Job XLII

 If a stranger were to approach either of my daughters, insisting that they’d seen me kicking a puppy, they’d call him a liar to his face because they know my character. They wouldn’t even entertain the thought or ask for evidence; they would know offhand that it was a lie and that there was no further need for debate.

As true children of God, there is not a shadow of doubt regarding God’s love, goodness, mercy, and grace because we know the character of the God we serve just as readily as my daughters know mine. Our reaction to trials and hardships, testing and chastening, reveals the level to which we know God. If God is established in your heart, and you acknowledge Him in all your ways, come what may, you will not be moved or shaken. The valleys may be uncomfortable, even painful to the flesh, but your assurance that God is working all things together for good to those who are called according to His purpose will remain resolute.

When we do not know the nature of the God we serve or have a limited understanding of it, then we will interpret the goings on of life in the worst possible light, likely growing bitter and hardened in our hearts along the way.

My little one is not what anyone may call overly cautious. She’s happy and carefree, as children should be for as long as you can manage it, but sometimes, as a father who wants the best for his children and is ever aware of the dangers lurking everywhere, I have to step in and keep her from doing something that will hurt her.

My daughters have a youth Bible study session at church every Wednesday night. I’m usually the one to take them since I like to give my wife a couple of hours of free time when no one’s calling her name every fifteen seconds, and she can decompress. Although both of my daughters know that they should look both ways before crossing the street, the little one is not as cautious when it comes to walking through parking lots. We’d parked in the church parking lot, and before I could turn off the engine, the little one was already out the door. I rushed to catch up, seeing as she was getting ready to sprint to the church door, and as I caught up to her and put my hand on her shoulder to stop her progress, a car zipped by, perhaps two feet from where she was now standing since I’d stopped her momentum.

She didn’t bristle or argue; she just turned her head, and with big eyes, realizing what could have happened had I not stopped her in her tracks, she said, ‘Sorry, Daddy.” Then she took my hand, and we walked into church.

We must allow for the reality that God sees the future far clearer than we, creations with limited understanding, can. In truth, unless we are giving divine insight or some prophetic revelation, we cannot know what the future holds for us as individuals. We have hopes, and we work toward goals, but as far as achieving them or things turning out the way we’d imagined, they rarely do. When God stops our forward momentum, our progress, or takes our hand and steers us away from something we’d intended to pursue, it’s not because He’s being mean or doesn’t want us to have good things, but because He sees the impending danger, and the tragedy that would befall us had we continued on our way.

Some people think they know better than God, so they resist His guidance. They push on, even though His hand is upon them, insisting that they stand still. They pursue their goals even though they are not in harmony with God’s plan for their life, then turn around and blame Him when it comes to ruin, and all that they’d worked and labored for, slips through their fingers like so much ash.

The same goes for when our level of maturity is tested. For every spiritual lesson there is a corresponding exam, and only once we’ve passed the exam can we graduate to the next lesson. If we fail to study to show ourselves approved, we get held back, just as one would get held back in the first grade if he failed to learn the alphabet. Granted, spiritually speaking, some people are still in first grade after decades of failing to learn the most basic or elementary principles of Christ, but that’s on them and not on God.  

Have we learned what we were meant to learn, or did we go through the lesson without applying any of the wisdom to our daily lives? Are we changed for the better? Do we see the world and our place in it through a more spiritually-centered prism? Are we striving for and seeking after the things above and not the things of this earth?

The testing determines the truth of it, and as is often the case, what is on our lips and what is in our hearts are two wholly different things. You can’t cheat your way out of God’s testing or have someone else take the exam for you.

God’s purpose is your maturity, your sanctification, your walking in faith, and the authority rightly due to His children. The reason you have to grow in order to be entrusted with greater responsibility, a greater calling, or a greater gifting is the same reason you don’t let a toddler play with a loaded gun. You need to know the rules, go through safety training, and be mature enough in your understanding to know that there is power in what you’ve been given, and it’s not to be abused, misappropriated, misused, or treated lightly.

Job was a man whom God deemed worthy of testing. The testing of one’s faith ought not to be looked upon as a negative or something to be begged off but as something God deems us worthy of. It’s an honor, a promotion, an achievement, and not a punishment or demotion.

It’s a difficult, almost counterintuitive mind-shift to embrace, especially given all the ignorant voices equating God’s testing with His punishment or reproof. Shortly after being beaten for preaching a risen Christ, the apostles departed from the presence of the council of the Pharisees, rejoicing that they had been counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.

If you are being tested, it’s because God finds you worthy of testing. If you are being chastened, it’s because God loves you, He sees you as a son or daughter, and He chastens those He loves. It may be uncomfortable, disconcerting, even painful in the moment, but the end result will be more of God and less of you, which is the ultimate goal of every believer.

Romans 5:3-5, “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character, and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job XLI

 When God asked Satan if he’d considered His servant Job, Satan did not feign ignorance or insist he knew not of what God spoke. Not once, but on two occasions, we see that Satan is aware of those who cling to faith, who walk upright, and who serve God just as readily as he is about those who are his or those who pretend to be of the household of faith but are not.

If you are a true servant of God, then you have a target on your back. Satan is fully aware of your faithfulness, just as God is, but while one rejoices in your faithfulness, the other is scheming and plotting ways to shatter it and destroy it. Far too many believers are walking about today, not fully cognizant of the lengths to which the enemy of their soul will go in his attempts to stall their commitment to walking in the way or stifle the fire of their love for God.

Ignorance of the enemy and his devices will likely cause an individual to be taken by surprise when the attacks commence, especially if they’ve been sitting under teaching that does not allow for the possibility of being tested, tried, attacked, or targeted.

