The Principles of Prayer XXXVII

 The quickest way to become ineffectual for the Kingdom and the work of the Kingdom is to stop doing the things that made you effective in the first place. If prayer got you to a certain place in your walk, and the growth is visible and calculable, then rest assured, you will continue to grow in such a manner if you continue practicing it and dedicating yourself to it.

The biggest complaint of people who have a few pounds to lose isn’t that their preferred diet is ineffective; it’s that once they reach their stated goal, they struggle to maintain their new weight. The reason they can’t maintain it is because once the scale hits the magic number they’ve been sweating toward for the better part of a year, everything they did to get them to that place suddenly stops and they revert back to their old ways, their old eating habits, and their lack of physical movement.

I lose the weight, but I just can’t keep it off. When you ask if they’ve been watching what they eat, or being aware of how much or how little exercise they get, the standard answer is no, because they’re no longer on their diet, so why bother?

A life of prayer is one without a destination in mind. It is a lifelong endeavor, and once we cross the finish line into eternity is when we stop crying out, interceding, and praying to God, and simply praise Him for all eternity. Until such a time, the consistency with which we entreat God will determine our strength, our passion, our endurance, and our ability to discern His voice, recognizing it for what it is, and dismissing all others along the way.

When you pray is a conscious choice, for a determined amount of time. Spending time with God is a choice. Spending time in prayer is a choice, and in order for us to choose Him first and always, it requires a proper understanding of who we are addressing.

I keep coming back to this point because it’s so salient. Whenever you choose to do so, for however long you choose to do so, you get the honor, privilege, and grace to talk to God the Almighty, the Creator of all that is seen and unseen.

Prayer is not cumbersome. It’s not a task, a burden, or something we would otherwise not do given the choice. Anyone who sees prayers as a chore rather than a grace has not come to the understanding of who God is and how great an honor has been bestowed upon them that they can come before Him and know that He hears.

The same individuals who have no qualms about binge-watching six seasons of a middling series within a two-day span feel put out when spending ten minutes in prayer. How does that work exactly? Is your heart truly His if you spend more time trying to avoid Him than you do engaging with Him? Is He the desire of your heart if you’d rather be doing anything else than pressing in and having fellowship with Him?

I don’t ask these questions to be mean-spirited or edgy, but to reveal a truth that many choose to ignore because of what it implies. The reason we do not see the presence, power, and authority of God in most churches is that those who make up the body spend little to no time in His presence, and wouldn’t know His voice from a bleating goat half the time.

God hasn’t changed. He hasn’t suddenly decided to withhold His love, His peace, His grace, His light, or His voice. It’s that much of the modern-day church does not seek, therefore they will never find that’s the problem. They do not knock, therefore the door will never be opened, and He will never come in and dine with them.

We lay the blame on God because it excuses our culpability. We come up with theories as to why God can’t do what He once did, why He doesn’t speak as He once spoke, because it makes our inconsistency, duplicity, and faithlessness less glaring.

For some, accountability is as kryptonite is to Superman. They can’t be near it lest it reveal their true heart, and they might have to acknowledge that the most they’re willing to do is pay God lip service in the hope of winning the lottery, or waking up thirty pounds lighter.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Paul lists three things that are the will of God in Christ Jesus for you and me, and not one has anything to do with calling money down from heaven, speaking prosperity into existence, or symbolically washing our debt away.

These three things are somewhat symbiotic. It’s far easier to rejoice always and to give thanks in everything when you are praying without ceasing. When our focus is the will of God for our lives, when we are wholly devoted to a life of prayer and obedience, then we rejoice not in the things we possess, or the square footage of the home we live in, but in His presence.

When our will is no longer our own, then we are able to give thanks in everything, even when what we’re giving thanks for might seem like a detriment to anyone on the outside looking in. We give thanks because we know He has a plan and a purpose. We give thanks because we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, and are called according to His purpose.

