Preparing For Persecution V

 As long as the Apostles and those of the primary church did nothing to draw the attention away from the Pharisees, as long as they didn’t do something the Pharisees couldn’t match, whether feeding the hungry or caring for orphans, they were unperturbed by these new additions to the cacophony that was Jerusalem at the time. But then, everything changed.

There was a certain man, lame from his mother’s womb, who would be carried daily and laid at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to beg for alms. Whether willingly or unwillingly, this was the man’s job, his lot in life, and every day, someone brought him, laid him at the gate, and begged for spare change. On that particular day, Peter and John passed by, and the man, who after a life lived begging likely had his bequest well-rehearsed, asked them for alms as well. If they’d been prosperity preachers, they’d likely have ordered their personal assistants to peel off a couple of twenties and hand them to the man. It would have made for a good photo opportunity, after all, but they weren’t, so there was no exchange of legal tender to be had. They did have something, though, something not of themselves, something more precious than a couple of shekels, and they willingly gave it to the lame man.

Acts 3:4-9, “And fixing his eyes on him, with John, Peter said, ‘Look at us.’ So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. Then Peter said, ‘Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them – walking, leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God.”

The man had been a staple at the gate called Beautiful all of his days. Everyone who passed through knew him, and they knew of his condition from birth. This wasn’t someone who was brought in for the sake of spectacle; he just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and Peter and John, knowing the authority and power they possessed in Christ Jesus, gave him the gift of healing.

This is what had the Pharisees and Sadducees up in arms. This is why they saw the followers of Jesus as an existential threat. They had done something that they themselves could never hope to replicate, and to someone whom everyone knew to have been lame since birth. It’s one thing to hear about something happening somewhere else to someone you’ve never met, but everyone knew this man; they’d always seen him lying in the dust of the earth begging for alms, yet here he was, walking, leaping, and praising God.  

These followers of the Way were walking in a power they couldn’t possibly match, and they realized the danger they posed to their authority. They were healing the sick and preaching the Christ, and people were responding. They were repenting of their sins, they were getting baptized, and word of these new people of the Way was spreading faster than ever the Sadducees, scribes, and elders thought possible.

Then one of them, since it always starts with one, had an Eureka moment, an epiphany of sorts. Why don’t we just have them arrested? We can deal with them at our leisure then, maybe have some faux trial with some trumped up charges, but they have to be something more than we’re just scared that we can’t match the power they wield or the tenacity with which they go about preaching this Jesus. Didn’t we deal with Him already? Wasn’t that what the whole thing with Judas and Barabbas was all about?

There was likely some basking in the afterglow of the brilliant idea that one individual came up with because evil is usually self-congratulatory to a fault. Once it was settled that this was the best course of action, they apprehended Peter and John, and all that remained was for them to be brought up on charges and put before the highest religious authorities in the land.

Perhaps that would be the end of it. All it might take for them to be scared straight and fall in line was to see the pomp and grandeur of Annas, the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and the high priest's family to boot.

To liken it to a practicing Catholic being brought before the Pope and all the highest-ranking bishops and asked to answer questions relating to heresy would not be overstating the matter. There was no greater religious power during that time than Annas, the high priest, and his entourage. Even with the apropos comparison, we must remember that the high priest and his cadre of henchmen held immense power, able to do everything from throwing people in prison to orchestrating the execution of someone they deemed as their competition. The point must be made lest we think Peter and John had an easy time of their experience or that it was inconsequential.

It’s a general rule that those whom the masses perceive to be in spiritual authority over them are heeded when they give a specific instruction. It’s why, in the not-so-long-ago past, the powers that be had to employ the services of known spiritual leaders to tell the people to be good little boys and girls and roll up their sleeves, you know because it’s what Jesus would do after all. Yes, I’m being snarky, but for good reason. If the West survives, and that’s a big if, we will look back on that as the lowest point of Christianity in America by far. You used Jesus, the Jesus, as a lever and cudgel to convince people to do something against their best interest and contrary to their long-held beliefs. When all the dirty little details of what occurred come out, and they always do, you will understand the true measure of evil that was visited upon the household of faith by those whom the household of faith holds in high esteem. Granted, it was a test run for something much worse, and the same people will be employed to sell the church on that worse thing. It worked the first time, didn’t it?

