Job CCXCVII

 Two noteworthy virtues, often overshadowed by his suffering, stand out when contemplating Job’s life: he never forgot who God was, and he never lost his awe of the God he served. A man who had everything he could ever want or desire still observed the sun when it shone, and the moon moving in brightness, and was in awe of God’s creation. He understood how small he was in relation to how great God was, and the majesty of all He’d spoken into being continued to humble him, no matter how far he’d come or how much he’d been able to amass.

When we sing How Great Thou Art we should mean it because it’s factual. It is the truth. We serve a great God, a God of wonder and majesty, and we can never lose sight of this lest we descend into the preposterous mindset that we can view God at eye level rather than looking up.

The fear of the Lord that Job possessed was a healthy one because of his awareness of who God is. He knew God to be both more precious and more reliable than gold, and so placed his confidence in Him. He knew that all his eyes saw, everything that surrounded him, whether the moon, the stars, the sun, or a blade of grass was fashioned by His hand. He would not take credit for the things God had done because he could not.

Job never patted himself on the back or saw himself as the architect of his existence. He did not view himself as a little god, nor as one who determined the course of his life. If he was blessed, it was not by his own hand, or his prowess in business, but by the providence and good pleasure of the God he served.

This is the proper attitude of the heart that we, as servants of God, must possess. Not demanding, not feeling entitled, but exhibiting awe and gratitude for His guiding hand upon us, whether that hand leads us through the valley or over the mountaintop. We are either spoiled children or soldiers of the cross. The difference between the two is that while a spoiled child stomps their feet and acts out when they don’t get their way, a soldier follows orders and carries on even if the way is hard.    

Job 31:29-32, “If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him who hated me, or lifted myself up when evil found him (indeed I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for a curse on his soul); If the men of my tent have not said, ‘who is there that has not been satisfied with his meat?’ (but no sojourner had to lodge in the street, for I have opened my doors to the traveler).”

Even Job had his detractors. Even he had men who hated him, for whatever reason, but he did not return their hatred in kind. Yet another good, noble, virtuous, and practical lesson we can learn from the life of Job. Even when destruction came upon them, Job did not rejoice. Nor did he lift himself up when evil found those who hated him, insisting that whatever befell them was well deserved because they chose to pick a fight with him.

I’ve heard it from the mouths of those who ought to know better, and it’s off-putting every time. You know what happened to so-and-so? They crashed their car, their cat died, their house burned down, but they got what they deserved because they said that one nasty thing about me that one time.

It’s easy to love your friends. It’s a lot harder to love your enemies. The uniqueness of Job rests in the fact that he was doing intuitively what Jesus would command His followers to do two thousand years later. Job didn’t have a template. He didn’t have the law, he didn’t have Scripture, he didn’t have the words of Jesus; he was a man living in the desert who desired a pure relationship with God, and from that desire, he followed through and did all that God inspired him to do.   

Matthew 5:43-48, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Job could have rightly pleaded ignorance of the notion of loving one’s enemies since he had no instruction manual to tell him otherwise. If you try to put Ikea furniture together without an instruction manual, can anyone really fault you when what ought to have been a dresser ends up looking more like a coffin?

We have no such excuse, yet we’re always looking for an out, a cheat code, a way to circumvent what Jesus said we must do, because blessing those who curse you, doing good to those who hate you, and praying for those who spitefully use you and persecute you is hard. Yes, it’s hard. Anyone who says it isn’t is either lying to you or lying to themselves.

I’ve lived long enough to know betrayal by those I’ve considered brothers in the faith, not for some noble reason, but for the basest reason of all, trying to take for themselves what God gave to another. Few things in life hurt worse, and demoralize you to that extent. In the moment, I would have rather moved the Great Wall of China stone by stone without the aid of oxen or carts than prayed for those who spitefully used me, but I did it nevertheless because it’s what Jesus commanded. The first prayer was the hardest, and I felt no relief or release; the weight of it was still heavy on my heart, but then came the second prayer, and the fifth, and the tenth. At some point, I stopped counting and was surprised to find that the pain had subsided, and my heart no longer felt like it was wrapped in barbed wire. It was heavy no longer.  

