Cracks

 The most essential part of any house isn’t whether it’s built of brick, stone, stucco, or if the roof is metal. It’s not the wood flooring, sconces, appliances, or square footage; it’s the foundation. If the foundation isn’t up to par, eventually, the entire thing will get torn down because it is unsafe, and at some point, it will be condemned.

I’ve been to a few demolition sales in my life, and every time the reason for the demo was the foundation. The walls still looked okay to the naked eye, you could still walk through the house, and it seemed sturdy enough, but the foundation had cracks, and because it had gone beyond that, they were scheduled for destruction.

If cracks exist in a foundation, they can be exploited over time. If there are cracks in your spiritual foundation, the enemy is patient enough and wily enough to hammer at them until they grow and stretch, and your spiritual house becomes something other than the place of peace, joy, and intimacy with God that it should be.

Whatever men believe that is antithetical to Scripture is the crack that the enemy can exploit in their lives. He will use that one thing as a wedge, and a fulcrum to tear at your peace, your conviction, your steadfastness, and your commitment to the truth. He will employ the same tactics as he did with Eve, beginning with “Did God really say that” and ending with “But why would God not want you to be happy?”

When we use human reason to attempt to understand the mind of God, we will always conclude that God would not allow that or say that, or expect that, because it is detrimental to the flesh. Human reason is anchored in the flesh. It draws conclusions based on the flesh’s experiences, desires, and interests, and if it is not regenerated and has not been renewed, it will always war against the will and plan of God.

The flesh is selfish. The flesh is myopic. The flesh does not consider eternity, it does not consider godliness, and as long as it can feed its lusts and desires, it does not consider the consequences either. If faced with two competing ideas, the flesh will always gravitate toward the one that is less taxing and that requires less effort. Why do you think diet gurus and fat-loss pills are so popular? Even though you know deep down that you likely won’t lose fifty pounds in five days by just taking one pill every morning before breakfast, you still place the order because perhaps there’s a chance.

Deception always seems reasonable to the flesh. It always seems reasonable to human logic. Brother, God loves people too much to send anyone to hell, don’t you agree? No, I don’t agree because God said He would cast certain individuals into the outer darkness. He said there would be those who would be told to depart because He never knew them. There is a detailed description of the lake of fire and what happens there in the Bible, so although it may sound good to the flesh, you know it’s a lie because of what the Book says.

Jude 5, “But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.”

It seems as though you’ve forgotten about the severity of God, though you once knew of it, Jude says, and it’s time you were reminded of it because you are approaching God as something other than the omniscient, omnipotent Creator of all that He is.

We’ve been told that we’re on equal footing with God for so long in the modern age that we’ve lost our awe and wonder of Him. Even though the Book tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, we were reassured that we have nothing to fear, and so can do as we will when we will, and God will be more than content with the scraps of our lives even though we knew better lo’ these many years.

I’m going to give the devil my best years and give God the last few months before the dementia really ramps up, and voila, I get to name and claim my mansion in the sky. It’s the mindset far too many have today, and it is off-putting to God. That’s not love; that’s grift. That’s not faithfulness; that’s opportunism. It’s the undeniable abuse of grace that is a bane on the household of faith.

If I truly love someone, do I wait until I’m incontinent to show them that I love them? It would be like having met my wife in my early twenties and telling her, someday, baby, I’m going to put a ring on it. I’m going to marry you, but not quite yet; there are a few wild oats I need to sow, but hey, you wait for me, and in thirty or forty years, we’ll be together at last.

Men abuse the grace of God because they’ve been taught there are no consequences to doing so. In their minds, they serve a one-dimensional God incapable of anything other than love. You may not want to hear it, but I’m here to tell you that God gets angry, He is a consuming fire, and He makes no allowances for the lukewarm.

Take your temperature. Gauge whether you are hot or cold because if you fall into the lukewarm category, there’s nothing waiting for you than to be spewed out of His mouth. Not my words, His!  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.