it more of Him or more of everything else but Him? Do you desire to know His way or to blaze your own trail, absent accountability or oversight from above?

Moses was a man to whom the Lord spoke as to a friend face to face. That is a high bar. Yes, I know, nowadays it’s old hat, with ladies teleporting to heaven via porta-potties and giving God their two cents on how He should run the universe, but even so, being able to have a conversation with God in such a matter is a big thing. He had found grace in God’s sight, and when he had the opportunity to ask God for anything, what he asked for should serve as a lesson to us all.

Exodus 33:13-14, “Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people. And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’”

Moses understood that without knowing the way of the Lord, you cannot know Him. Nothing was more important to him than knowing God that he might find grace in His sight. Here is a man who was having a one-on-one conversation with the Almighty, who acknowledged that he’d found grace in the sight of the Lord, then asked that God show him His way so that he may find yet more grace in His sight.

How is it that people who are passionate about baseball can tell you the stats of every player on their favorite team? The same goes for people who are passionate about football, or soccer, or any other sport one might think of. Yet, those claiming to be passionate about God spend so little time in His presence that they feel the need to refresh His memory as to who they are when they approach Him again.

The best we can muster is a Hillsong once in a great while about how we love Him and need Him, but in truth, our actions tell a different tale. If you love Him, your singular desire ought to be to know His way that you might know Him. It’s not to ignore Him, discount His words, scoff at His commandments, and do your utmost to blend in with those of the world.

Suppose I said I loved my wife but didn’t live in the same house with her, went out with other women, preferred the company of anyone else except for her, disrespected her, and did not care about her feelings or opinion on anything. Would anyone believe that I loved my wife? Our actions must be commensurate with our declarations; otherwise, our declarations will be deemed fallacies based on the evidence our actions provide.

We can say we’re trying to bridle the tongue, but if we’re the first to run to hear gossip just so we could spread it, if we’re the first to speak up about something just to be contrarian, if we find ourselves in a war of words without knowing how we got into it, we’re not really doing what we said we were.

When we consciously, consistently, and committedly seek to walk in the way of the Lord, nature will no longer take its course; fire will no longer be the singular outcome because we will have been redeemed, transformed, and set upon a new path that seeks only to bring glory to the Father for all that He has done.

James isn’t painting a bleak picture but an accurate picture of an individual without God. He’s not exaggerating to get his point across; he is explaining what a heart, life, tongue, and individual without the presence and love of God descends into and ultimately becomes. Poison, joylessness, acrimony, and self-hate. A constant quest to fill the void, be less empty, have a purpose, and know true life. Life without God is no life at all. It’s just an illusion, a fantasy people talk themselves into believing about their predicament because they refuse to humble themselves and know peace.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

How Dangerous?

 In some instances, the level of danger something poses is subjective. It depends on your comfort level with less-than-ideal circumstances and whether you’re comfortable with a bit of danger as opposed to none. My wife went skydiving a few years back. I’d never consider it. Her tolerance level for risk is much higher than mine, and now that we have the girls, she would not entertain the idea of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane anymore, either.

That said, some things are dangerous regardless of whether or not someone agrees with the conclusion, like live electrical wires, hungry crocodiles, or meddling mothers-in-law. You cannot minimize the danger they pose, nor does ignoring it make them less dangerous.

James insists that the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity; it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature. This isn’t someone burning themselves with McDonald’s coffee and forcing the chain to put ‘contents might be hot’ stickers on everything. This is a danger the likes of which you would do well to avoid at all costs because it’s perilous to no end.

The tongue can make peace or bring about war. An unregenerate tongue is more likely to bring about war than make peace because it is set on fire by hell. Nothing good can come from something wholly evil. A tongue that is set on fire by hell cannot comfort, heal, bring joy, peace, or conciliation. Destruction is its only objective, and it will use any means at its disposal to bring about its desired result.

We’ve all run into those types of people, where you’re trying your best to make rational arguments, you’re finally starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel and think you’re making some headway, then they switch it up on you, put up a straw man, veer the conversation in another direction all so they could keep on their merry way. But you agreed with me thirty seconds ago. Why are we now trying to crank it hard left into the cornfields?

James does not mince words or try to soften the blow of how dangerous the tongue is. He makes it clear so that there is no confusion and that those who read his words would take the bridling of their tongue as a serious matter rather than something they can put off or do at a later date.

Since he does not expect anyone to take his word for it, James then goes on to explain why the tongue is so dangerous a member and why we must do our utmost to ensure that when we speak, it is with wisdom rather than in haste.