Do not rejoice at the destruction of him who hates you, do not revel in their downfall when evil finds him. Do not ask for a curse on their soul, or entertain the desire of seeing evil come to him. It will only serve to pollute your heart. Rather, rest in the knowledge that you serve a just and righteous God, who will do as He wills when He wills it, for you are not justified in the sight of men but in the sight of God.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXCVI

 Just as there are plenty of examples of men projecting an image of righteousness rather than pursuing and aspiring to it today, I’m sure there were such individuals in Job’s day as well. Unless you’re one of those odd ducks like me, you enjoy the odd compliment or individuals speaking well of you. I’ve never been able to take a compliment. I don’t know how to react to one.

The reason stems from my awareness that whatever was said in a sermon or written on a page that moved someone to the point of coming to thank me wasn’t my doing. It did not originate from me, so accepting praise for it seems a tad disingenuous if not outright dishonest. If I know I didn’t do something, whatever it might be, then I shouldn’t be taking credit for it.

Men who crave acknowledgment usually aren’t deserving of it, nor have men demanding of praise done anything to warrant it. By all means, thank the Lord, praise the Lord, acknowledge Him in all things, but as far as an individual, no matter how gifted or talented they might be, it wasn’t their talent that grew the ministry or the church, but the providence of God.

This is why so many churches and ministries crumble and are no more nowadays. Because rather than being built on the sure foundation of the gospel, rather than having the Word as their foundation, they were built upon the charisma, charm, or magnetism of an individual. When the figurehead no longer figures into the equation, when they go the way of all things, then whatever it is they’ve built goes with them. Only what is built upon the lasting, timeless, and eternal can sustain beyond the lifetime of an individual because it’s God who does the sustaining and not man.

Yes, there were likely men in Job’s generation who pretended at virtue, uprightness, or even righteousness as we’ve come to understand it, but for some vested interest rather than for righteousness’ sake. Of all the men of his day, God singled out Job because, knowing his heart, seeing what motivated him, God concluded that there was no ulterior motive for Job’s ceaseless kindness, obedience, and faithfulness.

Granted, to the person being fed or clothed, the motivation of the individual doing the feeding matters little. They were hungry; now they are hungry no longer. They were cold, now the coat they received keeps them warm. To God, however, motivation matters and is taken into account.

There will be individuals on that day of days who will stand before His throne and speak on all the noble things they’d done, up to and including prophesying, casting out demons, and doing many wonders in His name, yet told that Jesus never knew them, not because the things they’d done, in and of themselves weren’t virtuous but because the intent with which they’d done it was for something other than the glory of God.

Objectively speaking, they’d checked off a lot of boxes. They’d done the things they did in Jesus’ name, they exhibited power by doing wonders, prophesying, and casting out demons, but the underlying reason for doing these things was to elevate themselves, bring honor to themselves, or make themselves out to be more than they were supposed to be which is a vessel, a servant, one who does the bidding of his Master out of faithful obedience rather than some perceived benefit to themselves. They neither lived as a true follower of Christ nor walked in His way. They pretended to, and the power they exhibited was not due to their righteousness, but because there is power in the name that is above all names, the name of Jesus.

They were attempting to take credit for what they hadn’t done, had no ability to do in and of themselves, and knew full well they had no right to appropriate God’s glory for their own. I know my limitations, and you should too. When anything occurs that exceeds those limitations, give credit where credit is due. Don’t fall into the snare of appropriating what God did, claiming it as your own, because He is a jealous God and will not share His glory with another.    

Job 31:24-28, “If I have made gold my hope, or said to fine gold, ‘You are my confidence’; if I have rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because my hand had gained much; if I have observed the sun when it shines, or the moon moving in brightness, so that my heart has been secretly enticed, and my mouth has kissed my hand; this also would be an iniquity deserving of judgment, for I would have denied God who is above.”

If we were to encapsulate Job’s words into one big idea, it would be that everything comes from God. He is the author, creator, and giver of all that is, and as such, it is in Him that we must place our hope rather than the things He freely gives us. Job viewed placing one’s hope and confidence in anything other than God as iniquity deserving of judgment, because it would imply that His hand was not in it, and He had no control over it.

