The Principles of Prayer LXII

 But what about desiring spiritual gifts, especially that we prophesy? Isn’t that what Paul wrote to the Corinthians? Indeed, it is, but there is a marked difference between desiring and demanding something. I may desire something I am unwilling to pay the asking price for, or I may desire something incompatible with having a mortgage, a family, and a puppy to look after. Although I may desire these things for one reason or another, they will always remain out of reach.

Just because I desire to be on a permanent vacation watching palm trees and sunsets, feeling sand squish between my toes until I look like a raisin, it doesn’t mean I’m going to get it.

There’s an entire generation of name it and claim it adherents who fail to understand the difference between desiring and demanding something. In their insistence that they can demand of God whatever it is their greedy little hearts can conceive of, they only serve to expose themselves for the superficial souls that they are.

Sure, Jesus prayed that not His will but the Father’s will be done when faced with the prospect of the cross, insisting that if it were possible, He would prefer this cup to pass from Him, but that’s just because He hadn’t unlocked the secrets of manifesting and positive thinking. If He’d been privy to the secrets of naming and claiming anything and everything, He just might have found a way to bypass the cross altogether.   

Even though the widow asked for justice against her adversary, it was still within the judge’s purview to deny her request. In fact, he denied her petition repeatedly until she finally wore him down. The Word says we should desire spiritual gifts, and so we should. It says nothing about demanding what gifts we desire, in what measure, at what time, and even for what purpose they should be used.

If you desire spiritual gifts and make your desire known to God, be sure that you’ve counted the cost and are willing to pay the price. Yes, there is a price. Yes, there is a cost, and it’s no less than everything.

Only in our modern era can we conclude that the life of a prophet is a glamorous one. Even the notion of a prophet in its fullest definition is a misnomer, because where once there were prophets, we now have the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are distributed among the children of God for the edification of the church body. I know, hearing some men tell the tale, it’s for their personal enrichment more than anything, but it’s not, it never was, and it never will be.

Perhaps it’s our ignorance of Scripture, or our short attention spans, but anyone claiming to be a prophet nowadays in the fullest sense of the word must not only receive words from the Lord that are accurate and come to pass, but perform miracles, raise the dead, call fire down from heaven, stop the sun in its zenith, stand fearlessly in the midst of a den of lions, and the list goes on.

The clowns parading on stages today, claiming to be prophets while waving walking sticks at a camera, aren’t. There’s no debating this; there’s no agreeing to disagree. There’s no room for allowing that, as long as they identify as prophets, they must be, and must therefore be shown the respect and deference the office demands, just as there’s no room to allow for Bob becoming Betty, reproductive organs fully intact, simply because he decides to identify as Betty. Sorry, not sorry, but no matter how much one believes it, a man cannot give birth to a baby, just as a man who has never heard the voice of God cannot claim to be His mouthpiece.

Men who were never sent go every day. Men who never hear the voice of God insist they are speaking on His behalf. And usually you can tell the fool, the jester, or the charlatan from the real by how much they elevate themselves, make themselves seem indispensable, and insist that before you stands a prophet of the Lord who must be appropriately compensated for the grueling task of staring off into the distance contemplatively. That’s as matter-of-factly as I can put it before my blood starts to rise and I go on a stream of consciousness rant for the ages.

Unless God looked back and decided that His prophets were getting the short end of the stick with being hated, hunted, beaten, thrown in prison, maligned, defamed, and dismissed as madmen, and decided to offer a better benefits package for the new generation with chauffeured limos, penthouse suites, and adoring fans, by the very fact that those claiming to be prophets are pandering to the flesh insisting that their word rather than the Word is the new standard, they reveal themselves for who they are, predators and wolves who see the household of faith as a free ride to easy street.