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Preparing For Persecution IV

 Even though they finally organized a mob to arrest Peter and John, it was already too late. By the time they got around to it, five thousand new converts had been added to the early church, and the ruling class, the priests, elders, and the upper crust of the religious order were beside themselves. How dare a handful of upstarts undermine the authority of the Sanhedrin? Didn’t they know who they’d picked a fight with? Didn’t they know who they were dealing with? They had no power structure to fall back on, no authority to approach for redress; they were just meeting in homes and preaching in the streets, and they needed to be taught a lesson.

In all fairness, none of those things had crossed the Apostles’ minds. They didn’t set out to pit themselves against the religious power of their time; they were just preaching the truth of Christ and Him risen. However, by the nature of their mission, they were now the sworn enemy of the ruling religious sect of their day.

There is a deep and profound lesson to be learned here because although you may not see others as your adversary, they see you as their nemesis. After all, you are becoming a danger to the tenuous power they hold or the perceived authority they have over those to whom you are preaching the gospel. Individuals who know they’re not preaching the whole counsel of God or fleecing the sheep for their own profit will go to war over one whose only interest is the gospel because they would upend their entire business model and endanger their income stream.

Just as it was in the days of the early church, those only interested in numbers, the bottom line, and the number of pews being filled have much animosity toward those whose only interest is to preach the gospel of the kingdom of Christ. It was never your intent to become their adversary; it’s not what you set out to do, but by nature of being a disciple of Jesus and preaching the truth of Scripture, you have nevertheless become their enemy.

You’re messing with their business model, and that’s something that cannot be allowed. The early church was viewed as an invasive species that would disrupt the entire ecosystem if it was not corralled or eradicated. They could not be allowed to continue performing miracles and preaching a risen Christ because you didn’t need to be a mathematician to realize that three thousand converts one day and five thousand in another made for an unsustainable paradigm for the priests and scribes whose fortunes hung on the faithful coming to the temple regularly. When you see the corporate church side with the persecutors of the brethren, don’t be surprised; it won’t be the first time. It’s just history repeating.

The one thing the lie hates more than anything is the truth. The one recourse left to those in thrall to the lie is to silence those speaking the truth. It’s not complicated; it’s just heartbreaking because those you might have once called brother will call for your demise just as vociferously, if not more so, than the godless. This isn’t revelation; it’s just deductive reasoning based on past events. Times may change, but people don’t, and those with the power want to retain power at all costs, even if the price is your freedom or life.

One standout difference between the early church and our present age is that everyone was there for one purpose. Nobody was trying to hock their particular denomination or newest T-shirt design; no one was saying that their home group was more exciting than the other home groups; they were there for the glory of God and worked as one toward that end goal. They were united in purpose, and that purpose was not self-aggrandizement or the promulgation of one individual over another. It didn’t take long for that to become an issue, and Paul addressed it in his first letter to the Corinthians, but it started off pure, and noble, and true, and it is one of the reasons they had such monumental success early on.

Acts 4:5-7, “And it came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes, as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, ‘By what power or by what name have you done this?”’

And herein, their question betrayed their true fear. It wasn’t that they preached a risen Christ that tormented them so, but that signs and wonders followed them, confirming and bearing witness to their words. People were being healed and delivered, and the high priest, rulers, elders, and scribes knew they couldn’t match the power. The best they had were stale words. These men walked in power, and they either needed to control it themselves or stomp it out altogether before it became a threat to the established order. When you threaten the status quo, be prepared for pushback. It is inevitable.

As long as they were feeding the hungry and helping the widows, they were no threat. But now they were healing the sick and preaching a risen Jesus, and that just couldn’t stand. When the doctrine being preached to the masses begins to fail them en masse, and those preaching the truth are still at peace, full of joy, and walking in the way, the modern-day Pharisees will rise up and demand answers. When they get answers they don’t like, they will react in a manner similar to the Pharisees of old.

I get that we’ve been sold on the idea that we’re all children of God just worshipping from different kinds of pews, in a different type of way, honoring a different sort of god, but that illusion is about to be shattered into a million pieces, and the truth of Christ’s words that many are called but few are chosen will be made all the more evident. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Preparing For Persecution III

 Even though things seemed to be going swimmingly, and they had favor with all the people, as far as the core group was concerned, they did not forget the words of Jesus, nor did they forget His warnings about the world hating them because they hated Him. We can know this based on their reaction to the persecution they had to endure once it commenced because they didn’t shrink back in fear, nor were they looking for ways out of the situation, but rather they welcomed it and reveled in it knowing that the words of Christ were coming to pass before their eyes.