Humbling as it might be for some, whatever heights of success you may have reached, however many zeros you have in the bank, it wasn’t you. It was His goodness, His providence, His purpose, and if ever you begin to place your confidence in the things rather than the God who gave you the things, it’s the genesis of a slippery slope whose terminus is the bottom of the pit of despair.

I’ve known men who’d amassed fortunes only to lose them on one bad investment, and because their confidence was in the net worth they’d been able to amass, the loss broke them. I’ve likewise known men who lost it all, and because their hope and confidence were in God, they retained their peace, joy, and faith. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t trust both in the arm of the flesh and in God. You must make the conscious choice to trust and hope in one over the other, and Job had made his choice. Had his confidence been in gold, had his hope been tethered to his great wealth, Job would now be a hopeless ruin, and a byword to be pitied. His hope and confidence, however, had always been firmly anchored in God, and though the storm buffeted him and the waves crashed upon him, he was not carried away by its incessant force.

You can trust in one or the other, but you can't trust in both. You can either trust in God, who has proven His faithfulness time and again, or in the things that are even now passing away. While for some this is no choice at all, for others it is an issue they wrestle with more frequently than they would ever admit. God is faithful, eternal, and omnipotent. The same can’t be said for the buckets of gruel you’re being encouraged to put on a credit card by unscrupulous individuals who see you as nothing more than a payday. Choose wisely!    

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXCV

 Job 31:16-23, “If I have kept the poor from their desire, or caused the eye of the widow to fail, or eaten my morsel by myself, so that the fatherless could not eat of it (But from my youth I reared him as a father, and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow); if I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing, or any poor man without covering; if his heart has not blessed me, and if he was not warmed with the fleece of my sheep; if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, when I saw I had help in the gate; then let my arm fall from my shoulder, let my arm be torn from the socket. For destruction from God is a terror to me, and because of His magnificence I cannot endure.”

One cannot fault Job’s righteous anger in defending his innocence against what he knew to be baseless accusations. A guilty man would shrug his shoulders and attempt to justify his actions, trying to explain why he did what he did. An innocent man, however, sees the accusations as an insult and a sleight against his character, thereby mounting a defense not of himself but of his integrity.

Job wasn’t being flippant about his integrity, nor was there anything in his life that he knew he’d done wrong, to have to couch it in a lengthy explanation. He got down to brass tacks, stripping away platitudes or unnecessary verbiage, to the point that his directness would be considered blunt by today’s standards. So sure was Job of his innocence and uprightness that some of the things he said should happen to him had his actions been otherwise are truly horrific.

He started out tame enough, insisting that if his heart had walked after his eyes, or if any spot adhered to his hands another should eat what he had sown, and his harvest should be rooted out, but as we progress further into the chapter, he insists that if he had done any of the things he’d been accused of, his arm should fall from his shoulder, and torn from the socket. These are no small things.

It’s not as though he said that if his character was in any way sullied or his integrity compromised, he should get a mild headache or a hangnail. He did not minimize what he thought his punishment should be, knowing that he would have to endure it, but, certain of his innocence, he insisted that, were he guilty, it should be the worst thing he could envision at the time.

He was already covered in oozing boils, sapped of strength, barely hanging on, and in his state, the thing he considered worse still was that his arm be torn from the socket if ever he’d raised his hand against the fatherless, or ignored the poor.

Job said these things in light of knowing who God was, and understanding that God had the ability to follow through, were his words not honest, sincere, and forthright.

Throughout his life, Job had never seen the poor, the widow, or the fatherless as a burden, nor had he seen helping them as a chore. He hadn’t gone out of his way to avoid them, ignore them, or pretend they weren’t there, but whenever the need arose, he was there to meet it, knowing it was the right thing to do.

I’ve been blessed to know a handful of people who go out of their way to ensure that the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, the cold are provided with a blanket, and the fatherless are protected from being exploited by the cold and callous among us. Such individuals never acted out of largesse or abundance; they shared the little they had, sacrificed, and went without so that someone could have a hot meal or a warm bed to sleep in.