James 3:7-8, “For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”

Once you understand what the tongue is, you take steps to mitigate its influence and its ability to run amuck. The tongue is not full of daisies, puppies, and rainbows; it is full of deadly poison. It’s not just poison that will put you to sleep, give you a tummy ache, and make you throw up in your mouth a bit; it has the potential to kill you. It’s deadly. Whether or not you’re strong enough to get through it, survive it, and come out the other end depends on your constitution, but be aware that many have perished from the poison of the tongue.

This is why I have the utmost respect for those who have either become immune to the poison of the tongue altogether or have built up such a tolerance against it that nothing fazes them. It’s a skill too few possess, and you can see it when someone just doesn’t get bothered by the words thrown at them like so many blazing spears. That sort of constitution is rare and should be highly coveted.

Who’s throwing the spears comes into play more often than not because when a friend rather than an enemy is throwing the spear, it tends to land with greater frequency and hurt a bit more, even though it’s the same spear.

Be wise enough to discern when someone is using their tongue to drip deadly poison into your life and when they are attempting to bring healing. Take every conversation at face value and assess it for what it is, not for what you remember the individual to be, because no man can tame the tongue, and men's loyalty can turn on a dime.

There are moments when something happens between thought and word, between that almost instant journey from inception to verbalization that is baffling and troubling. You thought to say one thing, but something wholly different came out of your mouth. For example, when your wife asks you how she looks, and you think to say she is so radiant that she makes the stars and the moon slink off in envy, but all that comes out is that you look okay.

When we are aware of how dangerous something can be, we are naturally more cautious. Not wanting anyone to be caught unaware of how unpredictable and destructive the tongue can be, James continues hammering the point that it should not be taken lightly or whose danger can be minimized.

If you’ve ever been on the wrong end of a sharp tongue, you understand exactly what James means when he says it is an unruly evil full of poison. If you haven’t, consider yourself fortunate, a rarity among men, someone so sheltered and removed from society as to be compared with the Japanese soldier who spent 29 years in the jungle because he refused to believe the war was over.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Sober

Once in a while, I see something so intellectually offensive that I have to pause whatever I’m working on and throw my two cents in. I know two cents isn’t much, especially nowadays, but it’s all I’ve got after doing the grocery shopping for the week. Maybe not quite that bad, but it’s all I’m willing to spend, so it is what it is.

I keep seeing more and more posts on social media, and by social media, I mean Facebook since it’s the only one I visit once in a while, and I have neither Twitter nor Instagram, saying that if you miss the rapture, then such and such is going to occur.

Being the reasonably intelligent and logical human being I know myself to be, the one question I have for all those insisting on going down this rocky road is how exactly is someone going to miss the rapture? Was it a double booking, conflicting schedules, or a faulty alarm? Did they have a preexisting hair appointment? Did they beg off being caught up because they didn’t want to miss the next episode of their favorite show? How exactly is someone going to miss the rapture?

If your answer is by not believing in a pre-tribulation rapture, then we’ve just kicked over a whole new can of worms, haven’t we? Are you insisting that the goalpost has been moved, and we no longer have to believe in Jesus but also in a particular biblically tenuous doctrine? Is it your summation that as long as I believe in the pre-tribulation rapture of the saints, then faith in Jesus is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition?

I understand some folks just like getting high on their own supply, but with all the declarative statements about missing the rapture or being found unworthy of being taken up because you want to point to that pesky Bible and say that it’s likely going to be a bit later than some people think, few consider what they will do, how they will react, and whether their faith will hold if their theory doesn’t pan out, and they’re still here with a front row seat to the festivities.

What happens to those who keep ignoring the signs of the times, believing they won’t be here for anything worse when worse materializes, and they’re still here, having to contend with the reality that maybe, just maybe, they took all the warnings in the Bible a bit too lightly, and chose to believe what amounted to the best possible outcome for their flesh?

It’s one thing to believe something different than someone else when it’s a non-salvific issue. It’s quite another to stipulate that if an individual does not believe as you do, they will not be allowed to enter the halls of heaven or be caught up with the saints into glory. Am I the only one seeing the difference?

We throw around these declarative statements as though our bloviating had no consequences. Well, if you don’t believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, I guess you’ll just get left behind. Says who? Says you? Did Jesus echo your statement? Did Jesus say something even remotely close to what you assert as gospel truth?

If you are insisting that to be caught up, you need to believe in a pre-tribulation rapture and not Jesus, you are preaching another gospel and not the gospel of Christ. Before we get too comfortable on our soap boxes, we should do some research into what awaits those who declare God said something without Him having said it.