Prayer is the anchor that keeps us steadfast in God. When we are in constant fellowship with Him, we are not swayed to and fro by the trials and hardships of life, nor by the machinations of governments and nations. We are in Christ. Therefore, we have the blessed assurance that He will see us through our valleys. We are in Christ. Therefore, we have the blessed assurance that when our strength falters, His strength will take up the slack and give us the wherewithal to press ever onward toward the prize.    

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XXXVI

 You can’t claim to be a mechanic without the in-depth knowledge of how an engine works. If you’re a mechanic in name only, it will be revealed the moment you’re presented with a problem you have no clue how to fix. The same goes for every profession under the sun. Identifying as a painter, musician, mechanic, plumber, entomologist, or dermatologist holds little weight unless you know what you’re doing and have the requisite set of skills to carry out the tasks necessary to confirm that you are what you claim to be.

One clear identifier of a follower of Jesus isn’t the fish sticker on their back bumper, or that their radio is permanently switched to K-Love, but that they are men and women of prayer. By this, I don’t mean sporadic prayers once in a while, or when we have a need beyond our ability to resolve, but something we practice with such regularity as to be woven into our daily existence, so necessary to us that we can’t do without it.

There are four quantities of measurement as far as memory serves. There is length, then mass, temperature, and time. By any metric, Jesus was the shining example of one who prayed, whether in time, passion, length, or weight. Yes, I do believe some prayers are weightier than others. It’s one thing to pray over a meal your wife cooked; it’s another to pray so earnestly as to sweat drops of blood.

If we look to Jesus as our example, then we must look to Him as our example in all things. We like to point out that He overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple whenever we feel the need to pontificate on some point or another, but rarely do we point out that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer.

Keep in mind, this was Jesus, the sinless, perfect Son of God, yet He found it a needful thing to spend entire nights in prayer before the Father. If Jesus needed prayer in order to be strengthened and encouraged, what makes us think we don’t, or that we can get by with less?

If prayer and communion with the Father were the only source of comfort, strength, and encouragement to one such as Jesus, it’s easy to intuit that whenever we are in need of such things, prayer should be our first go-to as well.

Well, you see, I was feeling down the other day, and started reading the collected works of the wisdom of Joel Osteen, a short read by all accounts. Although it didn’t make me feel any better, I learned I should pretend it did. It’s not so much about feeling the joy of the Lord as it is about manifesting joy until eventually it becomes a reality. By the by, another term for manifesting is self-imposed delusion.

When we come before God in prayer, we don’t have to pretend to have peace; He gives us peace. The peace He gives is a peace that is superior to anything the world has to offer, because the peace God gives is the peace that surpasses all understanding.

When we endeavor to spend time in His presence, we don’t have to pretend to have joy; we receive the joy of the Lord for having been in His presence, are comforted and strengthened in our spiritual journey, and freely receive all the unquantifiable blessings the world is searching for to no avail.

There is no substitute for prayer. You can’t choose to do something else in lieu of prayer and expect the presence of God as you would, had you taken the time to come before Him and pour your heart out to Him.

Those of the early church took Christ’s example to heart and did not dismiss prayer as something optional, antiquated, or tertiary to a well-rounded, healthy, and strong spiritual man. Even when it came to doing good at the expense of spending time in prayer, the apostles chose to appoint others to distribute food to the widows, so that they might be able to continually devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word.

If ministry is keeping you away from spending time in prayer, step back from ministry. No matter how noble a cause, no matter how indispensable the work you do might be, never allow it to take away from the time you spend in God’s presence.

But you don’t understand, brother. The ministry is growing, and there are only so many hours in the day. I understand more than most, just as those of the early church understood. However, they also understood that carving out time to devote to prayer consistently was a non-negotiable, and something necessary for their spiritual well-being.

We’ve heard enough stories of ministerial burnout throughout the years to see the pattern for what it is. When you dig a little and start asking the probing, uncomfortable, but necessary questions, the root cause of the disillusionment, burnout, and exhaustion is always the same. They got so busy doing the work, growing the church, the ministry, or the outreach, that they neglected their prayer lives, spending time with God, and being alone with Him. Even when they started feeling the drag, or the exhaustion, even when they began to notice that every day there was less joy in the work itself, they powered through, because people were counting on them, and they couldn’t let them down.