Yes, by all accounts, Job had been rich, the richest among the people of the East, but that only revealed his nature, character, and integrity when it came to how he saw his fellow man, and the lengths to which he went to ease their suffering, fill their bellies, and show kindness.

Contrary to popular belief, wealth does not change a man; it merely reveals his true heart and character. Job insists that from his youth he reared the orphan as a father, and from his mother’s womb he guided the widow. That he should be generous with what God had given him had not been an epiphany he’d had in his latter years, but from his early days, he saw the need to protect the innocent and show kindness to those whom the world was doing its best to pretend did not exist.

Job wasn’t looking for accolades or plaques thanking him for his donation. He was a present help to those in need, even when no one was looking, even when there wasn’t a crowd of people gathered to witness his kindness.

It didn’t matter to him if someone witnessed his feeding the hungry or clothing the naked because he knew God saw, and that was enough for him. Any time we do something on behalf of another, hoping others see it, it pollutes the intent of the heart with which it was done. We become as Cain, grudgingly doing it out of duty, rather than sincerely desiring to be the means by which the hurting are comforted, and the hungry are fed.

Job did what he did from a clean heart and pure intentions, and seeing his declaration, both of his innocence, as well as how tirelessly he helped those from whom he had nothing to gain, we come to understand that God’s assessment of him being an upright and blameless man was not inflated or blown out of proportion. God saw Job as he was. It wasn’t a soft spot for him that compelled God to declare him to be a man who feared the Lord and shunned evil, but a true description of who he was.

The difference between men declaring someone a good man and God declaring someone blameless and upright is that God knows all, while men see only what they want to see. The two are not the same.

The question that begs to be asked, and one we must answer as individuals, is whether we strive to be seen as noble and virtuous by others or by God.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXCIV

 I respect those who struggle, who persist, who endure, who get knocked down only to get up again, shake the dust off, and keep pressing on. It takes grit, determination, and a clearly defined purpose to brave the headwinds, to keep pushing forward when everything seems to be resisting you, and when you know full well that abandoning course would be the easy thing to do. The expectation of living life on easy mode once we encounter God and having no less than the best of everything until we breathe our last, is neither biblical nor is it the environment in which true spiritual growth can occur.

Fire refines and burns away the dross. Pressure turns pieces of coal into diamonds. Resistance forces the body to adapt and grow stronger. All of these require some type of discomfort, unease, and opposition to facilitate the becoming of something superior to what was.

Faith is tested that it might be proven. Warriors engage in battle so that they might earn the name to which they aspire. When the avoidance of battle becomes the end goal rather than victory, whatever claims one might have made regarding being a warrior fly out the window and are proven to be hyperbole.

We are neither sellswords nor mercenaries. We do not offer our fealty to the highest bidder, nor do we abandon our principles the moment they begin to cost us something. We stand on truth because truth abides, and when everything else is stripped away, truth remains.

It’s not so much that past generations were built differently. Since the dawn of creation, from generation to generation, men have shared the same traits, attributes, sensibilities, virtues, and shortcomings. What has changed, especially with this last generation, is our willingness to justify cowardice, double-mindedness, hypocrisy, and indifference, and to convince ourselves that our time would be better spent watching the surf than engaging in battle.

Even in the deplorable state everything finds itself in, many are reticent to step up, be active, and defend the truth of the gospel unashamedly and unapologetically. We submit, we cower, we compromise, not because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s what will require the least amount of effort on our part.       

Situationally moral, self-serving, unregenerate men have convinced an entire generation to cease resisting the wiles of the enemy, to give up, surrender, throw in the towel, and allow themselves to be carried away by the tempest. Why swim against the current when the current can do all the work for you? Because the current you’re allowing to take you where it wills will inevitably lead to the rapids, and beyond them, the lethal plunge to the rocks below.  

The Word tells us that God is a present help in time of trouble. It tells us that He will make a way even when, to the eyes of men, there seems to be no way. In some respects, this life is a war of attrition. Everything seems to be trying to wear us down, gradually, incrementally, and for many, each new day is a battle they must wage, not having recovered from the exhaustion of the previous one. The only way to continue forward, undeterred, and undaunted is to know what we’re fighting for, and recognize that each new day brings us that much closer to the finish line, to Jesus, and the prize to which we aspire, and for which we run this race.