If you have no fear of God, it’s an easy con to pull off. Roll your eyes to the back of your head, shake your head from side to side, wave your arms like you’re trying to shoo away a fly, say a bunch of flattering things preceded by “Thus says the Lord”, perhaps sprinkle in a bit of King James English here or there to add a bit of spice, insist that they’ll be blessed coming and going even though they are living in open rebellion, and at some point remind them that they must be generous to the servant through whom God Himself is speaking. Voila! Newly minted prophets left and right, each having to outdo each other in the fanciful tales that they tell because it’s a competitive field, don’t you know, and although there’s a sucker born every minute, there’s only so many suckers to go around.

We’ve gotten as far as sitting on God’s lap and braiding His beard. I’m waiting for the next leg up, wherein one of them will claim they were allowed to take the great white throne of judgment for a spin, and wouldn’t you know it, God concluded they’d be better at the job than He was. You think I jest. Give it enough time, and it’s an inevitability.

All this while the contemporary church is floundering, whipping itself up into a lather while lip-syncing Hillsong just to say they felt something. But of repentance, holiness, righteousness unto the Lord, not a bleep or a bleat, not a groan or a whisper. March on, mighty warriors dressed for battle, march on!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

The Principles of Prayer LXI

 God knows why we pray for the things we pray for—purpose matters. Why we desire what we desire plays a role in whether or not God acquiesces to our supplication. We may not be honest enough with ourselves to acknowledge or admit it, but oftentimes the prayers we pray are selfish, self-centered, and venal, having the man or woman staring back in the mirror as the primary focus and benefactor.

Even seemingly selfless prayers, especially when prayed in public settings within earshot of others, turn out to be nothing more than self-serving, self-aggrandizing declaratives meant to impress those who happen to be listening and elevate our importance or relevance in their eyes.

The widow wanted justice, not so she could prove her neighbor, who said she had no case, wrong, or to show her adversary that she couldn’t be messed with, but because an injustice had been done against her, and she wanted justice for justice’s sake.

When we come before God and ask Him to use us, and the next thirty minutes are used to deliver instructions as to the manner in which we would like to be used, the office to which we would like to be called, the size of the ministry we’re willing to helm, and the prestige we expect once we sign on the dotted line, it’s no longer a desire to be used as a servant, it’s an entitled self-promoting dictate to the God of the universe insisting that we deserve nothing less than everything we’re asking for. I know my worth, and I’ll not take a penny less! That has become the war cry of an entire delusional and self-aggrandizing generation.

Lord, use me. Send me to Fiji that I may deliver your gospel to the natives and bask in the wonders of your creation. If not Fiji, the least I would consider is Hawaii, one of the least populated islands, because the Big Island is just too congested.

If the genuine desire of one’s heart is to be of service to God, the extent of their prayer should be, “Lord, use me!” The how, when, and where are solely His discretion, and as servants, we have neither input nor preference when it comes to being called and sent.

We do not choose the office; God assigns it to us. We do not walk in our own strength, but God grants us the strength to walk in the office to which we’ve been assigned, and if we deviate or aspire to something other than what God has called us to, we cease walking in His strength and resume walking in ours.

Some men are called to be teachers but aspire to be prophets. While walking in the calling to which they have been called and teaching the Word of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit is real and tangible; their teaching connects even if spoken in simple words, because it is the power and anointing of God that causes the message to pierce the heart. If, at some point, their pride gets the better of them, and they venture into an arena to which they were never called, and attempt to manufacture prophecy, or cloak themselves in the aura of the prophetic, that power and anointing are no longer there because they are no longer walking in the calling God called them to but in their own flesh.

We each have a place in the kingdom. The harvest is plentiful, and the laborers remain few, but to be of use, we must know what our calling is and remain within its borders, joyful and content in whatever He has called us to.

But Lord, I can do so much more in some different region in a different calling with a larger digital footprint. Perhaps the day may come when He will call you to do more, but until such a time, be faithful and diligent in what you’ve already been called to, rather than wasting time on what could have been, or what you think should have been.

Some men never gain traction because they refuse to walk in the calling to which they have been called. They’ve already made up their minds as to what office they should occupy, what ministry they should be called to, and although opportunities arise for them to use their gifting and walk in their callings, they ignore them outright because they think it is beneath them.