Awareness of our enemy and the plots he schemes is directly related to our spiritual maturity and understanding of the spiritual warfare in which we are bound to engage if we continue walking in faith and growing in God. Neither of my daughters was naturally aware that fire was dangerous when they were babies. They had to be told not to touch a hot stove or a hot skillet, and when they’d ask the inevitable why, either their mother or myself would sit down and explain it to them. Fire burns. It doesn’t matter whether or not you are aware of its effects, and it does not spare someone who stuck their hand in it out of ignorance. Having to contend with scars for the rest of your life is a high price to pay in order to learn that fire is not to be played with, but some individuals are unwilling to learn from the mistakes of others and have to prove it to themselves.

Mature believers, especially those in leadership, such as elders or pastors, have the duty to warn those who are babes in Christ of the dangers the enemy poses and instruct them to guard their hearts against his devices. Not doing so is not an oversight but a failure of their spiritual duty toward the body of Christ, and something that will not go unnoticed by God.

We act as though we’re trying to sell a timeshare when preaching Christ, as though we have to trick people into signing on the dotted line and becoming active members of something that would otherwise not be worth it were it not for the prettied-up presentation. We feel as though we need to add extra value to what is already the best, most generous offer we will run across in a thousand lifetimes, thinking that we are doing God a favor or that we’re the ones nudging the individual toward a commitment of some kind.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Anything other than the Word of God may produce an emotional reaction, a temporary sense of remorse or regret of some kind, but it will not produce faith because faith can only come by hearing the Word. True conversion in Western nations is rarer than one might imagine for the simple fact that what is being preached from the pulpit today is not the Word of God, but the words of men made up to look like the Word of God, spoken with enough inflection and pregnant pauses that the newly initiated, or the outright ignorant can’t tell the difference between the two.

Although I’ve made this point repeatedly, some might even say excessively, I will make it anew: You must study to show yourself approved! You can’t outsource your knowledge of God’s word to another; you can’t hire an assistant to do it for you; it can’t be transferred to your heart via telekinesis or telepathy. You must sit with the word of God, read it, contemplate it, meditate upon it, let it feed you, take root in your heart, and nourish your faith.

Brother, tell me what I need to do to grow in God and deepen my faith. Read His word, pray, and spend time with Him. But I’m looking for a shortcut, something that won’t take up so much of my time. Isn’t there another way? No, there isn’t, and anyone who tells you differently is lying to you and, at some point in the future, will try to sell you some magic beans or a genie in a bottle.

It’s easy to focus solely on Job’s travails. All things being equal, it’s hard to look away. It’s like driving by a recent car crash on the other side of the road. You slow down, take a long look, make sure someone is there to help already, then close your eyes, breathe a sigh, and thank God it wasn’t you being extricated from a pile of twisted metal with the jaws of life.

We shouldn’t discount what Job suffered, but at the same time, as believers, we must focus on the perseverance of his faith and submission to God in all things far more readily than we would the loss of all things or the painful boils covering him from head to toe. Job’s reaction to all that befell him is a master class in placing one’s faith and trust in God and being unshakeable when it comes to the knowledge of His character. In order to endure what Job endured and come through it with your integrity intact, you must know the God you serve intimately and personally. Job hadn’t heard about God; he knew God. He hadn’t watched others worship Him; Job worshiped Him.

There is a tendency in our modern age to put men up on pedestals and think them spiritually superior, and there are plenty who take advantage of this esteem and make merchandise of those who see them with starry eyes and fluttering hearts. They lean into it and project an air of spirituality that they do not possess, doing such impeccable acting as to be worthy of an Oscar. As for the sheep, they come to believe that by giving a few shekels to someone whom they deem close to God, they themselves draw closer to God, not understanding that the only way to grow in God is to do it themselves.

You are not made righteous by another’s righteousness. You are not sanctified because someone you know or esteem is so. You’re not spiritually mature because you sit under the teaching of someone who is. There are no shortcuts, no cheat sheets, no mantras, no secret pathways, just a daily fellowship with God, spending time with Him, growing in Him, and learning to trust Him in all things. That’s how we get from where we are to having faith like Job. What many fail to understand is that such a faith isn’t optional for the believer but necessary in the days ahead.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job XL

Specialists in the area of breaking the human will have concluded that everyone has a breaking point. You can’t hold out indefinitely. Eventually, the pain becomes too much, the privation too intense, and something snaps. You relent. You give in. You tell the interrogator what he wants to know, and some besides just to make it stop. This is by no means a new revelation. It’s been common knowledge among those whose profession is to hurt others in varied and ever-crueler ways for a very long time. This is why the fortitude, perseverance, tenacity, and grit of the Christians baffled the Communists so. They were supposed to relent, they were supposed to break, they were supposed to give up the ghost and tell their torturers what they wanted to hear, yet they didn’t.

For many, it was a long road to martyrdom, nothing so swift as a guillotine or a bullet to the back of the head because they had information their persecutors needed in order to ferret out their brothers and sisters in Christ and stamp out this obstinate resistance to the system. It’s how they viewed believers, not because they were overtly political or partisan, but because their hope in Christ eliminated the need to be dependent on the current power structure, and that, in turn, weakened their control over them.

What those who doled out merciless pain didn’t understand is that those they were persecuting had hope and faith in the God they served. Those were the unquantifiable factors that allowed common men to endure uncommon hardships, all the while deepening their bond of love and devotion with the God they served. They understood that whatever hardship they had to endure was temporary. The pain, the tears, the cold, the hunger, the dehumanization rituals that were a favorite of the old regime couldn’t last forever.

Sometime in the 1950s, an experiment was conducted by a professor at Johns Hopkins that attempted to quantify the power of hope. The professor’s name was Curt Richter, and he used rats for his experiment. He took a group of rats, put them in water, and timed how long it took them to drown. I know, cruel, perhaps needlessly so, but bear with me.

