Job XVI

 Satan presumed he knew Job’s character and conviction better than God. Other than being Satan, one of the most consistent while simultaneously distasteful character flaws he possesses is being presumptuous. Although he is not omniscient, Satan likes to pretend that he is.

We’ve all run into those types of people from time to time, the type who think they know everything, but when you press them on the issue, it turns out they know very little. Regurgitating talking points you hear spouted on the evening news isn’t knowledge or being informed; it’s parroting someone only mildly less idiotic than yourself. If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that the specialists and the authorities are just as in the dark as anyone else; they just pretend as though they’re not.

We trusted the science and watched loved ones die behind sheets of glass with no one there to hold their hand as they breathed their last because we believed the blowhards had an inkling of what they were dealing with or presumed they wouldn’t dare make things up out of whole cloth just for the sake of fearmongering. Well, ha-ha, the joke’s on us.

Satan was presumptuous and self-assured in his abilities to put so much pressure on Job that he would eventually bend, then break, then curse the God whom he’d faithfully served all his life because he assumed that Job was made of the same stuff everyone else was. He should have paid attention when God said there was none like him on the face of the earth, but in his mind, he was already celebrating his win. Surely, no man could withstand the pressure he was planning on bringing to bear. Surely, every man has a breaking point. That all depends on whether the man in question believes that he still belongs to himself or is the master of his own destiny rather than belonging wholly to God and submitting to His will, whatever that might be.

It’s a high bar, to be sure, but one we must aspire to. Given that others have met it throughout the history of mankind tells us that it’s not out of reach. It’s not out of the realm of possibility or something we cannot attain.

The first man to run a four-minute mile was an Englishman named Roger Bannister in 1954. Since then, almost eighteen hundred others have accomplished this feat, which was thought nearly impossible until its accomplishment. Some credit the psychology of knowing that it could be done with the others who’ve achieved it, others the advancement in running shoes and supplements, natural or otherwise, and still others the advancements in available data regarding training, diet, and the environmental conditions on a given day. Whether you have headwinds or a mild breeze blowing at your back could mean all the difference between a tenth or two-tenths of a second.

The truth is that it’s likely all of these things combined that led to an explosion of individuals who were able to run the mile in four minutes or under, but you have to acknowledge the accomplishment of the first guy who pulled it off. Give credit where credit is due. When Roger Bannister ran his four-minute mile, there were no shock-absorbing running shoes, high altitude training masks, or treadmills, no Nike or Reebok to engineer a shoe made specifically for one athlete’s foot imprint, just an Englishman in a pair of leather shoes that managed to do a seemingly impossible thing.

Job is the prototype for a blameless and upright man who feared God and shunned evil long before the law, the prophets, the advent of Christ, or the written word. He was the guy in the leather wingtips who managed to do it because of unequaled commitment and tenacity. Because of the age of grace, because of all the cumulative knowledge we have access to, because of the examples that came before us and the Word of God that is a light unto our path, it should be easier, not harder, for us to achieve what Job achieved as far as shunning evil and fearing the Lord, but here we are, and the aggregate evidence points to the contrary.

God has defined evil, He has defined good, He has given us the roadmap and shown us the way in which we must walk, but for whatever reason, we’re reticent to commit ourselves fully to the pursuit of Him as Job was.

Romans 1:20-21, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

We tend to overcomplicate things and then pretend they are untenable because we have made a mess of a once simple premise. The Word tells us that if we knock, He will open. If we seek Him, we will find Him. If we cry out, He will answer. Yet, to hear some men tell it, you need to balance on your head while reciting Psalm 119 by heart in the middle of a tornado in order to get God’s attention. It can’t be as simple as glorifying God, desiring to know Him, and walking in His ways. If it were as simple as all that, there would be no need for the endless parade of courses on offer promising to teach you how to access God’s favor, obtain the keys to the kingdom, unleash your prosperity thinking, or bind and loose in the unseen realm. If there were any substance to these things, I wouldn’t have a problem, but the reality is that they’re nothing more than funnels to the next course that will likely come with an extra zero attached compared to the previous one.

It’s like these gurus you run across who teach you how to make a fortune from a dime if you buy their fifty-dollar course, and once you’ve bought it, you realize it’s just a sales pitch for an in-person group coaching session that’ll set you back a thousand bucks. Whether you decide to go further down the rabbit hole is up to you, and even if you don’t, they still have your Ulysses S. Grant tucked away in their wallet.