I’ve never once said, nor have I heard anyone who holds to the position that we will be here for the events the Bible highlights as being part of the last days, say that if you don’t believe in a post-tribulation rapture, you won’t get caught up when Jesus appears in the clouds. Somehow, it’s always the ones on the other side of the argument that make these sweeping statements that have no biblical foundation or backing.

Sorry, sister Karen, just because you declare it does not make it so. Just because you insist that anyone who doesn’t fall in line with your delusions will be left behind to be taught a lesson that they should always obey sister Karen doesn’t make it true.

You can disregard the words of Jesus when He said he who endures to the end shall be saved, but don’t demonize those who hold to His word and prepare themselves to endure to the utmost. We can disagree on the timing, but when you start insisting that if I disagree with you, heaven is closed off to me forevermore, you are either wholly ignorant of the Word of God or have such a high opinion of yourself that you believe your declarations and God’s declarations are somehow interchangeable.

One way or the other, we will know the truth of it in short order. It costs me nothing to prepare for the eventuality that I may be persecuted and even martyred for my faith, something not wholly out of the realm of possibility since every other generation of believers up until this one endured similar ends, but it may cost those who do not prepare or purpose in their hearts to endure everything, because when the hammer drops and they’re standing between it and the anvil the primary human instinct for self-preservation will be to jump off the anvil. Especially if all your life you believed you were never supposed to be on the anvil looking up at a descending hammer to begin with.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Little Things

 Live long enough, and you’ll see things you can’t quite explain. I’m not talking about cloud formations that look like Bob’s Big Boy or how a mom can lift a car with one hand while grabbing her baby after they rolled off a cliff, but how a fully grown man can be brought close to tears by a woman a quarter his size with nothing more than the use of her tongue.

I’ve seen it on more than one occasion, and it’s always fascinating. Here is a man that could, if so inclined, twist the woman coming up to his waist into a pretzel, but he’s just sitting there, his arms dangling between his knees, a lost, vacant look in his eyes, while she’s giving him the what for, entirely in control, and knowing it.

I’ve been married going on twenty-four years. Anyone who’s been married that long understands the power of the tongue and how it can be used for good or evil, to build up or to tear down, to bring joy, or to cause tears.

When James says that the tongue is a little member that boasts of great things, he is not exaggerating. I’ve seen words heal, and I’ve seen words hurt. I’ve seen the right word in due season give someone the encouragement they needed to persevere through the hardest times of their life, and I’ve seen words deflate someone as though they were a balloon that met an untimely fate on the end of a pin.

James then proceeds to give a couple of illustrations in order to cement the idea that the tongue is a tool that, although small, has great power and the ability to sow peace or discord, joy, or sadness. The first example he uses is that of a ship, which, although large and driven by fierce winds, is turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires.

Just as the pilot or the captain is in control of the rudder, steering it in the direction he desires the ship to go, we, likewise, must be in control of our tongues, steering it in the direction we want it to go.

One moment of inattention, especially in a storm, and the ship veers towards the rocks, and tragedy is a foregone conclusion. The vessel's captain chooses to steer the boat toward calm seas or rocky shores. He decides where the ship goes; the ship does not decide independently.

You have control over your tongue. You decide the words you speak, how you speak them, the inflection, tone, and volume you use, and no one can force you to do otherwise. If the awareness of how powerful the tongue is remains ever present in our minds, then we will use it wisely, steering it toward light rather than darkness, encouragement rather than distress.

If you’ve ever thought you could have said something differently, that you could have been more tactful or conciliatory, the next time, do so. Do not repeat the mistakes you know you’ve made by letting your tongue get ahead of you. Do not continue to do as you’ve always done, speaking words you should not speak and hurting people you will regret hurting.

James 3:5-6, “Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire by hell.”

I wonder if James and Jude learned directness from their big brother. No one can ever accuse James of beating around the bush or being less than direct when it comes to his feelings on how dangerous the tongue is and how many pitfalls it poses in the life of the believer if it is allowed to get out of control.

I recently watched highlights of a debate between two pastors who disagreed on some tertiary issue, and it ended with them screaming at each other as though they were little children, upset that they were not getting their way. Control the tongue. Bite it between your teeth if you must, but don’t let it get out of control. A small fire is much easier to put out than a forest fire fully matured. It all depends on how quickly you decide to extinguish it.

I’ve heard of families breaking apart and husbands and wives divorcing over something as silly as an egg. The husband ate the last egg without asking if the wife wanted some, the wife called him out on it, and it escalated from there until they concluded that they had irreconcilable differences. Over an egg. The entire matter could have been deescalated, shut down, and forgotten if one had shown an iota of maturity.