Then he took another group of rats, put them in water, and just as they were about to drown, pulled them out. He allowed them to rest, then put them back in the water, and to his surprise, the rats that had been saved, having returned to the water, swam for far longer than those who had never known the hope of being plucked from the water and jubilation of being saved.

Believers endure and persevere because they have faith and hope in the God who saved them. They know what it is to be on the brink of death, drowning in sin, and to be plucked from the depths by His loving hand. We go on when others give up, and we endure when others surrender because we know our hope is not misplaced and our faith is not without substance. Our prior experience of having been given life through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross solidifies our hope and faith that God is able, He will make a way, and He can do the impossible.

No matter how violent the storm or how strong the waves buffeting us, our attitude must always be one of trust and full assurance in the God we serve. God is in control. It is a sentiment that has been echoed by every true servant throughout the ages whenever faced with circumstances deemed impossible by others.

We can’t get around the reality that faith involves putting yourself at risk by acting on what you have confidence in. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood before an enraged Nebuchadnezzar, they had confidence that their God was able to preserve them, keep them, and save them. Whether He would or not was another matter entirely, but they’d made their peace that whether God saved them or they succumbed to the flames, He was still God, and they would remain faithful.

The only assurance they had was that God was God, and He would continue to remain God even after the events that would transpire, whether He chose to keep them from becoming human torches or supernaturally spare their lives. Their faith in God’s omnipotence was unwavering even though they stood before a king and his assembled acolytes, with the flames of a raging furnace within view.

It’s one thing to be threatened with some future, potential punishment; it’s another to watch the fire and know that the man threatening to cast you in it has both the power, authority, and inclination to do so. It wasn’t hypothetical; it was actual, factual, and real. They did not doubt Nebuchadnezzar’s resolve; they trusted in the power of the God they served.

You can’t quantify faith and hope. You can’t bottle them up and sell them, and acquiring them requires a lifelong commitment to obeying the will and Word of God in all things. Faith and hope begin as infants, and with diligent nurture and attention, they grow to maturation, just like a child would.

When we begin the journey, we have faith in the little things because our faith is small. It is alive, a substantive thing, and we can feel it in our hearts, but the more we exercise it, stretch it, feed it, and lean on it, the more it grows. As your faith grows, you learn to walk in it with ever greater boldness, looking back on the road you traveled and seeing the countless times it kept you surefooted and upright.

By the time Job’s trial came his faith in God had fully matured. He’d served God, worshiped Him, and fellowshipped with Him for many years before Satan asked to sift him, and we know this because, by the time of his testing, he already had ten fully grown children living on their own. Satan was as befuddled as the torturers of the old regime as to why this man’s faith held strong, and he did not waiver because even though the demons believe and tremble, they cannot possess salvific faith.

It’s easy to conflate belief and faith, but they are not the same. Faith involves reliance and trust. Faith endures in the face of trial and doubt. Belief, on the other hand, is something we take to be true. You may believe you can walk on water, but Peter had the faith to step from the shore and walk toward Jesus upon the waves. That’s what faith does. It keeps you pressing onward even when your sense of self-preservation and all available physical evidence is screaming that you should turn around. Faith takes us from the realm of the impossible to that of all things being possible with God.

Jude 20-21, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job XXXIX

 Although I will not set out to answer such impossible questions as to which came first, the chicken or the egg, there is something that stood out in the life of Job that is an indispensable lesson for every believer and something that should quell the back and forth between the camps that have formed within the church, who tragically spend more time at each other’s throats than preaching a risen, glorified Christ.

Job’s goal and purpose were never to be an upright and blameless man. The desire of Job’s heart was to serve God, worship Him, and walk in the fear of the Lord. Blamelessness and uprightness are naturally occurring virtues in the lives and hearts of those who seek to know God and worship Him. The beginning of every journey must have a destination in mind. Otherwise, we are but vagabonds going to and fro on the highways and byways of life without purpose or vision.

When we begin our journey of faith, our goal isn’t a better version of the old man but a reborn, transformed, new creation that naturally gravitates toward the good, the noble, and the light. It’s not the old thing, prettied up and made to look like a new thing; it’s actually a whole new thing. Because our minds have been renewed, and our old desires have been replaced with the new, we don’t have to force ourselves to spend time in God’s presence, read His word, serve Him, or glorify Him. These things are not looked upon as chores or tasks we would rather someone else perform in our stead but as the pinnacle of our day and the one thing we’re most excited to do upon waking. The best part of waking up isn’t Folgers in your cup; it’s getting to spend time with Jesus and have fellowship with Him.

Easy for you to say you’ve got the extra time. As I type these words, it is 3:17 AM, and I’ve been up for a solid hour already, just spending time with God and reading a few verses out of Romans. Is my point that I’m more spiritual than you? Hardly. My point is that every morning, I forfeit a couple of hours of extra sleep just to have the quiet time with God because I prioritize that experience over a bit of extra slumber. If you can’t seem to find time for God on a given day, you’re not trying hard enough. Either that or He isn’t as high on your list of priorities as you might think.

Because we want to instill values, morals, a solid work ethic, and personal accountability in our daughters, my wife and I have come up with a list of family contributions for which every member of the family is responsible. Whether it’s emptying the dishwasher, setting the table, vacuuming, taking out the trash, doing laundry, or folding clothes, each of us has a daily task that needs to be completed. To see my daughters’ faces when it comes time to do their family contribution, one would think they’re starting their twelve-hour shift at the iPhone factory and not taking two minutes to put some plates away. Many believers have the same attitude when it comes to spending time with God, in His presence, or in His word.

If we use every excuse under the sun not to spend time with God and worship Him, if we find ever more inventive reasons not to take the time to read and meditate on His word, then I think it’s fair to ask whether we are aware that the heaven we’re so eager to go to is God’s habitation, and He will be there in perpetuity.

