Gold Diggers

 I was going to title this article angry birds but thought better of it. That I would have been accused of misogyny is a foregone conclusion because someone, likely a Beth Moore fan, would have inevitably interpreted birds to mean women, then would have put words in my mouth insisting that what I meant to say was broads or dames, as though we were in some thirties black and white movie replete with fedoras and hoop skirts.

It is a dangerous thing to analogize scripture. We were told that His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts, but rather than submit, obey, and follow, we’ve decided to ignore all that and whittle God down to our level of thinking.

We have become so brazen in our rebellion, so shameless in our conceit, so infuriatingly obnoxious in our own esteem, that though God explicitly says something irrefutable in His word, we roll our eyes and declare, my god would never do that!

Indeed, perhaps, your god might not, but the God of the Bible would because He has, said He would again, and He is not known for lying or obfuscating.

I don’t care who you are; you can’t use an analogy to rebuff scripture. It’s like going to your doctor, being told you have stage four cancer, then getting irate because an apple a day should have kept him away. Yet, here you are, and you’re getting devastating news.

When your doctor suggests chemo, you leave in a huff, telling him you’re just going to start eating two apples per day, which should fix everything.

Who’d have thought that my waking up a few minutes early yesterday and scribbling a few lines would ignite furor in folks the likes of which has not been seen since they found out the wrestling on television wasn’t real?

To clarify, because words, even simple, straightforward words such as mine, can be misconstrued, allow me to state the following:

1. No, you are not more special than the Apostles of old or the countless martyrs who died for the cause of Christ throughout the millennia in that you deserve an exemption from the axiom that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

2. Just because you stomp your feet and pitch a fit, it will not make God change His mind when it comes to being presented with a bride that is both without spot or wrinkle.

3. The people whose lives of excess you financed in return for telling you comforting lies will be nowhere to be found when you start living through the events they insisted you would never have to live through.

I know this may sound harsh, but the modern-day church is not a bride, resplendent in her finest attire, holy and pure, anxiously awaiting the object of her love and affection. The modern-day church is more akin to a gold digger who only sticks around because she’s playing an angle and thinks there’s some profit for her on the back end.

There is no faithfulness, no tenderness, no purity of devotion, just a means to an end, in this case, the end being an escape shuttle with the words heaven-bound spray painted on the side and some empty spinach cans hung on a string dragging behind.

What’s love got to do with it? We just want out and will raise to the heavens any man shameless enough to feed into our confirmation bias. I mean, sure, Jesus hung on a cross, but that was a while ago. What have You done for me lately? I raise my hand in church and even repeat, ‘this is my Bible’ before service if I’m not busy scrolling through Instagram. Surely that deserves a VIP pass to glory, bypassing all that persecution and tribulation stuff.

No, I’m not trying to convince anyone about anything. I’m just preemptively eliminating the excuse that no one loved you enough to tell you the truth from your future repertoire.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.