Growing in Christ Part 4

2 Peter 1:2-4, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

I wanted to include all three verses for the sake of continuity, and now that we’ve done that, we can proceed to digging deeper and taking the passage piece by piece to see the truths it holds and the lessons it would teach us.

‘Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord’

One of the first things I noticed as I read through this passage is what it was Peter wished upon the brethren, and those who shared in like faith. It was not health, wealth, prosperity, or blessing, but rather grace and peace.

If we presume that Peter desired the very best for his brothers and sisters in Christ, if we presume that the blessing he spoke upon the brethren was the pinnacle of what he could wish for them, then we realize that grace and peace ought to be prized more than material possessions and other things which we tend to wish for ourselves and others.

The other thing worthy of notice in this handful of words is Peter implies that the way to multiplied grace and peace is through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

It is God who is the giver of grace, it is God who is the giver of peace, and as we grow in the knowledge of Him, as we grow in Christ, we likewise grow in grace and peace.

Multiplied grace and peace are inseparable from the knowledge of God. We cannot grow in one without growing in the other.

Any grace or peace which does not have the knowledge of God and Jesus as their foundation, are counterfeit, no matter how close to the real thing they might seem to be.
This is the danger of pseudo-doctrines which minimize or altogether do away with the need for Christ and the need for the knowledge of Him. There can be no grace or peace without Christ being at the center of our faith, our worship, and our faith.

‘As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness’

If some are having difficulty with understanding godliness or coming in possession of fullness of life, it is not because God did not make it available, or because He made it purposefully difficult for us to perceive. Peter reminds us that God’s divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

We’re not talking about a handful of things, most things, some things, or a few things, but all things that pertain to life and godliness were given to us by His divine power.

If what Peter says is true and we know it is because it is in the Word, then I find it strange that so many individuals today fall for newfangled doctrines and modernized teachings that contradict the tenets of Scripture, all the while talking themselves into believing that they’ve finally come to understand the things pertaining to life and godliness.

How can we have godliness absent God? How can we have life absent the source of all life?

Once again, it is only through God and in God that we can come to understand the deeper things, the profound things, the things pertaining to the fundamental questions of our existence, as well as define what godliness truly is.

Peter tells us that all things that pertain to life and godliness were given to us by God’s divine power, and so, if we have as yet not attained these things, we must be diligent in our searching, and tireless in our pursuit of them.

We know they are there. We know they exist. We know that in God and by His divine power they were made known to us.

God did His part. God gave us all things pertaining to life and godliness, but He will not force these things upon us. They are there for the taking, they are there for the understanding, not for the wise or learned among us, but for everyone who seeks after them with diligence.

If we are ignorant of these things it is not God’s fault. If we fall short in our knowledge of godliness or life, it is not because these things were not revealed and made known to us.

Yes, I know taking responsibility is a difficult and often times derided practice, but eventually, when we run out of individuals to blame, we come around to the man or woman in the mirror and are forced to own up to the reality that perhaps it is we who did not knock, and as such the door was never opened. It is we who did not ask, and as such the knowledge of life and godliness were not made known to us. It is we who were too busy with other things to press in, and desire a deeper fellowship, and as such we make do with the superficial, trivial, and ceremonial.

It’s not too late. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened. Ask and it will be given to you.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Growing in Christ Part 3

Before we get started with today’s teaching, I seem to have stirred up some controversy over a scripture passage I quoted in my previous post.

The passage is out of the gospel according to Matthew, and it says this:

Matthew 16:18, “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”

So we can all agree that Jesus did speak these words. Yes? With that consensus, I will say that I never meant to insinuate that Peter was The Rock, but just a rock, because Peter does mean rock when interpreted.

No, I did not convert to Catholicism, nor did I adopt a new doctrinal belief system, but by the same token I will not attempt to do mental acrobatics to make the verse say something it doesn’t say just for the fun of it.

We all know Jesus is the foundation, the cornerstone, The Rock upon which the church is built, but He did speak those words, and if He did, then perhaps Peter is a small pebble there somewhere in the great construct known as the household of faith.

With that matter hopefully settled, we continue with our exegesis on the first chapter of second Peter, to see what more we can glean from it.

2 Peter 1:1, ‘Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Since during the last post we discussed whom this letter was from, today we will begin to discuss who it was addressed to.

We know Simon Peter wrote it, introducing himself as a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, but who did he write this letter to?