If you set out to be a ‘good person’ rather than know God, you’ve lived a wasted life, and your goodness, however noble in the eyes of your contemporaries, will be as filthy rags when you stand before the Creator of all that is.

If, however, you set out to be wholly committed to the way and cling to God and His grace no matter what may be going on around you, the transformation into a blameless and upright man will occur without you having to force it, dwell on it, or squint your eyes and hold your breath until it occurs.

The presence of God compels transformation. Some men are quick to denounce it as works salvation, but it’s God transforming you, not you transforming yourself. The only thing incumbent upon you as an individual is to not resist the potter as he molds the clay that is you. It’s hard for us to wrap our minds around the fact that we don’t get to choose the shape we’re molded into, nor do we get to choose what we are filled with once the molding and firing is complete.

The notion that we can make demands of God both in terms of what we want to end up as and what gifting we want to receive from His hand is a fairy tale opportunists tell gullible people to try and get them to buy their course on unlocking their prophetic superpowers.

Yes, we are to desire spiritual gifts, especially that we prophesy but it doesn’t mean that we’ll get what we want. We get what God deems as necessary for the body, whether that’s prophesy, wisdom, healing, knowledge, tongues, discernment, or interpretation of tongues.

I did not choose the area of ministry I would serve in; I just chose to serve. I would have been just as happy rubbing Pine-Sol into the pews of an old country church if I knew I was where God wanted me to be. When your singular purpose and desire is to serve God, when He is firmly established on the throne of your heart, then everything else comes into focus. All the baggage, all the aspirations, all the plans and planning fall by the wayside, and the only thing that remains in perpetuity is daily following after Him.

For those who are still trying to build a ministry, a church, or a reputation on their own, the most liberating feeling you will ever experience is surrendering it to God, leaving it in His care, and putting your hand to the plow wherever He puts you in His harvest field.

There were no underhanded schemes, feigned worship to achieve some goal down the line, or lip service as far as Job’s commitment to God and His sovereignty are concerned. He was authentically worshipful and desirous of the presence of God in his life and prioritized these things above all else.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job XXXVIII

 The devil is shameless. Even when he knows he’s been beaten, even when he knows he’s lost, he doubles down and continues with his machinations in the hope that he can sway the faithful and bring them harm. Empathy is as foreign to him as algebra is to a pet hamster, and he does not seek to tamp down his hatred of God’s people. When it suits him, he will attempt to mask it, hide it, or slip a sheep mask over his wolf snout, but as far as wanting to change, there is no desire for such things.

Satan pulled no punches when it came to Job, yet through it all, Job did not sin with his lips. Pressure reveals the true character of a man. When he gets blindsided, what’s in his heart flows forth from his lips. We’ve all seen exchanges between people who seem affable and cool as cucumbers get needled to the point of letting their mask slip, then the claws come out in quick fashion, and the things that come out of their mouth are wholly antithetical to the image they tried to project. Job did not sin with his lips because he had God in his heart. It is a lesson well worth learning, given that we see the tailspins some individuals go into and the things they say they later apologize for but, in the heat of the moment, fail to control.

Job was at his most vulnerable. He was likely still processing all that had happened to him, mourning, grieving, dealing with the pain of his boils, then his wife all but calls him a fool for holding on to his integrity and suggesting he’d be better off dead.

It is said you can only push a man so far. In Job’s case, he could be pushed no further. Satan had been commanded to spare his life, and this was the only reason Job was still breathing, but as far as living, far from it. Being alive and living are two different things. You’re technically alive if you’re drawing breath, but if you’re laying on a pile of ashes, pain wracking your body, it’s more akin to surviving than living. It’s a hard thing to imagine, going from being the greatest of all the people of the East one day, then sitting on an ash pile scratching at your boils with a potsherd the next, with your wife being used by the enemy to encourage you to pack it in, curse God, and die.

This is the sort of pressure that turns coals into diamonds, the type of pressure about which stories are told, and the men who persevere through it are seen as heroes of the faith and examples worthy of emulating.

Comfort and ease of life make men soft and given enough time, living a life of ease tends to make one forget that trials, tribulations, and hardships are only a breath away. When the sun is shining, we tend not to appreciate the value of a life vest, but come the storm and the battering waves, come the howling winds and the sheeting rain, we’re quick to strap it on, tighten the fasteners, and prepare for the worst.

Analogously speaking, some have had it so good for so long, and their life preservers have been out of mind for so many years that they failed to notice they’d gotten moldy and rotten, and when they reach for them, they crumble between their fingers. Most men remember God in their times of hardship, but up until that point, they’ve ignored their relationship with Him for so long that when they need Him, they discover He has become little more than a stranger or a long-forgotten acquaintance.

The authenticity of our relationship with God is readily discerned when we hold fast to Him, serve Him, and worship Him during our season of plenty as readily and wholeheartedly as we do in our time of distress. When men run to God only when they need something from Him, it denotes an underlying lukewarmness and an underhanded usury, wherein they don’t spare Him a second thought until they need Him to intervene on some matter or another.

God is beyond being deceived by situational affection. I love you, Lord, now fix this problem for me. But where were you when there were no problems in sight? Where were you when all was well, things were running smoothly, and the focus of your existence was yourself?

You can’t fake loyalty and faithfulness to God. He sees through the charade readily enough. He sees all that resides within the hearts of men, whether true love or duplicity, obedience or feigned allegiance, and nothing is hidden from Him.

The intent of the heart matters. It’s the reason God called David a man after His own heart, even though he was flawed in many ways. David was not a perfect man, far from it. Unlike Job, God never looked upon David and deemed him blameless and upright. However, through all of his ups and downs, David’s singular desire remained to be pleasing in the sight of the Lord and to have a genuine and reciprocal relationship with Him. When David sinned, he repented. When God called him out on his failures, David did not deny it or try to justify it but humbled himself in the sight of the Lord and felt genuine remorse for what he’d done.  