Job 31:13-15, “If I have despised the cause of my male or female servant when they complained against me, what then shall I do when God rises up? When He punishes, how shall I answer Him? Did not He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same One fashion us in the womb?”

Long before Christ’s sermon on the mount, Job encapsulated the idea of doing unto others as you would have them do to you by acknowledging that, whether master or servant, prince or pauper, the same God fashioned each and every one of us in the womb. No man is born better than another, more noble than another, more virtuous than another, and the same God who made the beggar in the womb made the prince in the same manner.

It is man who assigns titles, looks to pedigree, places people in castes, and, by their hierarchical view of society, assigns more value to one group than the other. Job viewed the whole of mankind as having been created equal, regardless of their station or their nationality, and treated those who served him with kindness and compassion.

There isn’t much that gets under my skin anymore. The years have mellowed me to the point that even when offense is intended, I take no offense, because life’s too short, and I’d rather smile than frown. It is said it’s better for the soul. The one thing that still rankles me, even after all this time, is when I see someone disrespect or outright verbally abuse another person because they think themselves entitled to do so or perceive the person as being beneath them. It’s something I can’t abide.

When we first came to America, my wife worked as a waitress for a little while. During that time, I heard enough stories of people being unkind, entitled, rude, and unreasonable to fill an encyclopedia, and looking back, I think it’s why I have such strong emotions when I see someone berating a cashier, a server, or the guy earning eight bucks an hour trying to keep up with coffee orders during morning rush.

A kind word, a smile, a thank-you, and “have a good day” don’t cost you anything, but they may well be invaluable to the person in that moment. Our being a peculiar people, set apart and altogether different from those of the world, must extend beyond the fish sticker on our car or the WWJD bracelet, to the character we exhibit, the kindness we show others, and the way we interact with those around us. Job was just such a man, one who was transformed for the better through his relationship with God, and it showed in every area of his life.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXCIII

 Job held himself to a high standard, knowing it was nothing less than what God expected. Becoming a son or daughter of God in truth, being born again and sanctified, comes with a wide array of privileges to be sure, top among them the honor of calling Him Father, and He, in turn, knowing you as one of His own, but it also comes with a code of conduct and responsibilities for which we are accountable and to which we must adhere. Chief among these is to deny ourselves, pick up our crosses, and follow after Him who hung on the cross that we might be reconciled to God.

We are duty-bound to walk circumspectly, to search our hearts regularly, ensuring that Jesus sits upon their throne, and resist the devil that he might flee. God can’t resist the devil on our behalf, nor, for that matter, can your pastor, elder, bishop, cousin, or next-door neighbor. He can put guardrails and limitations on what the enemy can do to a specific individual, but the active resistance of his devices is on us.

We’ve all heard some variation of the worst advice one human can give to another, which is to follow your heart. Job understood that the heart is influenced by what the eyes see, and what the ears hear, and declares that if ever his heart had walked after his eyes, may others eat what he had sown. Unless a heart is regenerated, made new, and imbued with Christ, it is flesh and as such will lead you to what the flesh desires.

Every great country song and human tragedy is the direct result of following one’s heart, based on what the eyes saw and what the ears heard. True biblical counsel isn’t to follow your heart, but to follow Jesus. Even if your heart resists, even if it tries to tell you that you’ve got plenty of time to right the ship and find your way to His loving embrace, it isn’t doing it for the benefit of your spiritual man but for the benefit of your flesh. Follow Jesus even if your heart protests and your flesh bristles, because the flesh does not want to die yet knows it must for Christ to live in you.   

Because he feared the Lord, Job knew himself to be a man of clean hands, one who shunned evil, and whose step had not turned from the way. There was no fakery in his worship, devotion, or service to God, and all that he did he did from a pure heart rather than the thought of what others would say or how they would view him.

A relationship, by definition, cannot be performative. I love my wife. I don’t pretend to love her, or simply speak the words once in a while; I genuinely, truly love her, and my actions day in and day out prove that reality. Many men have said they love God, but their actions proved otherwise. Many have said they serve Him, only to be proven that they served no one beyond themselves. Job knew God, and God knew Job, and from the onset God validated Job’s uprightness, judging him to be blameless.