It didn’t take long for the established religion and the forces of darkness to catch on to what was happening, and since the adage that my enemy’s enemy is my friend held true even in those days, they joined forces and aimed all of their considerable power at a now growing movement of people who didn’t play by the rules of avarice they were so accustomed to, who weren’t swayed by the promises of wealth or influence, because they’d already sold everything they had, divided up amongst the brethren, and ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart.

These upstarts, these people who didn’t have coffers or influence with the Roman overlords, these simple men and women were cutting into their bottom line, and that was something they could not abide. They needed an excuse to be rid of them; they needed something they could go before the high magistrates with, and the resurrection of the dead in Christ was what they landed on.

They were willy enough to intuit that people tend to fear what they don’t understand, and the resurrection of the dead was one of those things.

Acts 4:1-3, “Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.”

When you have the muscle and numbers on your side, it’s far easier to manhandle the opposition than to come up with a cogent argument against them. Having seen the character of the priests, Sadducees, and captain of the temple throughout the gospels, one could readily conclude that their teaching on the resurrection of the dead in Christ was the excuse they were looking for rather than something that genuinely disconcerted and disturbed them. These were the same people who offered Judas thirty pieces of silver to betray Jesus, the same salt of the earth folks who pulled the strings necessary for the people to pick Barabbas over Christ.

All the enemy ever needs to persecute the children of God is an excuse. It doesn’t need to be a good excuse, a viable excuse, or a genuine excuse, just a passable one for the time being.

When they began going after Christians during Communism, the excuse was that Christians were an impediment to the general good because their teachings confused people and caused them to become resistant to the system. It didn’t matter that they were generous, open-handed, or big-hearted; it didn’t matter that they kept to themselves, were non-political, and helped their neighbors; they were competition. They were another source of hope, independent of the system, and that just couldn’t be.

It wasn’t that the brutes who ran the Communist party back in the day hated Jesus as a person; they didn’t know Him, and most of them could barely spell their own names, but they understood that Jesus meant hope, and they couldn’t have the peasant class hope in anything else except for the motherland. Hope is a dangerous thing, especially to tyrants, especially to those who would rule with a fist of iron and allow for zero dissent.

We’re beginning to see the hate foment against Christianity here in the West, and it’s not because the masses suddenly decided Jesus wasn’t alright with them. It’s because Jesus stands in the way of their utopia, and the followers of Jesus refuse to go along with the hedonism that’s being foisted upon the masses with such glee. History might not always repeat, but it often rhymes, and whatever excuse will be used to persecute the church anew, be sure that it is being poll-tested even now.

The one dramatic difference between now and then is that the early church heeded Christ’s warnings and was prepared to endure persecution; the modern-day church seems to ignore His warnings altogether and only sees calm seas and soft winds for as far as the eye can see. Even if some are seeing troubled seas ahead, they soothe their worried conscience with the ever-present mantra that though the storm may be coming, they won’t be here to go through it.

I am already aware that this series of teachings will not be popular. I know that it will not garner me new friends, and I will likely lose some friends along the way, but I’m the one that will one day have to stand before my Maker, and I would gladly lose every friend to the last than stand before Him with blood on my hands.

I can only tell you what I see coming, how to prepare for what is coming, and not of my own machinations, but using the prototype of the early church, those men and women who stood even when it meant their lives.

Of all the people one could have a conversation with when they get to heaven, many choose Abraham, Paul, Joseph, or David, but few choose someone like Stephen, widely known as the first martyr of the early church, a man who was not known for being a king, someone who wrote a quarter of the New Testament, or a man of means, but one of seven appointed by the Apostles to care for elderly, the widows, and the orphans.

Greatness in God’s eyes is different than greatness in men’s eyes. May we aspire to be great in His eyes and indifferent to the opinions of men.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Preparing for Persecution II

It didn’t take long for persecution to begin in earnest. Once the early Church was established, so too was persecution a common thing among the brethren, for wherever the light is, the darkness is there to try and prevent it from spreading, if not to extinguish it altogether. The devil prefers the latter, but he’ll settle for the former because he knows the power of the God on the side of those he is trying to destroy. He is not ignorant. He knows he can’t win in the long run, but the kind of hate he harbors towards the children of God blinds him to his situation, and so he rages.