The Word of God serves as both His love letter to mankind as well as an instruction manual for His creation. We have both positive and negative examples, virtues and practices we should strive for, and flaws and shortcomings we should avoid and steer clear of. We have the benefit of aggregate wisdom spanning thousands of years in a handy volume we can carry anywhere and read at any time. It is a grace most don’t appreciate and do not avail themselves of except superficially, taking little account of all the sacrifices made throughout the centuries so that they could possess that book that’s been gathering dust on a side table for months without once being cracked open.

When it stands before God, one day, this generation will be without excuse. Especially those who have lived in freedom to the point that they’ve abused it, taken it for granted, and begun to pine for the shackles others bled and died to be free of. God doesn’t judge on a curve. He judges according to His standard, which is immutable.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Aftermath

 I’ve never been happier to be wrong. It’s like thinking you’re having a heart attack, and all it was is indigestion from the slice of gas station pizza you scarfed down because you hadn’t eaten in a day, and your stomach was starting to sound like one of the brass bands that frequent the French Quarter in New Orleans on Sundays.

For those thinking it’s over and blue skies paint the horizon as far as the eye can see, not even close, but at least we won’t have to hear that Rachel Lavine is a brave and beautiful woman or that pronouns trump accomplishments, that gender outweighs ability, or that the way to a glorious future is the indiscriminate murder of the unborn, at least not for a little while.

Evidently, enough people showed up, hoping against hope, that their vote mattered, wherein they beat the spread. It’s not as though they didn’t try their hardest, but you could only do so much with what you’ve been handed, and a guy on crutches with a torn Achilles can’t be expected to be the deciding factor in a soccer game.

Jaded as the following may sound, there are still seventy-five days until inauguration day, and a lot can happen between now and then. The game has now shifted into overdrive. Those currently in power understand the existential threat the current projected winner of the 2024 presidential elections and the rogue's gallery of competent, accomplished, and motivated individuals he’s surrounded himself with this time around pose to permanent Washington and the deep-seated animus they have toward the unelected bureaucrats ruling and pulling strings from the shadows.

They are now backed into a corner with nothing left to lose, and the thought of what’s best for the country is the farthest thing from their mind. Havoc and chaos are two words that come to mind when I think about the next two and a half months, and once again, I hope from the depths of my heart that I am wrong.

Unlike many this morning, I am not in a celebratory mood; I’m just breathing a sigh of relief, being cautiously optimistic about being given a little more time to do what I’ve been called to do and not have to hand out charcoal pills to my girls every morning before they enjoy their squirrel ragout. A thing delayed is not a thing denied. A thing forestalled is just that. It has been put off but not reversed.

Band-aids on bullet wounds may staunch the bleeding for a while, but you still need to contend with the wound itself. There are no easy fixes, no magic wands, or other levers anyone can pull that will fix what’s been broken for decades on end. Spiritual problems cannot be fixed politically, no matter who’s in charge, but as I’ve stated before, being left alone to serve God and raise my children is enough of an incentive for me. That I won’t have someone with pink hair and a septum piercing knocking at my door asking why I’m not flying the rainbow flag, that transgender ideology won’t be mandated in my daughters’ school curriculum, or that the local burger joint won’t be offering a free abortion with the purchase of a happy meal, is a good thing. That’s as far as my expectations extend, and anything beyond that is a boon.

Globalism may have lost this battle, but those in the shadows are still fully intent on fighting the war to the last. For those who insist this election was inconsequential, look at the reactions of those pushing various depraved agendas over the next few weeks, and you’ll understand that it wasn’t.

We will resume our study of Job shortly. With this new wrinkle, we may still be around long enough to finish it. In all things, God’s will be done, and to Him be the glory.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Crossroads

You can either curse the darkness or light a candle. I heard that somewhere once, and it stuck. When in full dark, with no moon or stars to bleed a little light into the murk, even a flickering, sputtering candle will push back the cloying darkness enough for it not to seem a tangible thing, pressing in all around you. We’d all rather have a spotlight or a flashlight with enough lumens to burn our shadow into a neighboring tree, but sometimes you have to use what’s at your disposal, and a half-used wax candle is all we’ve got.

The thing about darkness is that it hates any light whatsoever, including something as seemingly innocuous as a flickering candle. Light is light, and it seeks to extinguish it no matter how small and infrequent it might be. Once it can convince enough people to give up their candles voluntarily, it will inevitably try to take those remaining by force.

I grew up in a Communist country for the first nine years of my life. My parents and grandparents lived under the regime for much longer. I know what it becomes when it’s fully implemented in a nation where the people no longer have a voice, a choice, or a means of redress for the abuse they endure at the hands of those with a chip on their shoulder and an inferiority complex.

I’ve heard enough stories and spoken to enough people about what it was like to know the lengths to which those in power will go to retain the power they’ve amassed and how they view everyone except their inner circle as disposable fodder for the utopia they’ve envisioned that will never materialize because human nature is what it is, and hedonism is alive and well.

This is why I chuckle at those who’ve never lived it pining for the equity of Socialism or Communism. Although with their lips, they say the only thing they’ve ever wanted was equality, in their hearts, they echo George Orwell's sentiment, insisting that some animals are more equal than others. Serendipitously, they never see themselves as the inferior animals. It’s always you and I, the people who just want to be left alone to raise their children and serve their God, who derive joy from something other than power or possessions that are deemed less than.

Those who tried to exterminate Christians and Christianity did so not because they held some special hatred toward Jesus but because Jesus gave men hope, and they didn’t like the competition. The system wants exclusive rights to hope, and anything standing in the way of total dependence on the government must be excised and done away with.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. That’s the price of ignorance, and eventually, everyone must pay it. By the time enough people realize what their nation has become, it’s too late to do anything about it except go along, hoping that you won’t be singled out by the machine and have your life turned inside out, villainized, and demonized for not going along with every twisted thing a finite minority now deems as the new normal.