Because they neglected prayer in favor of the work of ministry, their strength leeched away incrementally, but consistently, until they found themselves hitting a wall, and didn’t have the energy to get back up.    

It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon, and a life of consistent prayer will build up your endurance, refill your vessel, top off your strength, and solidify your purpose so that you may continue walking in the calling to which you were called, whatever that might be.

When we fail to spend time in God’s presence, when we fail to pray consistently, we are essentially decoupling from the power source, and whatever reserves we might have had are quickly depleted.

Ministry, in whatever capacity, does not and cannot replace a life of prayer. Whether you preach, teach, sing in the choir, or sweep the church after service, none of these are substitutes for spending time in God’s presence. It’s not selfish to prioritize your prayer life; it’s wisdom. Jesus did it, and you should too.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XXXV

 We remain rooted in Christ, knowing He is the source of life. Prayer facilitates our remaining in Him, keeping us connected just as a branch remains attached to the vine. If we do not abide in Christ, all our plans, endeavors, and pursuits will come to naught as far as producing fruit goes. One cannot be separated from the life-giving presence of Jesus and still expect to produce good fruit.

In order for a seed to produce a harvest, it requires good soil, water, and sunlight. These three are essential, and without them, whatever you’ve planted will not come to full maturation, producing the desired outcome. If one’s heart is the soil, then the water and sun are God’s word and prayer. We nourish ourselves daily with the Word of God, knowing it is the source of spiritual sustenance, and entreat Him daily, strengthening our bond and fellowship with Him, knowing it produces life.

If your desire is to grow in God, the blueprint is simple. There is no second option, and the study of scripture and a life of prayer are indispensable in this pursuit. As one grows, they begin to incorporate fasting into their walk, likewise understanding its benefits, because as far as our spiritual man is concerned, stagnation is never an option.

We serve an infinite God, and for anyone to insist that there is no more of Him to discover reveals an abject ignorance of who God really is. It’s more a pride thing than anything else. Men feel as though they’ll be seen in a certain light, lauded and looked up to if they claim they’ve reached the mountaintop and acquired full knowledge of the unfathomable God they purport to serve.

Were we given a thousand lifetimes, we would still fall short of knowing the fullness of God in all His majesty, grandeur, and wonder. Every morning is a new opportunity to know more of Him, to feel His presence, and grow in His love, and this can only be accomplished by coming before Him in prayer and supplication.

What terrifies the enemy isn’t opulent buildings, popular worship teams, fancy lighting, or using props to get a point across. What terrifies the enemy is a church body or an individual who has consecrated themselves to prayer and fasting, to pursuing God at the expense of all else, and making Him the focal point of their existence.

You can have all these things, the opulence, the overflowing building fund, the fog machines, and a coffee shop in the lobby, and still be wretched, poor, miserable, blind, and naked. Conversely, you can have none of these things, none of the trappings or the baubles men use to define success, but have a vibrant prayer life, and you will walk in the authority reserved exclusively for the children of God.

I’m not saying you can’t have both, or that if a church is large and has a beautiful building, it is automatically absent a culture of prayer. However, most people today gravitate toward the easy thing, the comfortable thing, the experience for its own sake, rather than the presence of God.

Walk into any church and within the first thirty minutes of the service, you will know what their focus is. You will know their purpose, whether it is to grow in God or to grow in numbers. It is expedient to sacrifice quality for the sake of quantity, and once you start on that path, it’s difficult to redress and refocus on the things that matter.

We choose to seek the favor of God or the favor of men, understanding that we can’t do both, as they are often at odds with each other. When we desire God’s favor exclusively, it is bound to rankle those who want to displace God and make of themselves something they were never meant to be.