God sees what men fail to see. He values what men dismiss. What stands out to Him is purity of heart and a desire for more of Him. You can’t impress God by trying to impress Him. You impress Him by walking humbly, circumspectly, and obediently in His will, picking up your cross, and daily growing in Him.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job XV

 We submit to God even when it tramples our own desires. We submit to His authority and sovereignty in the storm just as readily as during calm seas. Consistency matters, and it’s in those days of testing that our commitment to the will and ways of God are put to the test, tried, and proven. It’s not about me, or my comfort, or what I think I deserve; it’s about His glory and His will, and once we come to terms with that singular reality, our perspective shifts, and we begin to understand the deeper truths necessary for us to have a vibrant, well rounded, and well-grounded relationship with Him.

It’s often in the storm that you see the value of obedience. When God told Noah to build an ark and do so to His specifications, Noah could have taken it upon himself to cut corners, change the layout, or not follow through to the minutest of details. He could have shaved years off the project, and no one would have been the wiser. Had he done so, he would have seen the ark start to take on water and not be a sail-worthy vessel too late to do anything about it. The Word tells us what a proper relationship with God is. It tells us that being in His will and walking in His way is the only means by which we attain a true and lasting foundation of faith, a foundation that is unshakeable and timeless, and that sustains us through life’s storms.

It is essential to lay the foundation of Job’s faithfulness and stress the continual relationship he had with God lest anyone think there are any shortcuts, special prayers, incantations, mantras, or courses they can avail themselves of to bypass growing their faith and being blameless and upright in the sight of God. Some things just take time. There’s no way around it, and no matter how many might want to fast pass their spiritual maturity, there’s only one way, one queue, one formula, and one recipe. You build up your most holy faith brick by spiritual brick. You start with the foundation, which is Christ, and every day, your goal is to be stronger than the previous one.

That’s not to say there aren’t a seemingly limitless number of people offering just such shortcuts, ceremonies, and rituals; it’s that they don’t work, and that’s the crux of the problem. There’s a reason people clarify the difference between a true friend, a Facebook friend, and a true friend with which they are also friends on Facebook. They may be acquaintances, even people you’re friendly with, but if they’ve never been over for dinner, or you don’t know them well enough to trust them to babysit your kids, they’re not friends in the truest sense of the word. Overuse of certain words water down and dilute their meaning. If you don’t believe this to be the case, just take inventory of how many people are calling themselves apostles and prophets today.

The same goes for people who have a superficial relationship with God, know of God, and know God and have a relationship with Him. The three are not the same or interchangeable. Knowing of God is acknowledging His existence, while having a relationship with Him is actively seeking His presence, understanding His character, and aligning your life with His will. We aim to both know God and have a deep and abiding relationship with Him. Only in knowing Him, His goodness, His love, and His desire to bring us into a more perfect union with Him will we have the faith and trust necessary to walk through the fire knowing He is there.

The more of Him you know, the deeper your love and obedience. The deeper your love and obedience, the stronger your spiritual man becomes. It doesn’t happen overnight, nor is it something we can expect to be fully formed at the snap of a finger, but something that matures over time as His presence and faithfulness are continually made known in our lives.

Psalm 116:1-7, “I love the Lord, because He has heard My voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live. The pains of death surrounded me, and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!” Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; Yes, our God is merciful. The Lord Preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.”

David understood the value of establishing a relationship with God. He understood that for God to hear his voice, God must first know him as His. It’s difficult to reconcile the notion that some people have a hard time spending twenty minutes in God’s presence, whether praying, reading the Word, or meditating upon it, yet want to spend eternity in His presence.

I get that you want to go to heaven, but you do understand that God will be there, too. If spending time with Him seems a chore to you, and if you avoid it at every turn for the most trivial of reasons, why do you want to go to heaven so badly? Your obedience to God cannot be independent of love for God. Why would anyone want to spend eternity with someone they don’t love? Well, to escape the alternative, brother. But don’t you see that God knows whether men want a relationship in order to escape some future event or because they genuinely love Him?

Would God not test and vet those who claim to love Him to ensure that they not only have Him on their lips when all is problem-free but that they retain Him in their hearts when their world crumbles around them?

Are you beginning to understand how hideously malformed what currently passes as the gospel is when compared to the true Gospel?