Back in the day, there were no laptops or cell phones, so the only way to communicate was either by taking the time to chisel something into stone, being rich enough to get your hand on some papyrus, learning to write, finding a quill and chicken scratching your angst, or speaking, yelling, screaming, or screeching.

If James had written his epistle today, the fingertips would likely come in second place to the tongue as far as little members that can do big damage because there are keyboard warriors a plenty, and they all have a bone to pick with someone.

The tongue is a tool. It’s how you use it that matters. Whether or not it’s bridled matters. Whether you can control it and be diligent in making sure that it leads in the direction you want it to go should be your primary concern because unless you plan on living in the crags of a mountain far removed from everyone, never speaking again is not an option.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

The Tongue II

 Opinions are like armpits. Yes, I’ve heard them described as other body parts, but armpits will do just fine. Everyone’s got a couple, and the longer they remain unwashed, the smellier they get. Some opinions don’t age well. There are still people walking about insisting that your Social Security number is the mark of the beast, even though it’s a purely American practice, and no one else in the world has it.

As long as the individual giving it is sure to clarify that it’s an opinion, it is what it is, and I’m not likely to go to the mattresses over it. If, however, they declared definitively, unequivocally, and with all the bluster of a zealot that it was, indeed, prophecy, a word from on high, and a message from the throne room of you know who, then when it doesn’t come to fruition, be prepared to be called out on it.

Most people don’t watch what they say because they don’t believe their words will ever have consequences. They keep at it until one day, they realize that words are not consequence-free as they were taught to believe, and the lesson usually comes by way of a swollen lip, a black eye, or a bloody nose.

I am by no means advocating violence. There are, however, moments when I see the need for it, not to the point of stomping someone into the dirt, but a nice swift knuckle sandwich to the schnoz to keep an individual from saying something they’ll regret. Sometimes, that’s what it takes for someone to bridle their tongue. It takes something violent and wholly unexpected to snap them out of their tirade, their rage, their self-righteous acrimony that they feel compelled to share with the world.

The worst kinds of opinions are those we dole out without understanding the full context of what we’re dealing with or without having experienced what the individual we’re attempting to share our opinion with has.

I was sitting in a Cracker Barrel one time, somewhere between Indiana and Kentucky, and I overheard a conversation between two young ladies sitting at a table behind me that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in fury. One of them was on the verge of tears, telling the other that her mom had just passed away the week prior, and her supposed friend, without an ounce of sarcasm and even less self-awareness, said, “I know what you’re going through. My goldfish died last month.”

I don’t care how much you loved your goldfish. You can’t compare your goldfish dying with someone’s mother passing away and intimating that the emotional hurt is on par. I didn’t say anything. I was too stunned. Luckily, I’d already finished my baked cinnamon apples.

The easiest way not to find yourself with your foot in your mouth is not to offer an opinion when you have not gone through a similar experience. I know it’s hard. I mean, your opinion is likely the best opinion they’ll ever hear on the topic, but there’s a reason silence is golden. Yes, be a shoulder to cry on, be an ear to hear, be someone others can confide in. Be quick to offer sympathy and empathy but not so quick to offer your opinion.

Like I said, it will take some getting used to. Not saying something isn’t in our nature, but perhaps it should be.

The funny thing is when someone comes back and tells us that what we suggested they do didn’t work out for them, but quite the opposite, it made it worse, we are quick to insist that it’s not really what we told them, that they misheard, misunderstood, or didn’t grasp the spirit in which it was said.

Unless your advice is to draw closer to Jesus, unless your opinion is that they should surrender their hearts to Christ, understand that if you haven’t walked a mile in their shoes, your advice may fall short and be so off the mark it will do more harm than good.

There is one surefire remedy for all that ails mankind. Other than that, any opinion you or I might have concerning someone’s struggle, hardships, or trial is just that. More often than not, when we offer an opinion, we think it to be something more, closer to the gospel than to an amalgam of words we managed to spit out between bites of nachos.

No one is perfect, but we can aspire to perfection. We can allow ourselves to be refined by the refiner’s fire until we look back on a life well lived and realize we’re speaking a lot less, obeying a lot more, and have come a long way from where we started in both word and deed.

Even a bridled horse gets testy sometimes, but that’s when the rider pulls back on the reigns and brings it under control. When God corrects us and pulls back on the reigns, it’s a sign of love, not indifference or animus. It’s the flesh that perceives God’s correction as being a negative experience because it’s the flesh that is affected by it. If our flesh can somehow convince us that God’s correction or chastening is bad, and we resist it and kick against the goads, then the plan of maturation and growth God intended for us is hindered and slowed.