Even though people were starving, being abused, sent to labor camps, imprisoned, tortured, and having everything the system deemed excessive seized on a whim, Nicolae Ceausescu still managed to get 99% of the votes when they were all counted, but even that wasn’t good enough. After every election, they would release the hounds to find that 1% who dared not comply and reeducate them in very violent ways. The 99% were used as the undeniable proof that the 1% were just rabble-rousers and needed to be dealt with lest the 1% turn into 2% come the next election cycle.

As I sat in my chair sipping my coffee this morning, I was left with three choices: say nothing and pretend as though we are not at a crossroads, be hyper-pious and acknowledge the situation for what it is but insist that all I’m willing to do is watch the darkness encroaching, or share my heart knowing that some will take it the wrong way and judge me for it.

The possibility that America can be saved is not on the table. It hasn’t been for quite some time. Judgment is coming, so the only variable left to consider is when. If I can have another four years of watching my daughters grow up in relative peace and continue to do the work to which God has called me, being left alone and not being forced to bend the knee or suffer the consequences of my refusal, then I will make an effort to light my candle, though some within the household of faith may deem it unseemly. Yes, it’s a gnarled, half-burned, wax-laden candle, but it’s still a candle and can produce a bit of light. I will not forfeit my right to push back against the darkness, even if, in the aggregate, it’s but a flicker.

Will it do anything to change the course of this nation? Likely not, but neither will cursing the darkness and being unwilling to do anything to halt its progression. I will not be a coward. I will not. I don’t think I could bear looking my daughters in the face if I were.

Sometimes in life, you have to take a stand, even against overwhelming odds. It’s not because you think you’ll win, but because it’s the right thing to do. Who knows? Perhaps someone will see your boldness, and another theirs, and eventually, enough people stand up and shake off the dust that they bring the fight to the enemy and give him a run for his money.

I write the following with a heavy heart: The day will come, and sooner than some may think, when those who stood on the sidelines and did nothing will wish they had, but it will be too late.

We will return to our journey through Job shortly. For now, remember that those who despise the God you serve have no love for you either. You cannot hate one’s Master but love His servants, no matter how much they try to convince you otherwise. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.         

Job XXXVII

 The more we draw near to God, the more we grow in Him, the more we see our own wretchedness and those areas in our lives that must be pruned and tended to. Since we’ve become fans of labeling everything, the term that has been coined for this continual maturing and growing in righteousness is progressive sanctification. Daily, we become more like Him; daily, our desires, aspirations, goals, and ambitions are transformed because the more of Him we know, the more humbled we are by His love and grace.

We are being transformed, and daily so, from glory to glory, and that which we took pleasure in yesterday becomes as a bitter taste in our mouth today because we realize it is hindering our walk with Him.

What should be more troubling than world events or politics to some today is the reality that they’ve been in a static spiritual state for years, if not decades. They have not grown, matured, or been transformed but are the same as they ever were, the only difference being a fish sticker on their car. It may not be spiritual death, but it’s close enough, and the more time passes that they remain in that inert state, the colder their hearts become toward the things of God.

The pinnacle of your spiritual maturity isn’t when you surrender your heart to Christ; that’s just the beginning of a lifelong journey, and with each passing day, your spiritual man must become more robust, your faith more steadfast, and your walk more surefooted. It took a lifetime of Job walking with God, knowing Him, and serving Him for him to be able to hold fast to his integrity when his trial buffeted him. Had he not prioritized his relationship with God over all else, we may have never been privy to the story of Job or his faithfulness in the bleakest of circumstances.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18, “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Men abuse liberty just as they abuse grace, not understanding that the message Paul was trying to send to the Corinthians via his second letter wasn’t permission to do as they willed but rather a reminder that although they had liberty, lest they forget, the natural progression of an individual is to be transformed into the image of the Lord, from glory to glory.

When men refuse to put away childish things, any excuse will do. They’ll butcher scripture, take it out of context, twist it to say something it clearly doesn’t, all because their sin is more important to them than serving, worshipping, and knowing God. That’s the reality of it. They forfeit the knowledge of God for the momentary, fleeting pleasures of life but still have the temerity to insist that they are walking in His will because they have liberty.

If Job had been looking for an excuse to give up, one was within reach. He could have deemed his trials undeserved, too harsh for a loving God to allow, or not what he signed up for, but instead, he held fast to his integrity and worshipped God.

Even when his wife came up with the brilliant idea that he should curse God and die, he didn’t react in anger, browbeat her, or demand that she remove herself from his presence. Even at his lowest, as she poured salt into the open wounds, his character remained intact, and his response was in accordance with it.

Job 2:10, “But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”

We know next to nothing about Job’s life up until the point the enemy asked to sift him. By then, he’d already amassed a great fortune, had ten children, and oversaw a large household. Given the time of Job, however, it would not be a stretch to conclude that he was a hard man, as all the men of that time needed to be in order to survive, yet when he addressed his wife, even though she’d been used by the enemy to try and get him to curse God, he spoke to her with a tenderness inherent in decades-long marriages the world over. It may be a small, often overlooked thing, but having been married for a quarter of a century, come next June, his tenderness toward his wife even as he sat in ashes, covered in painful boils, and scratching himself with a potsherd, speaks volumes to me.

He didn’t berate her, call her an idiot, scream at her, or strike her as was common in those days, but inferred he was surprised that she would speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Job thought much of his wife, the mother of his children, and he couldn’t reconcile her words with the woman with whom he’d shared his life.

The transformative power of God extends to every area of our lives. It’s not just in the consistency of worship but in how we interact with those around us, whether disagreeable spouses, snarky progeny, obtuse bosses, or angry neighbors. It’s that transformation into the likeness of Christ that those who knew us while we were still of the world notice and react to first before we even get a chance to tell them about Jesus.