The world can do as the world does. Men can seek the favor of men, stroking their egos, and undeservedly flattering them, pretending they agree with some sentiment or another, even when they don’t, but when it occurs within the household of faith, when a shepherd sees himself as something more than a servant but someone who must be praised and lifted up, the showing of favoritism to those who inflate their egos to bursting is inevitable.

Great or small, prince or pauper, once we surrender and submit, once we humble ourselves at the foot of the cross, we are all bondservants of Christ, none greater than the other. The only thing that differs from one individual to the other is accountability, for to whom much is given, much will be required.

Matthew 6:5-7, “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.”

These are instructions not from second-hand accounts, not from someone who heard someone repeat what they thought they heard Jesus say, but from the mouth of Christ Himself. You can doubt men’s take on certain issues, you can doubt men’s opinions or declarative statements, but as followers of Christ, one thing we cannot doubt are the words of Christ.

One of the most overlooked aspects of Christ’s words took place in the opening sentence. Jesus began by saying, ‘When you pray, not if you pray.’  This isn’t a distinction without a difference, but something far deeper-reaching. Jesus saw prayer as such an indispensable part of one’s spiritual walk that He did not allow for the possibility that those who followed Him wouldn’t have active prayer lives or spend time in prayer.

That one sentence should cement the importance of prayer in our hearts and minds, and encourage us to dedicate ourselves to it, not like the hypocrites who do so that men might see them, but as true sons and daughters of God whose only desire is more of His presence.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XXXIV

 To hear some men tell it, God is akin to an angry schoolmarm, switch in hand, waiting for you to stumble so that He can exact vengeance. In their eyes, His singular desire is to rap your knuckles as often and as brutally as He can manage, just to see you wince in pain. If you are from a younger generation, you will never know the dread of having caught your teacher’s eye doing something she deemed worthy of the switch, then waiting in horrid anticipation for her to insist that you extend your hands in front of you, palms down.

Until the age of nine, when we were kicked out of Romania, I think I got more beatings from my teachers than I ever did from my mom or grandma. That I came from a family of believers was an open secret. That in the eyes of the system, my parents were seen as fanatics, cultists, and those who would impede the progress of the great and wondrous equalizing force known as Communism, was also an opinion those charged with educating the young shared with their party overseers.

I finished the third grade before we left Romania. It was a small village school with no more than four rooms in total, but somehow they managed to find a small alcove for me and another boy who was also the progeny of troublemakers, where we were kept isolated and taught separately from the rest of our peers. It wasn’t so much education as it was indoctrination.

It was my mother who taught me to read and do math. The only thing my teachers attempted to teach me was how barbarian my parents were for believing in Jesus, and how I should denounce them for their refusal to comply and go along with the approved narrative. One of the teachers liked to use an open hand as a means of discipline. In modern parlance, she had anger issues. It didn’t take much to set her off, and once she got started, ringing ears and double vision were only a matter of time.  

The other had a thick wooden ruler that was never out of reach, and in hindsight, I think she enjoyed the ritual of humiliation of having us stand with our hands outstretched, waiting for the sound of wood on flesh more than inflicting actual pain. There was an air of sadism in how she stretched out the discipline, pacing back and forth, tapping her ruler into her hand until she finally did the deed.

There was no one to complain to when it happened. Christians, by and large, were considered subhuman, and so filing a report with the administration would only serve to anger the teachers who would be told about it, but never disciplined for their actions. You waited for the day to end, knowing another would be short in coming, and hoped your fingers still worked well enough so you could play with your slingshot when you got home. High hopes indeed.  

It’s sad and tragic that this is the prism through which some see a good and loving God. Because they never took the time to study the Word and know God personally, they believe this image of God that others have presented to them, and so they live in constant fear, if not outright terror, of the switch.

I’m going to behave myself because if I don’t, God’s going to beat me, and I will flee the appearance of evil because not doing so will dishonor God and be detrimental to my spiritual growth are two very different mindsets.