But Lord, I’m just trying to help! God doesn’t need your help. He requires your obedience.

The other day, my wife asked me to take a bunch of empty gallon jugs and other plastic bits out to the recycle bin. By the time I’d stacked them in my arms like some sort of real-life Tetris game, I realized I couldn’t open the door, so I called out to my youngest to come and open the door for me. She then proceeded to come and try to take a few of the jugs out of my arms, and wouldn’t you know it, more than half tumbled to the ground.

“Boog, I asked you to open the door,” I said, as I bent to retrieve the jugs off the floor, to which she replied, “I was just trying to help.” I didn’t get angry or raise my voice, but I did explain to her that when someone asks for a specific thing, doing something else instead of what they asked you to do isn’t helping, even if it was meant with the best of intentions.

If someone is dying of thirst and you offer them a box of Saltine crackers, the gesture itself may be considered kind and generous outside of its context, but it could hardly be considered helpful.

Some of us are so full of ourselves that we leave no room for God’s guidance, direction, or even common sense at times. It’s akin to your next-door neighbor falling and breaking their ankle, and rather than offer to take their trash cans to the end of their drive, you bring them a brand spanking new pair of ice skates. Thanks, I guess, but I could have done without them.

Do the thing God called you to do, even if your flesh whispers that you were meant for greater things. At the risk of sounding repetitive, it’s the obedience God rewards, not the magnitude of the labor.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

The Principles of Prayer LX

 For something to be considered consistent, it must be accompanied by a certain frequency of action. If someone were to ask if you worked out consistently, and you answered yes, followed up with how often, and you said about once a month, then the answer to the second question invalidates the possibility of truth to the first. If, however, your answer were five to six times per week, then the affirmation that you were consistent in your workouts would be proven true by the frequency with which you engage in it.

Do you have a prayer life? If the answer is yes, the next question you must answer for yourself is, are you consistent in it? If, again, the answer is yes, the third question is How often do you pray? Although the definition of consistency is subjective from one individual to another, there is a general metric by which we can gauge whether or not we are being consistent, and praying once in a blue moon, on the big Christian holidays, or every month, or every other week, does not meet the standard of consistency.

The widow came before the judge every day, without fail, because getting justice from her adversary was the single most important thing in her life. It’s easy to overlook the fact that it took effort, perhaps even sacrifice, for this woman to commit to appearing before the judge consistently if we fail to consider her likely emotional state during this time. Given that Jesus said she was a widow, it’s not an assumption but a certainty that this woman had been married, had known what it is to love, to lean on another, to have her husband hold her and tell her everything was going to be alright, to have the assurance that he would do all within his power to keep her fed and a roof over her head, and in an instant that was gone.

Rather than have someone to hold, she wept over the lifeless form of what had once been her husband, grief-stricken and emotionally distraught, yet even in her condition, she came before the judge day in and day out.

What’s my excuse, or yours for that matter, for putting off spending time with God? We must be consistent and persistent, not only when everything is going well, when there’s no one else vying for our time, or when we’ve finished the long list of honey-dos that somehow materialize every morning. What does it say about the value we place on spending time with God if all we ever manage to give Him are the scraps and leftovers? What does it say about how much of an existential need we believe our line of communication with Him to be when we can’t be bothered to come before Him for days on end, simply because life has gotten busy, or there are too many things on our plate already?  

What was the reason for the last time you missed spending time in prayer? What was the thing that was deemed more important in the moment that you put off being in God’s presence? This is not an accusation. It’s not my attempt at guilt-tripping anyone. It’s a question I’ve asked and answered for myself, because, yes, there have been times when I delayed my prayer time in lieu of something I deemed more pressing currently. Granted, they were extreme situations where I couldn’t break away for thirty minutes or an hour, but that’s not an excuse or a justification; it’s an explanation. Daniel could not abide not coming before God in prayer one day, never mind the thirty that the decree of the king mandated, because he could not bear to be absent from God’s presence in his life for any length of time at all.