My grandfather’s brother was neither a kind nor gentle man while he was still of the world. He was gruff, barrel-chested, with a short fuse and calloused knuckles. Violence was his go-to, no matter the situation, and any perceived sleight was enough to set him off. That he was a heavy drinker, what some may deem a functioning alcoholic nowadays, didn’t help matters either. Then he encountered Jesus, surrendered his life to Him, and he was a man transformed, a new man, in every sense of the word. He stopped drinking, cursing, being short-tempered and easily offended, and the man who once stirred so much fear in the hearts of others as to make them cross the street if they saw him coming now smiled, and laughed, and asked others if they needed help for no other reason than to be helpful.

Every time I went back to Romania after the revolution, I’d make it a point to visit the village I grew up in, and it was inevitable that I would hear stories of the Duduman boys and their rebellious years, each story ending with the requisite, “You should have seen them when they were young. I can’t believe it’s the same person.”

It’s not that I didn’t believe the core of the stories; I just thought they were a bit exaggerated until one day, I was in a Zody’s department store parking lot with my grandfather. Zody’s was a discount version of K-Mart back in the day, which in its own right had been a discount version of Montgomery Ward. My grandmother had bought him a Botany 500 shirt from there, a brand which by that time had fallen out of favor, and they had them on clearance for a whopping three dollars. He liked the feel and fit of it, so we went back to get a few more.

As we were getting ready to leave, a man began to yell something about denting his Volkswagen Beetle, parked a few spots away from our car, even though we hadn’t gone near it. My grandfather asked what the man wanted, and I told him. My grandpa shook his head, and we turned to leave, but the man just kept yelling and started walking toward us.

I’d never seen the other side of my grandfather, the side I’d heard stories about. He’d been a believer for many years by the time I came along, and all I’d ever known was the gentle side of him, but as the man came closer, yelling and wagging his finger, I saw my grandfather’s jaw muscles working and a look flash in his eyes that I’d never seen before. He didn’t bunch his fists or peacock; he didn’t become outwardly aggressive, just a look passing over his face, and evidently, the man saw it too because he stopped midstride, raised his hands, and said, “You know what, sorry, perhaps I was mistaken,” then turned and walked to his car.

It was years later that I realized the old man was trying to wiggle off the cross, and though my grandfather had always been the gentlest man I’ve ever known, his capacity for violence was real and true, lending credence to all the stories I’d heard.

That’s what the Spirit of the Lord does: He inhabits, and He transforms, from glory to glory, continually molding us into His likeness.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job XXXVI

We often romanticize the Christian walk. Especially in our day and age, rather than portraying it as warfare, we tend to sing of holding hands with Jesus and walking side by side or staring dreamily into His eyes. Perhaps it’s because, for the few minutes, we’re crooning about sweet nothings, the sting of what it means to stand and having done all to stand isn’t quite so pronounced, but we dare not live in an environment of puffy clouds and flower-strewn meadows lest the enemy sneak up on us unaware and hamstring our resolve with one swipe of his claws.

Even those who teach it seem to have never done it because how they frame and present walking in the way seems so carefree and effortless that it evokes thoughts of summer frolics in the grass and windswept sands upon a beach.

Raise your hand right where you are, repeat these words, and you’re in the clear. A catchall cure-all for whatever ails you, and all you have to do is send in a tithe check!

But what about striving to enter through the narrow gate? What about many being called but few chosen? What about endurance and perseverance? We poll-tested those talking points, and they didn’t do so well with our audience. Prosperity, though, is off the charts and popular with every age demographic.

But what of the gospel and rightly dividing the Word? Well, you see, in order to spread the gospel, we must have money, and in order to get money, we must preach another gospel until we get enough money to go forth and preach the real gospel. You wouldn’t understand. By the way, you’re late on your tithe check. That’s two strikes. If we get to three, we’ll disfellowship with you and call you Ichabod.

Yes, I exaggerate to make a point, but just barely. The reason true faith is no longer discussed in many churches and the Christian walk is not presented in its true light is because, gullible as some of the sheep may be, the inconsistency between the message and the lifestyle of the messenger will be too obvious.

There he goes with his poverty mindset again. If that’s what you got from it, you missed the point entirely. I begrudge no man who works hard and is rightly compensated for his labors, but even the rich must contend with the reality that the spiritual man, the spiritual walk, and the eternity that beckons with every breath must be prioritized over this present life and material possessions. Job is the constant reminder that wealth is not a replacement for God. Not even close. If we can’t muster more energy seeking God than we do seeking earthly comforts, our priorities are skewed and improperly ranked.

We don’t live to work; we work to live, to earn our daily bread, but the overarching purpose of our endeavors must be serving God and serving people. You can easily spot the self-serving among the household of faith because they always seem to be the tip of the funnel of what has become a spiritualized form of a pyramid scheme. 

Because the hearts of those tasked with offering spiritual succor are tethered to the things of this earth, and seeking the things above comes second to their seeking the things of this earth, they are reticent in presenting the true gospel. If they were to speak the truth and tell people that the Christian walk is warfare and battle, wounds and bruises, but that through it all, God will be there to carry you through, you’d likely get a few raised eyebrows wondering how Bishop, Pastor, or Apostle are doing warfare from behind the wheel of a Bentley or a McLaren.

Some of the brasher ones might come up with the narrative that they need a fast car to run the devil over in the spirit, but rather than have to explain why every minute of their day seems to be focused on the here, the now, and their physical comfort, they’ll beat the prosperity drum until there’s nothing left to beat.

Job was rich one day, then destitute the next. He had seven sons and three daughters whom he loved enough to bring burnt offerings on behalf of one day, then buried what remained of them the next after being crushed by the house they were in. He was healthy one day and covered in painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Through it all, Job held fast to his integrity.