All of us have something we wish we wouldn’t have said or said differently, whether in hindsight or once we understood the full context of the situation. We all stumble in many things, as James says, but we must learn from our mistakes and grow in wisdom and understanding throughout our journey. If your tongue is as unbridled today as it was ten years ago, then you’ve not grown or matured but remained stagnant. As with most things, there must be an acknowledgment of the need to grow and develop and a willingness to take the necessary steps. Anything less is us spinning our wheels, trying to convince ourselves that we are where we’re supposed to be when we should be much farther along.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

The Tongue

 There’s a lot to unpack when it comes to the tongue. There are layers we must peel back in order to understand how dangerous a thing the tongue could be, how readily it could be used to tear down as to build up, and how we, as servants of God, are responsible for living the things we demand of others unless we risk becoming the hypocrites the Bible condemns and looks down upon.

It’s easy to get ahead of ourselves and say things we ought not to say. It’s easy to demand that others live up to our standards while we ourselves fail to. We see it in the contemporary church often enough, and each time, it leaves a bad taste in its wake. That guy on stage insisting on not doing something that he, himself, was caught doing only weeks later does not lend credibility to anything else he might have said, does it? The devil knows this, so not only does he facilitate the temptation, hoping you fall into it, but he will be the first to broadcast your failure, shortcomings, or sin to the world until everyone knows.

It’s largely the reason those who teach receive a stricter judgment because their failures and sins affect more than just their lives and their spiritual walk. It’s a horrid practice, but men raise other men on pedestals they don’t belong on, looking to them as more than mere servants, and the nefarious among us love to have it so. They fuel the mindset by calling themselves the apple of God’s eye or the mouthpiece of the almighty Himself because they understand the title alone will lend weight to their assertions. Then, whenever they fall short, they use the title they gave themselves to excuse their behavior by insisting they are somehow above reproach or that sin does not affect them the same way it affects everyone else.

There are no carve-outs or exemptions when it comes to resisting evil and keeping oneself pure and undefiled. It’s not as though once you achieve a particular title or get a specific diploma, you can throw out all that stuff about self-control and righteousness. Anyone who says they can sin because they’re a bishop, or a pastor, or a self-described prophet is only attempting to justify their sin rather than repent of it.

The church as a whole would save itself untold amounts of heartache, pain, and hurt if we’d just stop idolizing men. They are men. Even the most gifted and used of God among us are just men, bondservants of Christ like any other. Yes, there is a difference between idolizing someone and honoring them. To honor someone is to acknowledge their labors in Christ; to idolize someone is to set them in a position in your heart wherein they are infallible, and every word they speak is from the throne room of God.

Big names in ministry have made grave errors in their teaching. One that comes to mind is an individual who said that even if you take the mark of the beast, you’re still saved, sanctified, and sealed, and that particular assertion goes against Scripture itself.

Yes, I may be repetitive, but it’s worth repeating: The Word of God is the final authority, plumb line, and arbiter. It doesn’t matter who is saying it; if what they’re saying goes against the Word, they are in the wrong and need to be called out on it. To say nothing is to allow for unbiblical teaching to take root, grow, and metastasize to the point that it is taken as general doctrine, and you have a whole different kind of beast you have to deal with.

Some men just like the sound of their own voice. Those are the ones who are easy to deal with. Others have a messiah complex wherein they’ve convinced themselves they’re more important than they really are. Those are the difficult ones to confront because they will not allow for the possibility that they might be wrong, even when they contradict the Word.

You have to deal with one differently than you would the other, so the first thing you must do is determine whether the individual is ignorant of the text or is purposefully twisting it until it says what they want it to say.

There’s a difference between a brother in error and a wolf who wants to install himself as a defacto messiah. One will take correction, repent, and be willing to sit down with you and let the Bible clarify matters; the other will attack you and keep attacking you because he deems you a threat to his empire of dust.

We’ve all run across those malicious, toxic individuals who hold to a position even though their position is proven unbiblical, and their continued insistence on the matter is bringing harm to the household of faith. It’s not new. This type of division has been around since shortly after the primary church with the rise of the Gnostics and their focus on the mystical and esoteric rather than Jesus.

Just because I don’t want to make this a long, drawn-out treatise on how to spot someone with a messianic complex, the best and most reliable rule of thumb is that if they claim exclusivity regarding anything spiritual, if they claim to be the only key to unlock deeper truths or the singular vehicle through which profundity can be achieved, run.

There is only one truth, there is only one door, there is only one way, there is only one savior, there is only one Messiah, and it is Jesus. Jesus has many servants, and His servants’ singular duty is to point the way to Him. Not to themselves or their understanding of a certain text or timeline, but to Him.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.