Peter’s letter was not penned for the rebellious, nor was it penned for the godless, it was penned for those who had obtained like precious faith, those who had been redeemed and sanctified by Christ Jesus.

It is important to make the distinction as to whom Peter was writing, because I’ve often heard it said that the whole growth in Christ thing is not for Christians, and every time I hear this it sounds ludicrous on its face and causes me great concern for the mental wellbeing of those peddling this pablum.

The reason men insist that growth in Christ is not for believers is because the notion of continually growing – adding to that which we already possess so we might become more like the One we serve – can be misconstrued as work, as labor, as striving, and they refuse to believe we have to do anything more than lift a limp hand at a crusade for Jesus.

Anything more than allowing the inertia and energy of the moment to overtake you and compel you to raise your hand would be just a tad too much for God to ask of you for the eternity He is offering in return.

Another thing we would do well to heed is the wording of Peter’s address to those who have obtained like precious faith.

Not all faith is the same, and not everyone who has faith has the same kind of faith you have. Peter is writing to those who have obtained like precious faith, meaning of the same nature, in the same God, and with the same passion.

Often wonder why even though someone says they have the same faith as you do for some reason you just can’t get into fellowship with them?

Ever wonder why even though someone professes a thing when it comes to living the thing they profess they are lacking?

It is because they do not have like precious faith; they have faith in the idol of their own imagining, the god of their own creation, who requires nothing of them, who demands no surrender, no faithfulness, no obedience, and no worship.

Peter was writing to those who knew they had obtained like precious faith, and who likewise knew who it was that made it possible for them to obtain it.

When we read quickly or haphazardly we often miss the beautiful nuances in the word of God, and this first verse of second Peter has one such nuance.

As he writes to those who have obtained like precious faith he is likewise quick to remind them that it was not by their own merit, it was no by their own work, but rather by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

It is by the righteousness of Christ Jesus, and only by the righteousness of Christ Jesus that we obtain like precious faith with the saints. Because it is in His righteousness that we stand, we walk boldly toward eternity, having His authority just as we have His righteousness and knowing that through Him and by Him we are more than conquerors.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Growing in Christ Part 2

Since this is a very rich text I thought it best to tackle it in an exegetical fashion, going through verse by verse, line by line, and word by word, to see what the Lord would teach us through Peter the man known as the rock upon which Christ said He would build His church.

Yes, Jesus could have picked someone more erudite, sophisticated, educated, refined and cultured, but instead He picked Peter, a fisherman who wasn’t always the bravest of souls, and with a temper to boot seeing as he lobbed off a guy’s ear without giving it a second thought.

Imperfect as Peter might have been, plagued by weakness and fear in the early part of his ministry, God worked mightily through him, and gave him a wisdom that transcended his own education, understanding, and intellect.

It is always awesome to see God take someone and in using them, make them capable of greater intellectual feats than reasonably expected of the person in question. That’s when you know God had a hand in it, when you see a person you’ve known all your life, who never struck you as a genius by any stretch of the imagination, yet who simply transcends himself as the power of God begins to work through him.

I’ve known a few such brothers throughout my life – I even consider myself one of those people – and each time it is an amazing thing to witness and behold.

As we begin to read the first few lines of Peter’s second epistle it is obvious he did not pen these words of his own volition, or dependent upon his own intellect. These words are much too glorious, too profound, and too insightful to have been thought up by the minds of men, giving credence to the notion of divine inspiration.

God spoke it, and Peter wrote it. God inspired it, and Peter reiterated the inspired words so we might all benefit from them and grow in Christ together.

2 Peter 2:1, “Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:”

‘Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ.’

I stared at these nine words for the better part of thirty minutes because something had caught my eye, something had clicked, but I didn’t know what it was. I kept going back to Peter’s introduction of himself, trying to make the conscious connection that I’d made subconsciously, and as it finally broke the surface I began to write haphazardly on a piece of paper.

1.      Peter thought of himself as a servant first, then an apostle of Jesus Christ.

2.      It was more important for Peter to speak of his servanthood than his apostleship.  

3.      One cannot be a true apostle of Jesus Christ without first being a servant.

4.      Servanthood is a choice, apostleship is a calling.

5.      Both being a servant and an apostle require obedience and perpetual dependency upon Christ Jesus.

God’s desire is for us to be His servants, but we cannot be if our hearts are not filled with steadfast obedience toward Him. We obey not only when it suits our interests, we obey not only when what we are commanded to do comes easily to us, we obey not only when the sacrifice for our obedience is small, but even when it means losing everything, when it’s the most difficult thing we will ever have to do, and when it goes against what men perceive as our self-interest.
Peter didn’t say he was an ‘occasional servant’ or ‘sometime apostle’ of Christ. He didn’t quantify his position regarding these two things as having been anything other than perpetual.