Men prioritize what they value. If you value intimacy with God, you will prioritize your prayer time in such a way wherein it is consistent and frequent, letting nothing stand in the way of knowing the presence and touch of God.

Come before God often. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around you, what pain is roiling in you, what others might think about you when they see you preferring to spend time with God rather than with them because it’s chicken wing night at the local eatery. Be consistent and frequent in your prayers to God, and you will see the heavens open and the light of His love shine down.

The third example the widow sets forth is her deliberate intentionality. She knew exactly why she was coming before the judge day after day. She was purposeful in her request, making it clear what she was asking the judge to do. “Get justice for me from my adversary!” This was her heart's cry, every day, without fail, because it was the only thing she desired.

When we come before God, we do so with complete assurance that He knows all things. It is the very definition of omniscience. Nothing is hidden from His face; there is nothing He is not privy to, so rather than take a circuitous route to what it is we desire to ask of Him, it is wise and prudent to be as direct as the widow was.

Sometimes it’s because we know in our hearts that what we desire to ask of God is venal and vain that we are not as direct as we should be. We try to justify our selfish wants with layers upon layers of explanation as to why we need the new car, the big boat, the private jet, or the McMansion, somehow always managing to spiritualize it and attempt to convince ourselves—and perhaps God —that it’s for a reason other than what the real reason is.

Lord, if you give me a Gulfstream, I will make it available to any itinerant preacher who wants to get from here to there without charge. I’ve literally heard that explanation from a handful of people over the years. I’ve never been offered a free ride on a private jet as yet. Perhaps it’s because I don’t know the right people, or I’m not in the right clique, but the more plausible explanation is that the future promise of magnanimity was a feign if not an outright lie.

Lord, if you give me the McMansion I’ve been eyeing, I’ll have more room to house the homeless. Then, the moment they get it, they erect a ten-foot electric fence around it for fear of it being overrun by the unsavory.

We ask God for trivial things, attempting to be deceitful as to why we are asking for them, then feel slighted when what we asked for does not materialize, thinking God is incapable, rather than looking inward, searching our hearts and determining whether what we asked for was in line with Scripture, helping to grow our spiritual man, or something wholly self-serving and flesh oriented.

James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

The Principles of Prayer LIX

 Jesus never spoke the widow’s name, and I believe it was purposeful. It’s not because Jesus didn’t think women worthy of being remembered by name, or that He thought them lesser in some way, but because she served as a structural prototype of true character, grit, and determination.

Rather than singling out Judy or Marge and saying, “Look at her,” He spoke of the widow in a manner that is understood as something to aspire to in terms of boldness, confidence, and an unwillingness to suffer injustice.

Perhaps her first audience with the judge wasn’t overtly demeaning, but come the second, third, and fourth, it’s a certainty that she saw his eye rolls, heard his sighs, saw his body language, and understood her presence wasn’t something he relished, looked forward to, or was overly joyful over. Some people have a gift when it comes to letting you know they’d rather not be around you without having to utter one syllable. I admit it may be petty on my part, but it’s those people’s skin I like to get under. I don’t care if you have a sable fur hanging around your droopy, wrinkly neck, or you’re wearing mechanic’s overalls covered in oil; I’m going to treat you the same. I’m going to treat you like a human being.

It’s more than likely she felt the condescension. It’s evident she realized she was being dismissed by the judge day after day without her pain and injustice being acknowledged or validated. Even so, she persevered and continued to come before him until he relented.

Unlike the unjust judge, it is God’s good pleasure to fellowship with His children. He will never roll His eyes, or think, Oh, it’s him again, or her again, don’t they have anything better to do? He will never be too busy to hear your prayers. He will never leave you waiting in the outer court for hours, sending messages via interns or secretaries, telling you that He is overburdened with other appointments, but you should try back tomorrow when His workload looks a bit lighter.  