Since the enemy concluded they could not be tempted away from the truth, he hoped they could be scared away from it, threatened into silence, and after the advent of the Holy Spirit and the pouring out thereof, the organized persecution of the followers of Christ began to take shape.

That we would read the book of Acts and expect our lot in life as children of God to be any different than those who came before us take some kind of entitled egotism that I can hardly imagine. Some among us even lean toward arrogance and conceit, looking down our noses on the men and women God used to perform signs and wonders the likes of which we only hear stories of because they weren’t prosperous and didn’t have the best of everything and save for one here or there, all died gruesome deaths at the hands of their persecutors.

John the revelator got to retire on the island of Patmos, but only after being thrown in boiling oil. It wasn’t so much retirement as it was exile, and God kept him alive so that he might be the scribe for what would later be known as the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

I don’t know whether it’s the fact that we allowed the Scriptures to get so twisted in our day and age or that so many people believe the twisted gospel that bothers me more. One thing is certain: because so many believe another gospel, when persecution commences in the West, there will be a stampede for the exits the likes of which Christendom has never seen. Jesus warned it would be so since before a handful of people met in the upper room of a nondescript home and prayed until they received the promise.

The promise they were waiting on had nothing to do with advancement, earthly treasures, estates, mansions, jets, or fineries, but rather something infinitely more valuable, priceless even, something that could not be purchased with all the gold or silver in the world.

The sad reality is that when we focus on earthly things, on prosperity and possessions, we settle for less, far less, than what God has reserved for His children and those who call Him Father.

When we read the Acts of the Apostles, we must do so through the prism of seeing it as the prototypical church. This is what God intended the church to be, this is how God intended the church to operate, and it is what ought to have been used as a blueprint and guidepost for all the churches going forward.

It was never meant to be about positions and acquisitions; it was never meant to be about hoarding wealth or forming our cliques within cliques; it was meant to be about fellowship and brotherhood, about the presence of the Holy Spirit and the attitude of selflessness that defined the primary church.

Because the Book of Acts is the prototype for the church, we would do well to begin our study of persecution and how we must prepare for it there. I can’t promise we will cover all the angles or that it will be the most in-depth work on the topic, but Lord willing, we will endeavor to cover all the necessary points and discuss the oft-ignored benefits of persecution, which are plainly enumerated within the pages of Scripture.

Once the Holy Spirit descended and the Promise had been received, the handful of people, some 120 to be exact, the core of what was the early Church, or the primary Church, hit the ground running.

They didn’t spend the next six months congratulating themselves on having waited until they received the power of the Holy Spirit; they didn’t sit around telling each other how spiritual they all were; they began the work of the Kingdom and went out preaching the risen Christ.

That same day, in fact, that same hour, as the people gathered to see what all the commotion was about, Peter, the man who once denied Christ before a servant girl, now stood before the glut of people gathered together and fearlessly preached the Gospel to those who would hear. Did all receive it? No, some mocked and said they were full of new wine, but others heeded Peter’s message, and three thousand souls were baptized on that day and added to the number of the household of faith.

Not bad for a day’s work. Three thousand is a solid number, what one might deem a mega-church nowadays, and the hundred and twenty could have spent the rest of their time consolidating their positions, starting a building fund, doing a bit of marketing, and coasting on the tithes for the rest of their days. That, however, was not their purpose. Their purpose wasn’t self-glory; it was God’s glory. Their purpose wasn’t to consolidate a group of three thousand souls and garner a reputation for themselves; it was to tirelessly preach the gospel to all who would hear, for as far and wide as they could reach, hoping that more would come to the saving knowledge of Jesus.

Their growth was not contrived; it was not something they had to have five-year plans for; the core group didn’t get together to see what they could tweak in the message to get more people to show up; they preached Christ, Him crucified, Him Risen, Him Lord, and trusted that God would stir the hearts of those who heard, and cause them to seek redemption through faith in Jesus.