Peter was a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

This is how he identified himself, this is how he defined himself, and this is how he saw himself. Nowadays most preachers and evangelists want to shy away from such titles, and instead be called life coaches, inspirational speakers, or motivators.

When did it become a shameful thing to be associated with Jesus? When did it become an embarrassment to say ‘I am a servant of Christ Jesus?’

It’s obvious that even if we kowtow to the world their intent is still to do away with us altogether, and wipe away the very name of Jesus from the hearts and minds of future generations.

If it’s not obvious to you, then perhaps it’s time to pull your head out of the sand, and sneak a peek at what’s been happening in this nation of late.  

Men who once called me mad to my face for insinuating that persecution against believers might come to the United States are now calling and repenting of their actions because they are seeing now what I admonished them to look out for three and four years ago.

Peter was a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, and he was no longer ashamed of this fact. He did not try to introduce himself as anything other than what he was, no longer concerned with the repercussions or negative effects being associated with the Christ might have.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Growing in Christ Part 1

Some time ago a comment was left for me asking if I would consider doing a study on the first chapter of second Peter. Although it has been some time since the comment was left I have not forgotten about the request, and even went one step further and have started to outline a few teachings anchored in the first fifteen verses of Second Peter, which I’ve entitled ‘Growing in Christ’.

Everybody wants to grow up before their time. They want to mature at an accelerated pace, only to realize later on in life that the growing and maturing process is an enjoyable thing in and of itself, and even a necessary component of a healthy and well-balanced adulthood.

There is a marked difference between growing physically, and growing emotionally and intellectually…between building up our physical man, and maturing one’s knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of the world we live in, the God we serve, and our duty to this awe inspiring God.

Because men often focus on maturing the physical while dismissing the intellectual aspect of their growth, we see many an adult acting like children, unwilling to take responsibility for their actions, or worse, still living in their mother’s basement at thirty five, playing video games and waiting on the next blockbuster motion picture to come out, with no direction in their life or any motivation to do anything about their situation.

Just as we must grow physically, intellectually, and emotionally, we must likewise grow spiritually, and the way we grow spiritually is by growing in Christ.

It is a process, one which has different stages, and as it begins to unfold in our lives it requires patience, humility, and a willingness to submit ourselves in totality to the will of God.

Even though the blueprint of how we can grow in Christ is clearly outlined within the Word, many still fail to do so for various reasons. The most common reason men fail to grow in Christ is because they are unwilling to surrender their all in order to obtain all of Him.

In order for us to grow in Christ and for Christ to grow in us, we must decrease. There is no way around this truth, yet many still attempt to find a middle ground when none exists.

If we do not decrease, Christ cannot increase in us. If we are not emptied out of all we need to be emptied of, Christ cannot fill us with His presence, with His power, and with His Spirit.

As we continue to grow in Christ, as we begin to mature, we likewise begin to see certain things differently than when we were in spiritual infancy.

It’s amazing how one can look back on their childhood, on their adolescence and teenage years, and shake their head as to how utterly foolish they were.

Just recently I was thinking back to when I was around thirteen, and someone had given us some old lawn darts, and a few spare smaller darts as toys. Since my parents didn’t have money to buy us toys, we made the best of what people gave us, and the darts seemed like endless fun.

My brother Sergiu and I began by throwing the lawn darts around, but as that got boring quick, we decided to play dart chicken with the smaller darts.

The way we played dart chicken was by taking off our shoes, standing in the grass, and having one person either pretend to throw the dart at the other, or actually throw it. If you moved your foot, you lost.

Since there is no redeeming quality to the rest of this story as it ends with my brother Sergiu walking into the apartment bleeding all over the shag carpeting with a dart in his foot, I will simply say that looking back at our decision to play dart chicken, I realize it was a very foolish idea that could have ended far worse than it actually did.

Having been only thirteen at the time, the consequences of my brother not moving when I threw the dart never crossed my mind, and being the stubborn soul that he is, my brother never once thought of moving his foot either.

The point is that as we mature our perspective changes, and the way we see and perceive things changes as well. As we grow in Christ our perspective and perception likewise changes, and the closer we draw to Him, the more we become like Him, the more we are refined and perfected.