The Word tells us that God inhabits the praises of His people. It goes beyond mere acknowledgment of coming before Him in prayer, or Him being aware that we are praying, He is present, He inhabits the praise. He is intimately, singularly focused on the individual during the time of their praise, prayer, intercession, or thanksgiving.

Men go out of their way to feel the touch of the divine, to feel the presence of God, to tap into something more than the physical, resorting to all manner of foolishness and gnostic practices that do nothing more than confuse and take away from the one true God, when all that is required to feel His presence is to bring Him praise, come before Him in prayer and supplication, and know that He is present.

The reason so many resort to something other than the simple acts of prayer and praise is pride. It’s an unwillingness to humble oneself, to come before God as they are, as they know themselves to be, bruised, broken, faithless, dirty, lost, wayward, and blind, and acknowledge their need for restoration, rebirth, renewal, and newness. They cling to the notion that they can fix themselves by themselves without having to surrender their life, their will, or their hearts, believing all they really need is someone in their corner to cheer them on, or some ethereal experience that can be replicated by something other than falling on their faces at the foot of the cross and letting go of the pride of life.

At the risk of being the bearer of bad news, there is nothing that can replicate repentance, surrender, and obedience. Whether transcendental meditation, ayahuasca, magic mushrooms, or some guru tapping your temples with a brass pestle while chanting unintelligible words, there is no substitute for the grace, love, or peace of God, and no adequate replacement to being washed and made clean in the blood of the Lamb of God.

Transformation requires change. Rebirth requires the death of one’s old self. They do not occur of one’s own volition or by one’s own strength but by the intervention of God, the Creator of all that is seen and unseen, and it is He who will do the work in you. The only thing required of us as individuals is to submit to His will and not resist Him as He begins to mold, prune, cleanse, and transform.

If the first prototypical example the widow showed was that she knew the truth and stood on it, the second example we would do well to heed is that she was consistent. She did not grow weary in pleading her case before the judge. She did not give up, go away, or relent whenever the unjust judge rejected her plea; instead, she continued unabated in pursuing justice for herself.

She was childlike in her insistence and persistence. I have two daughters who have intuitively learned that if dad says no the first time, he might say yes the hundredth time just to get a modicum of peace and quiet.

The latest example of this in the Boldea household was the acquisition of a puppy. No, I didn’t want a puppy. There was no future I could envision for myself where I would get greeted by a tail-wagging furball every time I entered the house. Yet, their insistence and daily query as to whether we could get one, when we would get one, or if it wasn’t time to get one, finally wore me down, and I relented.

If they’d asked once, twice, or ten times and given up, it would still be just the four of us. Because they persisted and were consistent in their pleas, slowly but surely, they got me to relent. For the longest time, I was the holdout. They’d convinced my wife long before they convinced me, and her out was that dad wasn’t on board, so we would have to wait until he agreed. My saying no a hundred times did not deter them, nor make them any less enthusiastic about their request. It was the same with the widow who continually came before the judge to plead her case.

Be consistent in your prayers before God. Whether you’re praying for a son, a daughter, a father, or a mother, whether you’re praying for healing in your body, or a greater measure of faith, it’s never one and done. Stand on the truth that God hears the prayers of His children, that if we knock He will open, that if we ask He will answer, and press in.

It may be that He answers your prayer in a different way than what you’d envisioned or hoped for, but He will answer because He is a good God who is engaged and available, who can do all things beyond what you can perceive, who works miracles, and brings light in the darkest of places.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

10 02 2025 The Light Of Truth Broadcast with Michael Boldea

Until We Meet Again!

 

Psalm 116:15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”

Matthew 25:34-36, ‘Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in, I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.”

The Principles of Prayer LVIII

 Injustice does not occur in a vacuum. It cannot remain invisible, nor can it be hidden even though those doling it out would prefer it were so. Those for whom injustice is their bread and butter couldn’t care less when it comes to who they hurt, or how many, as long as they get their way. They will lie, cheat, and steal without ever considering the collateral damage as long as they can retain the trinkets and baubles to which they’ve grown accustomed, and upon which they’ve become dependent. Whether it’s CEOs running off with their employees’ pension fund or church elders convincing their flock to invest in a pyramid scheme, the callousness of such individuals is off-putting and heinous.  