Acts 2:46, “So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”

The Lord added to the church daily, and no man can destroy what the Lord has built. That’s how you know it was God and not the work of man, for though all might be against a work, if God is for it, and if He has built it, it will remain. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Preparing For Persecution I

 Some doctrines within Christendom are readily debatable, and unless it becomes acrimonious and people start sending each other to Sheol because they disagree on some tertiary issue, discussion, debate, and deliberation are healthy within a church body and among believers in general.

Iron sharpens iron, not because they are each in their little cubby, safe and sheltered from contact with anything that might change its form, but by collision and often great violence. Iron doesn’t sharpen iron accidentally or without intent. There is always intentionality when one takes a piece of iron and desires to hone it to a fine edge, and it’s a process that can’t be rushed or done haphazardly.

Even after a blade is sharpened to a fine edge, it requires constant sharpening lest it grow dull and overall useless for the purposes it was sharpened for in the first place. There’s nothing worse than a dull knife when you require a sharp one. Have you ever tried to slice a tomato with a dull knife? All you’re likely to end up with is a smooshed tomato and the dream of the perfect sandwich that will never materialize.

While some things the Word foretells are probable for a segment of believers, some are certainties that they will experience to some degree, without exception or exemption. Persecution is one of those things that the Bible warns all believers they will experience to some degree or another, something that they can’t avoid or circumvent no matter how much their flesh may desire to do so.

2 Timothy 3:12, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”

By all, Paul means all, at least all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus. If that is not your desire, you likely wouldn’t be reading these words anyway. The only way for someone not to suffer persecution is to be void of the desire to live godly. There’s no other way of reading this text, and there is no other conclusion we can come to based on what it says.

Knowing that if we desire to live godly in Christ Jesus, we are likely to experience persecution of some kind, the only question that remains to be answered is whether or not we are prepared to suffer it. Yes, I know it’s an uncomfortable topic and one we would rather avoid, but by being prepared for the eventuality of something, we will be far likelier to come through it victoriously, having endured and overcome as the Bible says we ought.

We have an entire generation of believers that was raised with the false notion that they would never have to endure for the sake of Christ, that they would never be called upon to sacrifice or even suffer for the cause of the gospel, and that the only things in their future were prosperous tomorrows. Whenever the prospect of persecution is raised, they are quick to point to the people whose teaching they’ve been sitting under and use them as the counterargument to what the Bible says, insisting that the individuals in question couldn’t have possibly gotten it so wrong.

By whose estimation? If it’s by the Bible, then they most assuredly got it wrong, and horribly so, because while others throughout the world are being persecuted even unto death, only nations in the West can still ignore Paul’s warnings, along with the warnings of Jesus, Peter, John, and a handful of other Biblical writers who all warned that if your desire is the fullness of Christ, then His presence in your life will cause the world to hate you.

It begs the question of why the godless are so in love with some of the most prominent evangelists gracing your television screens today, but we’ll get to peeling that particular onion at some point in this teaching as well.

At some point, the world will be divided into the persecuted and the persecutors, those holding the hammer and the nails, and those laying on the beam because God is not a liar, and His word is true. That much of the church is doing nothing to prepare for that eventuality is a testament against it and reveals the true motives of many in the church.

The household of faith was never meant to coddle, spare feelings, or make people feel warm and fuzzy, but to preach the truth, to rightly divide the Word, and to be a place where we can come together in fellowship, growing in God, and knowing that there are others who share in our travails and hardships. When Aunt Margie’s feelings took precedence over the truth, the whole thing started going sideways, and the more sensitive people became, the less of the truth was being preached from the pulpits. 

Perhaps we need to be reminded that some of the most ardent persecutors of Jesus and His followers were those who claimed to be religious, even the most religious people of their day. Just because someone claims to be religious, it does not eliminate the possibility that at some future time, they’ll be the ones throwing you into prison and passing sentences as though being a follower of Christ was the most heinous and odious thing one could be found guilty of.

It’s easy to ignore the coming storm while the sun is shining. It’s easy to put the notion of persecution out of our minds while we revel in freedom, but our current freedom does not nullify the Word of God nor the warnings He so lovingly proffered to those who would follow in His way.