The passage we will be discussing is the blueprint as to how this refinement takes place, and what we can expect as we add to our faith virtue, to our virtue knowledge, to our knowledge self-control, to our self-control perseverance, to our perseverance godliness, to our godliness brotherly kindness, and to our brotherly kindness love.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

When God Laughs! Part 6

Since during the last post I began discussing the negative aspects of knowledge absent wisdom, some have written in and asked the question, ‘then what about the passage where it says My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge? If knowledge in and of itself were not beneficial without wisdom, then what about that verse?’

Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you from being priests for Me; because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.”

In order to establish whether or not I misspoke when I suggested that knowledge absent wisdom is a dangerous thing, we must first understand the ‘knowledge’ to which God was referring to in Hosea.

As you may have grasped, the knowledge I was referring to was not the knowledge of God, or knowledge of the things of God, but general knowledge about everything from the mating habits of dung beetles, to the cyclical nature of the planet’s warming and cooling mechanism.

It is that kind of knowledge that is dangerous when not coupled with wisdom.

The knowledge Hosea is speaking of is knowledge of God, the will of God, the plan of God, the law of God, and the Word of God.

God is speaking exclusively about His people, and not the world or the godless, or those who do not know Him.

It is His people He takes issue with for not having knowledge of Him and therefore being destroyed, and having forgotten His law, and therefore having to suffer the consequences of having their children likewise forgotten by God.

The best way I can explain what I was referring to, is to take any popular, modern day Pastor, and dissect their ‘sermon’ on any given Sunday. What you will discover, and quickly so, is that there is more psychology, human behavior analysis, and self-help rhetoric, than there is mention of God, Christ, the Gospel, or the cross.

That is the definition of knowledge absent wisdom, for if wisdom were present, their message would be to serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling, and put their trust in Him.

The knowledge of God transcends knowledge of the mundane and day to day, and one who seeks, desires, and hungers for the knowledge of God will inevitably have a foundation of wisdom upon which they can build.

After making his first plea to the intellect, the Holy Spirit’s second plea is to the will of man.

Psalm 2:11, “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.”

It is within man’s ability to either continue in his rebellion, or serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Man chooses submission to the Word and will of God, or submission to his own flesh and desires.

The Holy Spirit pleads with the will of man, instructing us to choose the right path, the narrow path, the path that leads to the Kingdom.

Every man servers one of two kingdoms! We either serve the Kingdom of God, or the kingdom of this world. We either submit ourselves to the light of Christ, or the darkness of sin. Though some might think themselves self-governing, independent masters of their destinies, in reality they too serve one of these two kingdoms.

The end result of submission to the will of God is joy. I know this flies in the face of all the nonsense men have been spewing the past few decades, but it is nevertheless true. The end result of submission to the will of God is joy!

While we’re at it, there’s also joy and fulfillment in the fear of the Lord. Yes, I dared to use the word ‘fear’ and ‘Lord’ in the same sentence.

It is because we do not know the Lord as we ought that the notion of possessing the fear of the Lord is so anathema to us. If we saw God not as a tyrant but a good, loving, and merciful Father, we would understand that the fear of the Lord is a beneficial thing for us.

Once again we come to one of those hard and fast rules that seems to be of the universal variety, and that is liberty without authority becomes anarchy.

This is why the fear of the Lord is necessary for us. God created man in such a way wherein we function optimally not when we rebel but when we submit. So technically, if you want to have your best life now and become a better you, you have no choice but to submit to the authority of God.

Having made his appeal to the intellect of man and to the will of man, the third appeal the Holy Spirit makes is to the heart of man.

Psalm 2:12, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.”

God’s desire is for us to be reconciled unto Him through His Son Jesus. It is the only way by which man can be reconciled unto God, and no other way exists.

If another way existed, God would have employed it, but because no other existed Jesus had to die upon the cross for your sins and mine.

To ‘kiss the Son’ is to honor, and give reverence to Christ, a reverence He is worthy of and rightly deserves. It is also a demonstration of love and adoration for the One who birthed us through His death and resurrection.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

When God Laughs! Part 5

Thus far we’ve mentioned three of the four voices we see speaking in this Psalm. They are: the voice of the multitudes, the kings and rulers of nations, the voice of God the Father, and the voice of God the Son.