If you don’t particularly like roller coasters but you got on one because you didn’t want your ten-year-old daughter to think you a coward, then you have an idea of what holding fast means. It’s not a passive action; it is an active one. You cling to that bar in front of you for all you’re worth because if you were meant to corkscrew and loop-di-loop, God would have given you wings and the ability to fly.

The enemy’s attacks will always be aimed at separating you from your integrity. There will always be the temptation to make a compromise, small and subtle at first, but if you relent and make it, the temptation for ever greater compromises will be short in coming. Hold fast to faith, hold fast to hope, hold fast to your integrity and the Word of God, even if everything around you is trying to pull you away.

It’s a lot like being on the aforementioned roller coaster but without a safety harness. The centrifugal force of it is constantly pulling at you, and all you have is that shiny metal bar across your lap that you’re holding onto for dear life, for to let go would spell ruin. You know it’s a passing thing. You know the ride will end in thirty or forty seconds, but until it does, until it comes to a screeching stop, you hang on.

One of the most destructive lies being repeated from pulpits throughout the denominational panoply is that the Christian walk is an easy, carefree prospect, requiring little or nothing of us as individuals. The Word itself proves these men liars, whether the Old or New Testaments, because to the last, every man of substance that was singled out each had some form of hardship to contend with, some sort of trial to overcome, and some challenge through which they had to persevere and hold fast to the integrity they possessed. Giving up is easy, but it’s not right. Giving up is only an option for those who as yet fail to understand that this is a life-or-death struggle with nothing in between. Either we live for Him, in Him, and through Him, and die to the word, or we live for the world and are dead toward God. No man can serve two masters. Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job XXXV

 There are only so many keys on a piano and only so many ways to make a quiche. Although you can add ingredients to the recipe, the base ingredients remain predictably similar. Although grand compositions can be played on a piano, the base notes never change. It’s the way in which they are arranged and the skill with which they are played that grips one’s attention and that makes a concert either memorable or something soon forgotten.

Although the enemy is quick to add a wrinkle or two when it comes to his attacks on the household of faith, three primary and indispensable ingredients are always included in the mix because they are the most effective by far. There’s the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. These are the three mainstays the enemy uses as his vehicles of attack, and knowing this, we must do our utmost to guard against them.

While the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes weren’t on the table as far as Job was concerned because he’d already proven he was an upright and blameless man, the pride of life was what the enemy focused on, thinking this would be his way in.

Satan wrongly assumed that since Job was the greatest of all the people of the East, his identity and purpose were wrapped up in his possessions and that he leaned on them rather than God for his peace and joy. If the enemy believes that you draw your strength from anything other than God, he will attack that thing. He will do so repeatedly, mercilessly, and inventively, believing that if the position or possession is brought to ruin, then your faith in God and His goodness will be shaken and shattered.

We’ve all known people who were so wrapped up in a title they held or a possession they’d acquired that when the thing they focused on, sacrificed for, and obsessed over for so long began to crumble under the weight of its own design, they grow bitter toward God, rejecting the way, and hardening their hearts. If your hope is rooted in the fleeting and insubstantial, you have no abiding hope. If what animates you and gives you purpose are the things of this earth, once they are shaken, shattered, and are no more, all you’ll have left is that hollow, empty feeling that becomes a constant companion.

When God is your everything when He alone satisfies the longing of your soul, then come what may, as long as you have Him, cling to Him, and follow Him, you will not be shaken or broken upon the rocks of life.

Tragedy befalls all men. The one choice we have is how we react to it. When I was younger, I sang in a choir and played guitar in church. It was back before the days of the interwebs, where all the information you ever wanted to know about any given subject was just a few clicks away, but I made it a point to research how certain hymns we sang in church had come about and originated.

While Hillsong is the flavor du jour for most today, I still gravitate toward the old hymns that have a message which resonates and that isn’t so vague as to be interchangeable with a love ballad lip-synced by an over-the-hill crooner. I figured there had to be something more than writing out a few verses to songs that, over the years, had been translated into hundreds of languages, Romanian included.

The first song I researched was Amazing Grace, which, it turns out, was written by a formerly foul-mouthed slaver named John Newton, who, once converted, became an abolitionist and preacher.

The second song I spent endless hours discovering the history of was “It is Well With My Soul,” which was penned by a man with a story very similar to Job’s. It was written by a man named Horatio Spafford, a devout Christian who also happened to be a lawyer and businessman. He’d lost most of his real estate holdings in the great Chicago fire, then his four daughters in a shipwreck, and from the depths of his soul, he penned the lyrics to a song that would stand the test of time and be a comfort to many who found themselves traversing the valleys of life.

It is a grace beyond words to have the wherewithal to cling to Jesus in the midst of trial, knowing that while the storms of life will pass, Jesus will remain ever steadfast, faithful, and true.

Just as Paul would verbalize thousands of years later, Job had his priorities well established, and God came first, always, without fail, no matter the circumstance or situation. We have countless testimonies spanning millennia wherein men and women persevered and overcame not because there was something inherently special in their family tree or their upbringing but because they made the conscious decision to steadfastly cling to God no matter what they faced.

Looking at their life stories in the aggregate, one readily concludes that martyrdom might not be so bad after all. I know where I’m going when this journey is done. It is well with my soul, no matter what may come. Do not let fear of tomorrow keep you from worshipping God today or the concerns of this life keep you from cementing your relationship with Him.

There is a permanence in God that stretches beyond this present life into eternity. We squander so much time focusing on the temporal while giving the eternal so little attention when eternity is all that matters.

Where is your treasure? Who is your treasure? The answer to these all-important questions will determine whether your testimony will be one of a conqueror or a cautionary tale of one who has been conquered.

Philippians 3:8, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.