If God warned of coming persecution, it was so we might prepare for its advent. It wasn’t so we would ignore or doubt His warnings because we currently aren’t experiencing the persecution He warned of. Only fools ignore the warnings of a coming storm because they see no storm clouds, especially when the one doing the warning is the Word of God.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Final Thoughts

 For those who want nothing of personal accountability and insist upon the best of both worlds, living as they will but still retaining the promise of eternal life, the epistle of James is controversial and uncomfortable. Some of the points James insists upon are grating and discordant to the religion they’ve fashioned for themselves, and they would rather deny the Word than look in the mirror thereof and make the requisite changes.

They would rather believe the words of men, which have no Biblical foundation and are void of truth, than humble themselves and seek a true and lasting relationship with God. But remember, the Word of God remains the Word of God, unchanging and steadfast. It will not change for anyone, no matter how unfair they think it to be or antithetical to their personal beliefs.

We are called upon to submit to God in all our ways, not attempt to convince Him that our ways are better than His because they are not. They might be better for your flesh, easier on your pride, or fuel your arrogance, but as far as being better for your spiritual man, your spiritual growth, and your adherence to His will, your ways will never be better than His way.

We look at the world around us and readily see that the loudest among us are usually the most wrong. Some within the church have adopted the same mindset, and they think they can change God’s mind by being obnoxious, loud, irreverent, and unpleasant. They have their position and think that if they can outlast everyone else and talk over them, they’ll win the argument, thereby compelling God to see it their way. He won’t. No matter how much they bluster and pontificate, no matter how much they insist that the way they see it is the only way it can be, the Word remains true from age to age, and nothing man can do will change that.

Any man or woman who insists that God cannot do or will not do something when God Himself said He would and could has neither the understanding of the fear of the Lord nor do they possess it. Ananias and Sapphira told one lie, and they were dragged out dead as doornails from before the apostles. Yet, men are telling lies to God and about Him to hordes of people day in and day out without once considering that judgment is not just a possibility but an inevitability. It’s not a matter of if judgment is coming; the only unknown variable is when.

Hebrews 10:31, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

That should scare most self-titled prophets mute and unable to utter a word to save their lives, yet, every day, more lies about things the Bible is very clear and explicit about.

Within the five chapters of his epistle, James paints a portrait of a complete Christian, a healthy body, and a spiritually mature believer who understands that we are responsible for living out our faith, guarding our hearts, walking in His ways, submitting to God’s authority over man’s, and diligently keeping ourselves pure and undefiled from the world.

He reminds us that the Christian walk isn’t one of rose petals and starry skies but one in which we suffer things that are common to man, where storms are a normal part of life, where hardships and trials are the means by which we are honed and sharpened, but also that the day will come when we will look back on the journey and consider it all worth it.

James is also quick to make the distinction that while those of the world suffer alone, having no one to turn to and no one to lean on, we have our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. We have God who hears our prayers and supplications, and we have unwavering hope that one day, we will stand before Him in glory and be welcomed into His kingdom.

You can live this fleeting thing called life in pursuit of ease, possessions, positions, and men's praise, or you can live it in obedience, supplication, and faithfulness to God. Every day, you choose one or the other. You choose to either deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow after Jesus, or find a hundred reasons why tomorrow works better for you.

A good tree bears good fruit. A bad tree bears bad fruit. This is self-evident and cannot be camouflaged. A bad tree can’t trick someone into thinking it’s producing good fruit, no matter how much it tries, and taking its word for it is not a passable standard. A bad tree can insist it’s producing good fruit until the first person takes a bite, and you see their eyes water and mouths puckering as though they’d tasted something foul. The fruit can look good from a distance; it can have all the appearance of good fruit, but once it’s tasted, there’s nothing left to debate. The reality of what it is becomes all too evident.

If you’re going to be a child of God, be a child of God. Don’t go around pretending to be one because it won’t do you any good in the end. Eventually, someone will spot the difference just as readily as they spot the difference between real and counterfeit currency. If we know the way but don’t walk in it, all we’ll have at the end of the day is a greater judgment, for having known and not done it carries a greater condemnation than never having known at all.

Although looked down upon and readily dismissed by much of the church in essence, all James's epistle aims to do is encourage those who would read it to a victorious walk in Christ and a deeper intimacy with Him.