The fourth voice we see speaking clearly and precisely, is the voice of God the Holy Spirit, and He does so as a means of warning and admonition.

Psalm 2:10-12, ‘Now therefore, be wise O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.”

As we begin to search out these three verses we see, and clearly so, that whomever is speaking is speaking of both the Lord, and the Son. It is neither the Son speaking, nor is it the Father, but a third voice, the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Although for long and long the person of the Holy Spirit has been marginalized and mistreated, abused by those calling themselves children of God and exploited for selfish gain, He remains an integral part, a necessary part, and an indispensable part of the Godhead.

Though man has strayed from the study of the Holy Spirit and pneumatology has fallen out of favor with the scholarly and the learned, the Bible never once spoke less of Him. Throughout the Old and New Testament we see glimpses of the Holy Spirit, and especially in the Acts of the Apostles, the Person of the Holy Spirit is highlighted and focused upon.

If there is a more straightforward, explicit utterance of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, I have yet to find it, as this speaks directly and emphatically to the kings and judges of the earth admonishing them to be wise.

So what does wisdom consist of? What makes a man wise and what can a man do to be counted as one who has attained wisdom?

Wisdom is to serve the Lord with fear, and to rejoice with trembling. Wisdom is to put one’s trust in the Lord, and know that He is ever present, always there, unflinching in His faithfulness toward us.

A fool puts his trust in himself, in the things he has amassed, in the position he has acquired, and in the people he knows.

A wise man puts his trust in the Lord, and rests in the knowledge of His presence throughout this life and the life to come.

What greater hope can we have than the knowledge that God has never once failed anyone who has trusted in Him?

He has a proven track record and no one on this earth comes close to Him.

The plea the Holy Spirit makes to one and all tugs at the heart, for His singular desire is to instruct mankind and admonish us to cease and desist from our rebellion, and submit to the authority of the Son whom the Father has appointed as ruler over the nations.

Herein we discover what we must do in order to keep from kindling the wrath of the Son, and not perish in the way.

As we delve deeper into these last three verses of the second Psalm we see the Holy Spirit making a plea to every area of the human being. First, His plea is directed toward the intellect, toward the reason and logic center of our minds, by admonishing us to be wise, and be instructed.

Granted, given the depths to which we’ve descended as a society, one might not see wisdom as a necessary attribute, or even one worthy of pursuit. We seem to reward the most inane, mindless, foolhardy and downright idiotic among us, while we look down upon those who desire to grow in wisdom.

All that notwithstanding, the Bible does put a high price on wisdom, instructing us to seek it if we don’t have it, and to ask God if perchance we feel as though we don’t have enough of it.

James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him.”  

We live in a world where there is an abundance of knowledge but very little wisdom. There has never been a time in our human history when more knowledge has been so readily available, yet there has never been a time when so few individuals exhibited practical wisdom.

Knowledge absent wisdom is a dangerous thing. It transforms a man into the epitome of arrogance without an ounce of substance to back up his arrogance. Because pride fuels his arrogance, the man sees himself as infallible, above reproach, and concludes that no one on the face of the earth is equal to his knowledge. Therefore, no one is qualified to rebuke or correct him in any manner.

A world, in which knowledge rules absent wisdom, is a world of tyrants and victims. If you don’t believe me, just look around.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Speaking in Houston

It's not really Houston, but it's Houston adjacent. Given the size of Texas, what's a few hour's drive give or take? At least as far as the Corpus Christi meeting is concerned,  it's not really in Houston but I didn't want to make the title of this post any longer than it had to be. If memory serves, Magnolia is very close to Houston. Dare I say, a stone's throw away.

It's been almost five years since I've been to the Houston area, and much has changed since that time. I've grown a little older, perhaps a little wiser, and the world seems to be spinning out of control faster than we thought possible.

As such, I don't know where we'll be in five years' time this being when I would likely return to Houston if I kept to the pattern. I'm letting everyone know early enough so you don't have to wait another five years.

I will leave this up until Sunday morning, because my going to Texas is a rare occurrence at best, and I don't want anyone accusing me of not letting people know where I'll be speaking.

Saturday May 4, 2013 at 6:30 pm
Corpus Christi
2801 Elk Street
Corpus Christi Texas 78410

Sunday May 5, 2013  at 10:30 am
Aliento De Vida International Ministries
19015 Jeter Dr.
Magnolia Texas 77355

Hope to see those who live in the area there. Please keep Geno and myself in your prayers as we travel. May God bless and keep you.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.