If fear is one’s driving motivator, their heart will never be in what they’re doing. They will not be joyfully pursuing they ways of God with abandon and desire, but rather shuffle their feet, always keeping an eye on the things they think they missed out on, growing bitter in their hearts because they feel as though they’ve been kept from doing what they really want to do by the proverbial sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

When love is the driving force behind our obedience, however, our eyes are firmly fixed upon Him, and we follow after Him with joy and purpose, knowing that the destination toward which He is leading us is the singular desire of our heart.  

2 Chronicles 16:9, “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.”

Does that sound like a God who's just looking for an excuse to whip you and grind your face into the dust of the earth? Does that sound like a God whose singular desire is to find a reason for punishing you? The eyes of the Lord run to and fro to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are loyal to Him. That’s His purpose in keeping an eye on His creation. Love and the desire to show Himself strong to those who trust in Him are God’s motivations, and not looking for reasons to punish His creation.

God doesn’t play gotcha with His children. If this were the case, none of us would be standing, and all would be limping about with hideous wounds and bruises, desiring nothing more than for it all to end.

Psalm 145:8-9, “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.”

Psalm 145:14, “The Lord upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down.”

It all revolves around the issue of the heart, and whether the heart is loyal to Him. If a heart is fully surrendered, though imperfect, it strives for perfection, placing obedience to the word and will of God above all else, and to such a heart the Lord is gracious and full of compassion.

If you think you’re reading the words of a perfect man, allow me to dispel you of this illusion. I still get flustered by slow drivers in the fast lane, I still get frustrated by people who don’t signal, but every day it’s less so. I don’t react to external forces the way I used to in my twenties or thirties, and I refuse to allow such things to steal my peace, for the most part.

It’s not so much that my flesh doesn’t have the desire to start waving my hands at the car in front of me, hoping they'll spot me in the rearview mirror; it’s because I know that doing so will not bring glory to God that I reign in my baser instinct and just let it go.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XXXIII

 There are two main reasons deceivers have a high rate of success when it comes to deceiving, and both have to do with the sheep rather than the faux-shepherds. You can’t blame a rat for being a rat, you can’t blame a wolf for being a wolf, and you can’t blame the devil for being the devil. All three do precisely what you would expect, with such consistency as to make their next move predictable and anticipatory.

The problem lies in the fact that the sheep no longer want to be sheep. They no longer want to follow but lead. They no longer take the nature of the wolf into account, understanding that even if at the moment it’s not baring its fangs, it’s only a matter of time until it does. When the sheep begin to attack the shepherds because they feel as though the shepherds treated the wolves too harshly, were too short, direct, and firm with them, and did not give them the benefit of the doubt, you know you’ve got a problem on your hands. This problem is exacerbated by the dangerous trend of ignorance of scripture. The more we neglect the Word of God, the more vulnerable we become to deception. Only God can remedy this, and if He doesn’t step in, then rent flesh and bloodied wool are not afar off.

This is what Jesus said, and this is what we must do! But we don’t like what Jesus said. That whole thing about denying ourselves, picking up our crosses, and following after Him seems needlessly laborious. So and so said so. Why are you attacking him because he gave an opinion? But it wasn’t an opinion. It was a different path that stood in stark opposition to the one true path, which leads further away from Jesus rather than toward Him.

You’re just jealous because he’s getting new revelation. It’s not new revelation, though; it’s old deception repackaged for a modern audience, that the Apostles and early church fathers warned against over and over again.

When the sheep resist the Shepherd in favor of the wolves and defend them at the expense of the Word of God, the chaos in which the enemy thrives becomes inevitable, as does the collateral damage that will surely follow.

If God said one thing but we choose to do another while still expecting the favor, protection, and presence of God, all we’re doing is deluding ourselves.

There are those living in darkness who are far more devoted to the destruction of the household of faith than many of those living in the light are to preserving it and defending it. They work tirelessly to sow division, doubt, and heresy wherever the soil is fertile, and given that so many have turned from the truth and embraced demonstrable lies, there is no end to the ruin they are able to exact upon the unsuspecting.

Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

It’s not a possibility that such individuals will attempt to infiltrate the household of faith and turn the hearts of men away from Christ; it’s a certainty. Jesus said that such individuals would not only exist but would also prophesy, cast out demons, and do many wonders in His name, but would practice lawlessness, defend it, and present it as a viable path toward eternity in the presence of God.

If a man said it, but God didn’t, your duty is to trust God and follow Him rather than the machinations of men. It’s not complicated or mysterious; it’s not something we must ponder endlessly to see the truth of it. Either God said something or He didn’t, and if He didn’t say it, there can be a chorus of men insisting that God won’t mind it if your loyalties, your heart, and your goals are divided, it’s still a lie.

Currently, more damage is being done and more destruction is being wrought from within the church than from without. The enemy isn’t at the gate; they’ve breached the walls and they’re inside. It’s never been easier because those tasked with holding the line and defending the truth have never been as weak-willed, mealy-mouthed, and interested in their own fame and prominence rather than standing as a bulwark against deception.

We’ve redefined love to mean tolerance, acceptance, and validation, and the first accusation thrown at anyone who would dare to point to Scripture and insist that what is being practiced is against Biblical standards is that they’re unloving.

Ever since he talked Eve into taking a bite of the forbidden fruit, the devil has been a master of word games and enjoys playing them to no end. He’s been at it for a long time, and no matter how good you think you may be at playing them, he’s better at it than you. Your duty isn’t to debate with him or try to convince him, but to resist him. Only when you resist the devil will he flee.

There’s been this notion going around that the truth needs no defense. On the contrary, given the glut of deception worming its way into the household of faith, the truth needs defending now more than ever before. Just because we’re cowards and shy away from confrontation, it doesn’t give us the right to shroud ourselves in magnanimity and pretend we’re above it all, and so choose to keep silent when the truth of Scripture is being dismantled, reshaped, and reimagined by those who seek the destruction of men’s souls.

It is the duty of the sons and daughters of God to defend the truth at all times before all men, but when defending it, they must not do so with personal opinions, feelings, or emotions. We defend the truth with the truth of Scripture, and in order to accomplish this, we must know it. The sad reality is that far too many within the church are too ignorant of Scripture to be able to defend the truth with Scripture, and so resign themselves to a passive Christianity wherein they hear horrors upon horrors being preached from the pulpit as gospel truth and the best they can manage is to bite their tongue, roll their eyes, and grow bitter.

John 8:31-32, “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”’

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XXXII

 Proverbs 23:26, “My son, give Me your heart and let your eyes observe My ways.”

Jeremiah 29:13, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Of all the things God could have required of man, why is it that He asks for the heart? He could have asked for the deed to my house, the couple of bucks in my bank account, my left ear, or my right eye, but He settled on the heart.

The answer to this question is no mystery. It is evident, as it is profound. If my heart belongs to God, so does everything that I have and everything that I am. When the heart is truly His, there is nothing we will withhold from God or deem too high a price to pay.

One’s heart can belong wholly to the light, wholly to the darkness, or be divided in such a way that there is no light or darkness but just a murkiness of sorts that stands at the crossroads of indecision, never fully committed to one course or the other. Of the three, the divided heart is the worst possible option, because as Jesus said to the church of Laodicea, I could wish you were hot or cold, but because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

By Christ’s own words, what has been sold to the modern-day church as a viable option will result in being vomited out of His mouth.

We’ve been discussing the effectiveness and necessity of prayer for some time because it is an inexhaustible topic. From seeing its results in the lives of those who came before us, to understanding it was one of a handful of practices Jesus Himself assumed His followers would pursue and devote themselves to, prayer is a topic worth exploring and deepening our knowledge of.

As yet, the one facet of prayer we have not discussed is what can make it ineffective and ineffectual. Is there anything that can hinder prayer? Is there anything that can keep your prayers from reaching the halls of heaven, or that can keep God from hearing them? The answer is, yes, there is. If the heart is not wholly His, if one’s loyalties are divided, if the prayers we pray are not heart cries but merely habitual lip service, then our prayers will neither be heard nor answered.