When men only pretend to love God, it shows in their conduct, their choices, and how they spend the time they’ve been given. Some men have even convinced themselves that they love God. Yet, if they took a breath to employ pattern recognition and assess whether they spend more time watching sports than reading the Word, or if they’d rather go fishing than spend time in prayer, they would soon come to realize that their words have no follow-through. Their declarations of love were empty and baseless.

We must know that we love God with the same certainty that we know God loves us. There is no doubt or shadow of turning in our resolute certainty that God loves us. There is no ambiguity there; we don’t have to guess at whether God loves us or not, or wonder if His love is genuine. He proved it two thousand years ago to such an extent that it is undeniable.

John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”        

God’s love for Job was not unrequited. Job prioritized God above all else because he, in turn, loved God. There was a reciprocity of affection, but even so, Job did not attempt to exploit it or think himself above others because of it. He understood that God was God, and he was a man, Creator and creation, and one must submit to the authority, will, and purpose of the other in all things.

Because of this foundational relationship with God, Job knew what wickedness and iniquity were, and guarded himself against them with the tenacity of a man keeping a pack of wolves at bay. He understood the implicit and explicit dangers of sin, knew that if he allowed it to worm its way into his heart, it would dampen his relationship with the Almighty, and made it a priority to keep his hands clean and his heart pure before Him.

Job did not sin, hoping his relationship with God would keep him from judgment, banking on the idea that God loved him too much to punish him were he to stray or turn from the way. He knew himself to be a man of integrity who rightly acknowledged that had he committed wickedness, had he done iniquity, it would be deserving of judgment regardless of how intimate he had been with God.

Closeness with God is not a license to sin without consequence or repercussion, as some insist. The closer we draw to God, the more we are refined and purified, as the fire of His holiness burns away the dross, the excess, the worthless, and the temporal.

God doesn’t need me enough to overlook wickedness or iniquity in my life. He does not make exemptions or concessions when it comes to one’s obedience to His word and will. If nothing wicked or defiled will enter the kingdom of heaven, what makes anyone think that God will overlook wickedness in the lives of those who claim to be not only His servants, but also His ambassadors and representatives?

Yes, there is room for grace. We’ve all fallen short, but one cannot willfully continue in a pattern of sin, abusing grace, and thinking themselves immune from God’s righteous judgment. Job wasn’t asking for special treatment, nor did he attempt to leverage his relationship with God, hoping He would overlook wickedness in his life. He was asking to be weighed on honest scales, that God might know his integrity.    

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXCII

This chapter could adequately be described as Job’s innocence checklist. He begins with the covenant he made with his eyes, but does not stop there, and by the time he reaches the end of it, Job concludes that not only is he innocent of sensual sin, but also of abusing his power, trusting in his wealth, and even of not caring for his enemies. He didn’t focus on the one thing he didn’t do while minimizing the ones he did, but went through the list, proving his innocence to anyone who would hear.

He wasn’t, as has become customary in our age, attempting to highlight his own righteousness by pointing to what everyone else was doing that he wasn’t, but searching his heart to see if there was any sin or practice displeasing to the Lord that he had yet to identify and root out. He wasn’t being a Pharisee about his inward searching. He wasn’t attempting to look his nose down on those around him while simultaneously elevating himself by highlighting his virtues. This was not a contest between himself and his contemporaries, but an honest assessment of his life, the choices he’d made, and the way he’d lived in light of his understanding that God saw his ways and counted all his steps.

When we search our hearts, or ask God to search us and see if there is any wicked way in us, it’s not to prove ourselves more virtuous than others, or to boast of our righteousness to any who would hear, but to walk in obedience and faithfulness seeking to bring glory to His name.

Everyone who asks is secretly hoping that God will say there is nothing in need of remedy, nothing they need to repent of or turn away from, but such individuals are so rare as to have entire books of the Bible with their names on them. I’m not in that category, and neither are you, no matter how much we’d like to think otherwise. We’ve all fallen short, whether in attitude, consistency, priorities, or managing emotional reactions to something someone said or did that got under our skin.