If we are unwilling to forfeit the world and the things thereof for the glory that is to be revealed in us, then we are unworthy of the name of Jesus, no matter how many people might insist otherwise.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Wisdom

 Kicking people while they’re down might make the one doing the kicking feel superior physically and spiritually, but only in their eyes. If anyone witnesses the altercation, chances are they’ll have a different take on it than the sanctimony-fueled individual wagging his finger and showering the crumpled figure with spittle. We don’t like bullies. That’s a general statement, obviously, but all available evidence, anecdotal as it might be, points to the veracity of it. Even bullies don’t like bullies. Ultimately, there’s something broken in an individual who revels in the idea of victimizing someone smaller, weaker, and incapable of defending themselves.

As the adage goes, there’s a time and place for everything. When someone acknowledges their shortcoming, sin, or fallen nature, when they are seeking restoration and repentance is no time to keep kicking at them as though they were a soccer ball. By all means, defend the truth with all your might, but once someone has seen their error and is seeking a way back, that is the time to show mercy and grace and aid them as we are able.

It’s easy to show love to the lovely and loveable. Everyone wants to cuddle up to a pug, but few, if any, want to make kissy faces with a blobfish. It’s more difficult to look upon a bloody, broken thing who might have done you wrong in ways that left a scar and have the character reach out a hand to help them get back to the truth. It is, however, what we are called upon to do, what we must do if we are members of the Body of Christ.

Another thing to be wary of when attempting to turn a sinner from the error his way is that you are actually pulling them up out of the mire, and they are not dragging you down into it. The best way to do this is to know yourself, know your weaknesses, know the things the enemy will use to try and disrupt your growth and avoid them altogether.

If you know someone is in sexual sin and that they need to be brought back from their wayward wandering, but you, yourself, fight the same temptations, find another brother who does not share in the same vulnerability and have them approach the individual, or do it together so that the enemy will have no way of turning a good plan into a horrible execution.

If you were once a gambling addict, perhaps going to casinos to preach the good word isn’t the best place for you. Perhaps avoiding them is in your best interest because when what once was common becomes uncommon, it can readily become common again if you give it the opportunity. Does it mean you’ll automatically start scrounging in your pockets for change to feed the one-armed bandit if you step into a casino? No, that’s not what it means, but why not avoid the things you knew had you shackled and desperate once upon a time?

Don’t put yourself in a position to do something foolhardy that will necessitate someone else coming along and turning you back. If your mission is to get someone out of a ditch but end up in the ditch yourself, you’re at the mercy of another to come and pull you both out.

You’d be surprised at the excuses and justifications some people can devise for doing what they’re doing and living how they’re living because they have wandered from the truth, and it is no longer their standard and plumb line.

Usually, when they are doing something antithetical to the Word of God, they’ll use their own rebellion as anecdotal justification. Well, we’re doing such and such, and so it must be okay with God because we’re doing it. Hold on a minute, though; the Word of God says you shouldn’t be doing that one thing you’ve just admitted to doing. Wouldn’t it be more prudent for you to repent of the thing you’re doing than to justify it to yourself? Just asking for a friend.

You can’t save anyone from drowning if you’re doing all you can to keep your own head above water. First, you must gird up the loins of your mind. First, you must know the truth. First, you must walk in His way before you try to turn a sinner from the error of their way.

Yes, men wander from the truth, and it begins as a seed of doubt planted in the heart at a moment when they’re distracted or otherwise disengaged from being vigilant and watchful. We are most likely to let our guard down around those we consider of like mind. When we’re among the brethren, or what we deem to be the brethren, we’re not as vigilant as when we’re out in the world, expecting attacks and deceptions from every direction. We don’t want to consider that not all who are in the household of faith are of the household of faith or that certain men have crept in unnoticed, turning the grace of God into lewdness and teaching things contrary to Scripture.

It’s usually within a church setting that a lie can take root in a heart because we are likelier to equate a church setting with the whole counsel of God, and so less frequently question what we are being taught or what we hear.

When our walk is superficial, without pursuing righteousness and the virtues that the Word describes as pure and undefiled religion, we are willfully wandering from the truth. We excuse our rebellion by telling ourselves that, in that particular instance, the Bible meant something other than what it said or that we already know the truth and need not test what we believe against the Scriptures to see if it is proven.

Our excuses and justifications will hold water only for a season, for when we stand before the great I Am, He will use the Word as the plumb line by which our lives will be judged.

James 1:27, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.