Because we know that out of the heart spring the issues of life, and that our duty before God is to keep our hearts with all diligence, before we can pray for power, gifts, revelation, or authority, we must humble ourselves and ask God to create in us a clean heart.

Search our hearts, Oh God, and if there is any dross, any shadow, any darkness, any duplicity or inconsistency, burn it out, make it clean, so that when we cry out to You, You will hear, so that when we ask of You, we will receive.

Far too many have been lulled into believing they can have the best of both worlds, when in reality, they have neither of the two. Because they attempt to hopscotch between kingdoms and divide their loyalties, they can never know the fullness of God, nor do they allow themselves to pursue the lusts of the flesh with abandon. They live their days in doubt, wondering if they belong to a God they’ve never felt, but the fear of judgment compels them to pull back on the reins of their desires whenever they conclude they’re getting out of hand.

I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news, but halfway inside the kingdom means you’re completely out. This isn’t baseball, and nobody who’s tried to slide into home plate at the last possible moment has succeeded. When we start playing games with God, we can be sure our hearts do not belong to Him. When we start justifying compromise, telling ourselves it’s okay to look as long as we don’t touch, or we can touch as long as we don’t taste, then taste as long as we don’t swallow, eventually, because the heart is not wholly His, you won’t just taste the cake, you’ll eat it all, then lick the tray hoping for another.

You can’t give God your heart on the weekends, then to the world the rest of the week. It doesn’t work that way. When we pray that He creates a clean heart in us, it becomes new and is not interchangeable with the old heart whenever the opportunity arises.

We’re either clean or dirty. We can’t be a little clean or a little dirty. We either belong to Him or we don’t, and there is no in between. This is what the Book says, and I have no desire to spend my mornings trying to pander to those who insist that a third option exists.

Long before the fat acceptance movement got a foothold in modern society, there was the sin acceptance movement that torched its way through the church like an out-of-control brushfire. The end result for both movements was predictable and tragic.

If you have no idea what I’m referring to, then you’re fortunate. In a nutshell, the fat acceptance movement revolved around a handful of morbidly obese influencers trying to wheeze their way through a sentence, insisting that they were as healthy as any marathon runner. The entire movement flamed out when the aforementioned influencers started dropping dead of coronaries and heart attacks with such frequency as to cast doubt on the entire enterprise.

When it came to the sin acceptance movement, the ripple effects of the aftermath of insisting that a divided heart is not only acceptable but preferable can still be felt through every denomination in the West, leaving a swath of broken homes, shattered faith, empty churches, and countless non-apology apologies from men once deemed spiritual giants in its wake.

Rather than learn from the mistakes of those who fell into the snare of allowing for duplicity within the congregation or their individual hearts, the new iteration of smiling faces has chosen to repackage what was demonstrably proven not to work and present it to a new generation of starry-eyed sheep insisting that they would be the exception to the rule. They won’t, because the Word of God says they won’t.

The tragedy of it all is that while much of what we call the church today is getting their popcorn ready for the greatest revival to sweep the world in any generation, what we will inevitably see is a new wave of destruction brought about by rebellion and disobedience to the Word and will of God.     

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer XXXI

 If Jesus gave everything for me, what makes me think He will be content and satisfied with only half of me? If He laid down His life that I might have life, what makes me think that He will accept anything less than my all? These are the questions the practitioners of casual Christianity refuse to answer, and do all within their power to avoid answering.

The reason is obvious. They know that situational faithfulness, superficial understanding, and inconsistent obedience are not only less than what God deserves but also less than what He will accept. Even so, they find more pleasure in their sin than they do in the presence of God, and as such must justify their duplicity, if only to themselves, because acknowledging the reality of their current state would compel them to make a choice. You can’t have both. It’s either or. Either you choose God, or you prefer the world. You can’t have a bit of both, or rightly divide your heart wherein half belongs to God, and half to the destructive practices that are slowly killing you.