In reality, the closer we draw to God, the more intimate we become with His holiness, the more we acknowledge that our righteousness is as filthy rags, and there is always something in need of pruning. Whether it’s the quick temper when seeing bad drivers on the road, or judging someone for buying ‘I can’t believe it’s not meat’ instead of a piece of chicken at the grocery store, we constantly find ourselves keeping the flesh in check and bridling it so as not to give it the opportunity to get a foothold.

One of the many profound lessons we learn from the life of Job is that we must understand the danger sin poses in the life of the believer, as well as be purposeful in our actions when guarding against temptation, whatever form that temptation might take.

Job 31:5-12, “If I have walked with falsehood, or if my foot has hastened to deceit, let me be weighed on honest scales, that God may know my integrity. If my step has turned from the way, or my heart walked after my eyes, or if any spot adheres to my hands, then let me sow, and another eat; yes, let my harvest be rooted out. If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked at my neighbor’s door, then let my wife grind for another, and let others bow down over her. For that would be wickedness; yes, it would be iniquity deserving of judgment. For that would be a fire that consumes to destruction, and would root out all my increase.”

In order to grasp the profundity of Job’s statement, one must take into account his knowledge of God, both as a righteous judge and as sovereign over His creation, as well as his omniscience, understanding, fundamentally so that God knew his life in its entirety and there was nothing hidden from His sight. In light of this, Job had the wherewithal to declare after his self-assessment that if he had walked with falsehood, or if his foot had hastened to deceit, he was open and accepting of being weighed on honest scales, and judged that God may know his integrity.

This was neither an empty boast nor a feigned attempt at projecting righteousness. Job wasn’t hoping God had been too busy to see his life, weigh his deeds, and overlook his absence of integrity. As Paul pointed out to the church of Corinth, if we were to judge ourselves, we would not be judged, but few among us take that admonition to heart and search ourselves as Job searched himself.

If we are more permissive toward our own pet vices, sins, failures, and shortcomings, justifying them to ourselves, while we demand perfection from everyone around us, all it does is make us hypocrites, one who refuses to acknowledge the plank in our own eye, while looking at the speck in our brother’s eye.

My first duty is not to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, but to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling. All will be held to account, and there is nothing that God missed, failed to see, or failed to consider.

It is because man’s view of who God is has been diminished and whittled down that some have talked themselves into playing games with Him, thinking nothing castigatory or punitive will ever come of it. They figure they got away with it once, perhaps twice, perhaps even ten times, and if there was no voice from heaven, no thunderbolts, or quaking earth, then God must have been too busy to notice. Willful sin reveals one’s true heart and the opinion they hold of God. Though they might say it with their lips, willful sin reveals that they do not believe Him to be holy, righteous, omniscient, omnipotent, and just. Were it not so, they would tremble before Him. Were it not so, true repentance would be forthcoming and quickly so.

Anyone who has to get caught and exposed before they give a tepid apology for the sake of damage control does not possess the fear of the Lord, know the God of the Bible, nor was there any reverence for His holiness in them. They may have feigned it well enough when the bright lights and the stage demanded they perform their role, but as far as true devotion, surrender, and obedience, it was now wholly absent if ever it existed.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXCI

 Job 31:1-4, “I have made a covenant with my eyes; why then should I look upon a young woman? For what is the allotment of God from above, and the inheritance of the Almighty from on high? Is it not destruction for the wicked, and disaster for the workers of iniquity? Does He not see my ways and count all my steps?”

One of the most dangerous environments for one’s spiritual man is passive indifference. Tragically, it’s what’s being taught from many pulpits, throughout a large swath of denominations, because those who look at the numbers and see the incoming and outgoing have determined that the lower you set the bar, the more likely it is that someone will throw a few bucks in the collection plate. In the end, that’s what it’s about. Not about souls, but about legal tender, and since the customer is always right, and the customer wants neither accountability nor conviction to be preached from the pulpit, that’s what the customer will get. Just because something sounds cynical, it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

The direct correlation between the diluting and watering down of Scripture and burgeoning coffers is undeniable, and if what this life was about was fancy cars and expense accounts, then by those metrics alone, the church of today is prospering like none other in the history of mankind. Blessed coming and going, pressed down and shaken together, what could be better?