Not one man worth his salt has ever claimed that God did not hear them, fail them, or fall short of their expectations because their expectations were His presence, His comfort, and His strength in the midst of their trials and tribulations. Their expectation wasn’t that they’d never have to go through anything uncomfortable, painful, or even catastrophic in this present life but that whatever trial or hardship they had to go through, God would be with them every step of the way, providing comfort and strength. There is sufficiency in His presence no matter the struggle or hardship, but that sufficiency is reserved for those who are truly His.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job XIV

 What makes a man blameless and upright is not performative. It’s not how he dresses or the image he projects when he is in public, but what is in the inward parts. God knew Job’s heart and found him to be blameless and upright because his heart was pure. Men judge others by what they can see, by their outward appearance and how they present themselves, by how eloquent they are, or by the diplomacy they employ in conversations. God sees the heart and weighs the heart, and though men may project an air of holiness outwardly, it does not impress God in the least.

I traveled with my grandfather full-time for ten years. From the age of twelve to the age of twenty-two, I was on the road nine months out of the year, and even to this day, I’m often asked what stood out to me about him during those days. Although others saw him as a messenger, a man of God, someone through whom God worked, I saw him as my grandfather. So what stood out to me wasn’t his testimony, calling out specific sin in a congregation and insisting upon repentance, or even the message for America, but rather the consistency of his character when he wasn’t in a church setting or standing behind a pulpit.

He was a man of prayer and conviction throughout his life. He didn’t pretend to be godlier than he was when in public than in a private setting; he didn’t put on airs or act a certain way when others were present than when it was just the two of us; he was a man wholly committed to God, and it showed in perpetuity. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and find him kneeling by the side of the bed praying. There was no one there to notice, no one to impress, and no hidden cameras that could take note of his commitment to spending time with God; it was the desire of his heart, pure and simple, unadulterated by ulterior motives or hidden interests.

If there is no joy, desire, or anticipation in spending time with God, if it is not the priority of your existence, then the heart is not where it should be. There is no greater thing you can accomplish on a given day than to be in the presence of God and have fellowship with Him. Yes, a thousand things are vying for your time. Yes, there is a long list of things you need to get done before the sun sets anew, but at the top of that list, every day, without fail, must be communion with God.  

Having spent so much time with someone whose singular desire was fellowship with God allows me to understand Job’s mindset better than most. It was something God was privy to, but something Satan could not have known, hence his overconfidence at being able to compel Job to curse God. Satan didn’t understand Job’s heart, but God did.

Although it has become a trope in our modern age, wherein men use the notion of God knowing their hearts as an excuse for their compromises, God knew Job’s heart as being blameless and upright. He feared God and shunned evil. He did not commit evil, trying to justify it by reverting to God’s knowledge of his heart. It’s not splitting hairs; it’s understanding the true nature of an individual and what drives them.

Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

This should be the attitude of an individual seeking to be pleasing in the sight of the Lord. Whether we want to be or not, we are an open book to God. There is nothing we do in secret that will remain so and nothing we can hide from His all-seeing countenance.

When we ask God to search our hearts without the intent or desire to prune what is unnecessary or do away with what offends Him, what we’re really doing is asking God to justify our compromise and indifference. We’ve gone from search me and lead me in the way everlasting, to search me, but not too deeply, lest you discover some hidden thing that I must part with and repent of. We are still approaching God as though He is there to serve us rather than the inverse. This not only leads to improper expectations on our part but an improper relationship with God.

We all want to be used by God, but only in the office that meets our expectations. Everyone wants to be a prophet to the nations, but the wait list for janitorial services is either short or nonexistent. The desire of our hearts extends beyond the purity of serving our master to every other area of this present existence, wherein we’re willing to serve if only He will bless us, show us favor, give us stuff, and elevate us in the eyes of our contemporaries. That’s not the contract we signed, though; it never has been, and it never will be.

A servant does not choose the tasks he performs for his master, nor does the servant get to determine if a certain task is beneath them. A servant serves, obeys, and does his utmost to be faithful to the work his master has tasked him with.

I’m fully aware some take issue with the use of servant or slave within the context of our duty toward God, but it’s a matter you should take up with Him because the Word is clear on the topic. We’ve taken to believe that the things which are declared and cataloged within scripture are also given to debate or personal interpretation. They are not!