While some care about the optics of it and try to veil their unjust machinations, others consider themselves so above the adverse reactions of those they preside over that they simply don’t care. The unjust judge fell into the latter camp. He neither feared God nor cared what people thought. He was a law unto himself, doing as he pleased, without forethought of how he would be perceived by anyone, whether earthly or divine.

In modern parlance, one could rightly conclude that the unjust judge had a god complex that dictated his actions to the point of doing as he willed, when he willed. In his mind, he was the final authority and would not consider the existence of one higher than himself. As such, everyone else was beneath him, and dispensing true justice was something he failed to consider.

Even so, it did not stop the widow from pursuing justice and doing so with tenacity. Whenever I read this parable, the widow reminds me of all the women in my life. From my grandmother, to my mother, to my wife, and even my daughters, that boldness and unwillingness to be cowed when they know they have the right of it, is something endearing and admirable. In a world where boldness is in short supply, and everyone would rather go along to get along instead of standing on truth, it is always refreshing to see it firsthand.

There was no timidity in the widowed woman. She didn’t come before the unjust judge once, then give up the moment he denied her request. She did not shrink away, break down, give up, or abandon her course. What made her so bold? What compelled her to press on, persevere, and continually come before the judge pleading for justice?

The first thing that served to embolden the widow to continue seeking justice was knowing that she was in the right. You cannot plead for a lie, you cannot champion the cause of unrighteousness and expect God’s help, deliverance, or intervention. She stood on the truth, and the knowledge of this gave her a boldness that was, perhaps, even uncharacteristic of her nature.

Never be afraid to stand for the truth. Never be afraid to defend it, champion it, and plead for it, because the silence of the godly emboldens the ungodly. Turning a blind eye to injustice helps perpetuate it and strengthen its foothold. If you know you are standing for truth, then there is nothing to fear. God is with you.

The worst the world can do is kill the flesh. The question that must be asked and answered by each of us individually is whether standing for the truth and pleading for justice in the face of injustice is worth the price. If called upon to do so, is your proclamation and declaration of Jesus Christ as Lord, King, and Savior, worth the price of this present life? As for me, the answer is a resounding yes, as has been the case for countless others who have come before me who understood the purpose of their existence, and the truth that Jesus spoke wherein He warned all who would hear that if we deny Him before man, He will deny us before the Father who is in heaven.

When you stand on the truth of Scripture, fear, timidity, reticence, and apprehension fall away. They no longer hold sway, they no longer influence, and they are no longer a determining factor in the things you say. Truth, knowing the truth, and living the truth will give you the boldness to speak it, no matter the situation, or how many might gnash their teeth at hearing it.

There may be moments in your life when you lack boldness. Whether due to implicit or explicit threats, or the realization that speaking the truth might make you persona non grata, we’ve all had those moments when we held in a breath, closed our eyes, and saw the outcome of what speaking the truth would mean, before the first word was ever spoken. Whether it's foresight, intuition, or having been in the same predicament so many times that you know how it will end, there is that moment of discomfort of seeing how the situation will play out in your mind beforehand.

In such instances, all we can do is close our eyes, pray for boldness, and speak the words we know we ought to say, letting the chips fall where they may. Whether you are speaking the truth of Scripture is the only thing that matters. Not if what you’ll say will make you more popular, or whether it will be received in the spirit in which it was intended, not if what you’ll say will hurt someone’s feelings or make them angry, but whether or not it is the truth.

When we allow other factors other than the truth to determine whether or not we will act in a particular situation, the truth is betrayed and discarded. The flesh will always find a reason for us not to boldly proclaim the name Jesus. It will always find an excuse and justification for why we ought to keep quiet, keep our heads down, and not stir the pot. Whatever the reason may be, however viable and reasonable to our human mind, keeping silent when we know we ought to speak up is always and without equivocation the wrong course of action.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.