It’s nothing new; the Laodicean church believed itself to be prospering, rich, and in need of nothing, until Christ Himself dispelled them of that misnomer, revealing them to be wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. There’s what man can see and how he judges a situation through the prism of his carnal intellect, and what God sees and how He judges, and the two are often very different, substantively speaking.

Due to the constant need to pander to men’s baser instincts, and the fear that were they to preach the whole counsel of God, unadulterated and unredacted, they would likely lose the support they’re banking on, few preachers nowadays get up the courage to speak on man’s duty to guard his heart, but not just.

By the time it gets to the heart, whatever the enemy is attempting to sow has already gotten by at least one of three other sentinels that ought to always be standing at the ready, and rebuffing his offensive. A wise man guards his eyes, his tongue, and his ears first, understanding that if they are well guarded, then nothing can make its way to the heart except for what’s supposed to be there, which is the presence of God.

If you guard your eyes, your ears, and your tongue well, the things you will have to contend with, prune, and pluck, will be far easier to be done away with because they did not take root in the heart, and had not established themselves therein.

If the heart is likened to a garden that must be constantly tended to, then the eyes, the ears, and the tongue determine what is being planted in said garden. If you plant good seed, it will grow into a good tree that will produce good fruit. If you plant bad seed, no matter how much one might want the outcome to be otherwise, it will grow bad trees that will produce bad fruit. If you plant crab apple seeds, you’ll get crab apple trees that will produce crab apples, no matter how much you might wish them to produce Honeycrisp apples.   

My zero-tolerance policy when it comes to sin among those who deem themselves the shepherds of God’s people has been seen by some as being unloving. More often than not, a snippet from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is included in the body text, reminding me that he who thinks he stands should take heed lest he fall, which is good counsel indeed, but contextually inapplicable within the topic of conversation, namely that the individual in question did not take heed, did not guard their eyes, their ears, their tongues, or their hearts, and didn’t so much fall into sin as cannonball into it.

You can’t tell me you never intended to go for a swim in the ocean if you drove a thousand miles to get there for the explicit purpose of going for a swim. You didn’t just make one conscious choice to go to the beach; there were multiple choices, strung together that brought you from the middle of Kansas to the shores of the Pacific or Atlantic.

You called in sick to work, gassed up the Pinto, packed your swim trunks, stopped to get some SPF 50 sunscreen, pointed the car in the direction you wanted to go, and floored it. But that was never your intention, though? You never thought in a million years that if you kept driving toward the ocean, you’d reach the ocean, and once you reached the ocean, you’d dip your toe in? Then once you dipped your toe in, well, you were already wearing your trunks; it would be a shame to waste the opportunity, wouldn’t it?

Once temptation worms its way into a heart, once it makes it past the eyes that ought to be the sentinels and guardsmen of the temple, the rationalization is inevitable and begins in earnest. Well, they invited me to this place I know I shouldn’t go to, but it would be rude of me to brush them off. We all have to make an effort to fit in; God knows my heart, I’ll go, but I won’t enjoy it. Okay, I’ll enjoy it a little bit, but not too much. I find myself enjoying it more than I should, but I’ll repent of it later.

I know what’s on the screen isn’t appropriate, nor beneficial to my spiritual man, but I’m halfway through the movie already, and it would be a shame not to know how it ends. Maybe I’ll just close one eye until the inappropriateness passes.

I know she knows I’m married; she sees the ring on my finger. Why is she in my personal space, laughing so much harder than my joke about chickens wearing sombreros warrants? I wouldn’t want to give offense; I’ll just play along.

All the denunciations, the halfhearted apologies, the excuses, the justifications, the shame brought upon the household of faith, and the inevitable broken families and ruined testimony could have been avoided had the individual in question guarded their eyes, made a covenant with them as Job did, and resisted the proffered temptation before it became their downfall.

What such individuals seem to forget is what Job so clearly declares: God sees their ways and counts all their steps. For good or ill, toward glory or shame, God sees our ways and counts all our steps.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.