Paul uses the term slave more often than any other to define his relationship with his Master. Whether that’s bondservant, servant, or outright slave, the root of the word is the same in every case, meaning you do not have personal autonomy once you’ve committed and submitted to God. You don’t get to decide what you will do on behalf of the Kingdom; He tells you what He needs you to do. He commands, you obey. Whether you think the task at hand is beneath you shouldn’t enter into the equation because God will place you where He needs you, not where you want to be.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job XIII

 Being who he was, Satan tried to get God to be the instrument of Job’s testing, but God saw through his ruse. “But now stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”

If you think he is unshakeable and unbreakable, that he will remain faithful regardless of creature comforts or blessing, then why not stretch out your hand against all that he has? That was Satan’s opening salvo, his opening gambit, but God would not take the bait. Instead, God said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.”

There was a line Satan was not allowed to cross, that being the person of Job. Everything else was up for grabs. Yes, even Satan is subject to the authority of God. He is on a leash, even though it may not seem like it at times, and there are limits to what he can do; otherwise, the havoc he would wreak would be unfathomable.

There is a difference between the consequence of one’s actions and testing the likes of which Job was about to endure. When one suffers because of sin, it’s not testing; it’s the direct result of disobedience and rebellion. Men love to spiritualize their failures and insist that being exposed for being a philanderer or adulterer, to say nothing of worse things certain high profile individuals have been criminally charged for committing, is God testing them or allowing them to be tested. It’s not. It’s their sin finding them out. It has nothing to do with testing but everything to do with the consequence of action.

The testing of the righteous allows for their faithfulness to shine all the brighter once the testing is done. It strengthens an already established faith and dependency on God that grows the spiritual man beyond the stage of what he’d been thus far. The sin of the compromised being exposed only serves to give an already battered church another bruise. We cannot conflate the two.

Job was a blameless and upright man not by his standard, or some other arbitrary standard, but by God’s standard. God saw him as blameless and upright. Job himself didn’t claim to be so; he didn’t brag about his uprightness; he simply loved God, served God, and worshiped God.

If you are more concerned about your image than you are about serving God, then you’ve lost the plot somewhere along the way. You have preachers and teachers spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on image consultants because they want to put their best foot forward and present their best face to the world when it’s not about them, nor has it ever been. Rather than make crisis management firms rich beyond their wildest dreams, why not walk circumspectly with your Lord and serve Him as a faithful servant should?

Job wasn’t trying to make a name for himself; he wasn’t trying to build a brand; he wasn’t trying to put on airs or pretend he was something he wasn’t for the sake of a following or a guest TV spot on some talk show. He was a man satisfied in God and desired only true fellowship with Him. That’s what Satan didn’t understand when it came to Job. Since Job was so rare, he’d never run across anyone like him and assumed offhand that if he was serving God, then Job had an ulterior motive for doing so.

You may look at Satan’s assumption and think it jaded, but all the evidence he’d had up until that point lent credibility to it. Thus far, his success had been predicated on his ability to find that one thing he could offer a given individual to make them take their eyes off their goal, purpose, or calling. In his mind, there was always something if you looked hard enough. There was always something that men would be swayed or tempted by, and he’d just have to find it when it came to Job.

It’s not as though the enemy’s cockiness wasn’t justified to a certain extent. He’d been at this long enough to understand human nature and knew how rare it was for someone to be wholly surrendered to God and serve Him out of purity of heart. He’d likely applied pressure the likes of which he was planning to apply to Job before and was sure that Job would fold, throw up his hands, and curse God when everything in his life turned to rubble.

We’ve all seen it play out often enough: When someone’s circumstances change, so does their attitude toward God. Although they may not have verbalized it, there was a part of their heart that felt entitled to creature comforts and the things of this earth because they worshipped God, and when those went away, they felt shortchanged and taken advantage of.

This is why purity of purpose matters when it comes to serving God. We don’t serve God to get stuff from Him or to make this present life more comfortable. We serve God because He is God because He sent Jesus to give His life so that we might have life and be reconciled to Him. We love Him because He first loved us with a perfect love, and nothing beyond that should factor into whether or not we remain faithful.

That sort of commitment and mindset is as rare today as it was during the days of Job. The unscrupulous among us realized how few people they’d be able to draw with that message, and they took it upon themselves to add to the Gospel and shift the focus from the things above to the things of this earth. Prosperity has become the focus of many congregations rather than humility, repentance, and obedience, and they’ve seen their numbers catapult into the stratosphere overnight. What happens when all the promises of thousandfold returns and a mountain of money don’t materialize, though? What happens when what drew people to their sanctuaries, the selling point that made them become members in good standing, turns out to be man-made fables without root or foundation in the Word of God? Those peddling such things don’t care about the fallout. They’re getting theirs, and they’re quick to brag about it. It’s the callousness of such men that’s most disturbing, knowing that sooner or later, those who’ve bought into the promise of wealth beyond measure will be disillusioned and disenchanted to the point of bitterness.