A halfhearted prayer or attending church every other Sunday doesn’t offset rebellion or sin. It’s akin to the guy who insists he wants soy milk in his latte because it has less fat while downing a dozen donuts in a sitting and washing it down with a few puffs of his lavender scented vape.

During all the craziness a couple of years back, when everyone was convinced that a diaper across your face was the best way to achieve immortality, there were a handful of memes depicting an obese individual in a mobility scooter yelling at a gym rat for not wearing their mask insisting that they were endangering their health by not wearing one. The air may have been the last nail in the coffin, but you chose to hammer a bunch of nails in before that final one all by yourself.

The seemingly little things men fail to do consistently over time, such as praying, fasting, reading the Word, and walking circumspectly, weaken their spiritual immunity to the point that some small sin or vice they otherwise would have resisted without much effort will be their downfall. It’s not that the sin was so overwhelmingly tempting that they could not have resisted it had they possessed a vibrant relationship with God, it’s that they were unable to resist it because they had forsaken the practices that made them strong long ago, and now, any old virus leaves them on the floor gasping for breath.

A consistent prayer life strengthens your spiritual immunity. The attacks will come; they always do. They are inevitable, yet the stronger you become in God, the easier it is to resist them, deflect them, and be unaffected by them. There are layered reasons as to why we should pray. There are layered reasons as to why we should fast, and know what the Word of God says for ourselves, and not from some secondhand interpretation by someone who’s trying to sell us a course or a new book.

God isn’t some bitter schoolmarm who’s just trying to give us extra homework for no other reason than to keep us from enjoying our free time. When we are commanded to pray and seek His face, it’s not because God has low self-esteem and needs validation. We are commanded to do these things for our own spiritual well-being, so that we might be able to do as the Word says, putting on the whole armor of God, and standing, having done all to stand.

The less consistent your spiritual succor, the less time you spend in the presence of God, the weaker your spiritual man becomes. It’s as basic a principle as calories in, calories out when it comes to weight gain or weight loss. Knowing that the less time we spend with God, our spiritual man suffers and grows depleted, our priority should be to spend ever more time with Him, understanding the benefits thereof, and seeing it for what it is through spiritual eyes, rather than physical.

Norman Schwarzkopf, a famed US Army General, once said that the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. It is an apt principle to apply to our spiritual growth as well. Once spiritual battle is upon you, it’s hard to grow your spiritual man with any noticeable consistency. You’re too busy fighting the fight, and whether or not you were prepared for it before it began will determine how difficult a time you will have during it.

If you’ve ever wondered how some men weather the storms of life seemingly unscathed, while others are wholly undone by the slightest breeze, it’s because those who stand amid the tempest took the time to build up their most holy faith, they took the time to cement their relationship with God and anchor themselves in the Word long before the storm clouds started to gather.

If we are given a season of relative peace, it’s not so that we squander the time pursuing the things of this earth, but to solidify our faith and trust in the God we serve. It’s to grow our reliance upon Him, identify where we are lacking, and shore up the weaknesses, so that when the battle is raging, we will not retreat or surrender, but press ever onward toward victory.

I can’t will spiritual strength into you. The best any of us can do is point to the Word and tell you what works. Growing your faith, growing your spiritual man, and growing your prayer life are individual endeavors we must pursue as individuals. It’s not collective, and just because a handful of people in the congregation are pressing in and growing in God doesn’t mean we will likewise grow if we fail to do what they are doing.

We know prayer works because the Bible says it does. It’s not anecdotal. It’s not like it worked for one out of ten individuals throughout scripture, but for everyone who dedicated themselves to it. It’s akin to people insisting that fire doesn’t burn because, for those who have gotten burned, it was an anecdotal experience. Not so. Everyone who puts their hand in the fire will burn themselves. Therefore, it’s no longer anecdotal, but absolute and proven. The same goes for prayer. It doesn’t just work for some people, it works for all people who purpose in their hearts to devote themselves to spending time with God and in His presence.    

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.