Job had wealth, and Satan wrongly assumed that this was his Achilles heel. He concluded that if he could strip Job of his possessions, it would only be a matter of time before he’d turn on God. Satan never figured that rare as they are, Job was indeed a man who feared God and shunned evil because knowing God more fully every day was his ultimate pursuit. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.     

Job XII

 If the enemy were allowed to do as he wills when he wills, not one of us would be alive to tell the tale. It’s hard to fathom that type of hatred. It’s hard to come to terms with the reality that your destruction is the singular thing that brings Satan joy. It may sound extreme, but there’s no getting around the truth of it. There is no mercy, empathy, kindness, or charity in Satan’s heart. He roams about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

He has one mission, one purpose, and one goal: the utter destruction of God’s children. It’s not a part-time job for him, a hobby, or something he does on the weekends. He does not seek your destruction out of boredom or because he couldn’t get a tee time at the local golf course. He hates you in the purest definition of the word hate and knows that with each win, with each deception that got through, with each capitulation he was able to enable, with each temptation that someone gave into, it hurts the Father’s heart. The destruction of God’s creation to Satan is a means to an end. The end he seeks is wounding God; you and I are the way he can go about it.

We must look at our enemy in these terms lest we let down our guard or come to believe that the battle isn’t as intense as it is. The quickest way to lose a battle you should have won is to underestimate one’s enemy, whether his determination, ability, commitment, or intent. We’ve seen this scenario play out countless times, wherein someone who should have known better, who’s had enough experience with battling the darkness, somehow falls into the enemy’s snare. It’s because they stopped being watchful, on guard, and ready to defend against his attacks that they ended up shipwrecked, and not because the enemy became stronger. While you and I can grow from strength to strength and faith to faith, the enemy’s power is static. He doesn’t grow in strength but learns from his mistakes and streamlines his attacks whenever necessary.

Satan is always looking for an opportunity. Don’t give him one. He is always looking for a chink in your armor or a moment of distraction he can exploit to the utmost, and it is your duty to make sure that you’re always prayed up, read up, and armored up, no matter the time of day, or the circumstances you’re currently facing.

Have you ever wondered why attacks come in waves or why bad things happen in batches? It’s because the enemy is hoping that one situation will keep you distracted enough to make you not notice or outright ignore what he’s doing on the other front. It’s not as though one attack comes, and then the enemy lets you recover before he commences the next. He presses his advantage whenever he thinks he has one, and the pattern is so obvious that I’ve learned to be ever more vigilant after the first attack, knowing that a second is soon in coming. It is inevitable because although his schemes vary, and his attacks differ, Satan’s instinct to try again once he’s failed the first time is so ingrained in his nature that he can’t help himself.

While I was still living in California, back before the wife and the kids, I was pulling out of a parking lot when a young lady with more highlights than sense got tired of waiting for the light to turn green and attempted to whiz by on the right and pass the long line of cars. Unfortunately, my front bumper was in her way. I can’t say she was distracted by her cell phone since they hadn’t made their way onto the scene yet, but perhaps she was playing with the radio or checking her pager. For whatever reason, she didn’t even brake or try to turn but barreled into me hard enough to rip off my bumper and make my car inoperable.

Thankfully, I wasn’t one of those young men who thought his car was his life; otherwise, I would have reacted worse than I did. After the police report, the tow truck, and getting a ride back home, a friend came by to ask how I was doing, and my answer was, “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.” There’s a reason it’s a saying, as is the trope that problems always come in pairs.

The next day, my grandmother asked me to go to the Price Club up the road to get her some potatoes, and since I had no car, I walked. As I was walking through the parking lot, a twenty-pound bag of potatoes balanced on my shoulder, a little old lady pulled out of her spot without checking her mirrors and managed to run over my foot. It hurt, but thankfully, no bones were broken, and as I hobbled back home, I realized the other shoe had dropped.

If the devil does not relent in his attacks, neither should we in our defenses. If he doesn’t take a break from scheming and plotting, neither should we in being watchful for his plots and schemes. We must possess endurance because, more often than not, it is a war of attrition, with Satan hoping to wear you down and you tapping into reserves of strength you never knew you had because although it may feel like it at times, you are not alone in the fight. What you will come to realize is that those reserves are not your own but God’s help in your time of need.

The Bible tells us to resist the devil. It does not give us a time frame for how long we should do it; it is just that we should. War isn’t like boxing. There are no referees or three-minute rounds with breaks in between. It’s a given that the enemy will attack; resist him. It’s also a given that he will attack repeatedly; resist him every time.

Satan didn’t think much of Job’s faith or faithfulness. He did not believe they would weather a storm of any mentionable strength, so his opening gambit was that if God took everything he had away, Job would surely curse Him to His face. Satan believed what he was saying. He believed Job’s faithfulness was due to the blessings he’d received, something situational that would change the moment the comforts of life were stripped from him.

The only way for Job to remain faithful in the face of losing everything was if God was his everything, and that was something Satan couldn’t wrap his mind around. If God is your everything, then anything you lose in this life, any hardship, trial, travail, or valley, is weatherable as long as you still have Him, His presence, and His love.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job XI

 Zebras can’t change their stripes, a leopard can’t change its spots, and the devil can’t change his nature. Whether he’d want to or not is another conversation altogether, but as far as his predisposition to try and cast a shadow on anything good, noble, and decent, it was par for the course, something so engrained in him that he could not resist it. In his insistence that even the one man God pointed to as being blameless and upright was so for ulterior motives, Satan was being true to his nature.

He couldn’t let God have the win. He couldn’t live with the idea that one man among all men desired God's presence in his life to the point of shunning evil and living blameless and upright. There had to be some other reason for Job’s faithfulness. There had to be a motive behind his being blameless and upright other than to be pleasing in the sight of the Lord. The pettiness in Satan’s character is both evident and offputting. It is who he is, who he’s always been, and anyone thinking the devil wants to be their friend is fooling themselves and ignorant of his true nature.

Although there were likely other rich men on the earth during the time of Job, he alone was blameless and upright before God. Job was one of one, a singularity, and it is his uprightness and blamelessness that God took note of rather than any material possessions he may have accumulated. What matters to God and what matters to men is often very different.

Even Satan had to acknowledge the blamelessness of Job. He didn’t say Job wasn’t blameless and upright; he inferred that he was so for an ulterior motive. The devil is a master of the pivot, so much so that one wonders if he learned it from politicians or if politicians learned it from him. If there were anything in Job’s life that could have been used against him, if there had been any hidden sin or practices uncharacteristic of one who is blameless, Satan would have been quick to point it out. Since there wasn’t, his next line of attack was Job’s motivation for being a blameless and upright man. The enemy doesn’t give up after one failed attack. He keeps finding new and inventive ways to bring a charge against the children of God, hoping that one will stick or have the desired effect.

It’s always shocking how many preachers, pastors, teachers, and evangelists give in to temptation and stop living the life they profess to live, and rather than being forthright about their moral failings and confessing their sin, they try to hide it, hoping no one will ever find out. Someone always does. The pattern is clear. Either the enemy has something to hold over your head, and you begin to water down and dilute the message at his behest, or he exposes you for all the world to see, causing undue mockery and ridicule to the household of faith.

Jesus said that nothing is covered that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. This was a declarative statement with no addendums, carveouts, or caveats, yet here we are, and every day, some new thing is brought to light that serves the church with another black eye.

There was nothing in Job’s life that Satan could point to and challenge God’s assertion that he was blameless and upright. If there had been, he would have ferreted it out and would have pointed to it with all the glee of a toddler discovering silly putty.

The reason the Word tells us we are to walk circumspectly and be above reproach as sons and daughters of God isn’t arbitrary. It’s not something God decided upon offhand or flippantly, but that the enemy would have no charge to bring against us and no means by which he could shipwreck our testimony. Each of us will give an account of himself to God. For some, this is a terrifying prospect; for others, it is a reason for joy, for once an account has been given, God will determine the reward for the faithfulness exhibited.

I’ve never been able to reconcile the notion of someone saying they believe the word of God when He says he is both omniscient and omnipotent, even going so far as teaching these truths, then turning around and practicing full-fledged rebellion. Either they never believed it to begin with, or they considered the momentary, fleeting pleasure of their sin to be more important than eternity in God’s presence.

When the enemy has no substantive charge to bring against you, he will resort to innuendo and attempted character assassination. With Job, it was trying to cast doubt on his motivation for fearing God and shunning evil, but that’s just one of many ad hominem attacks he levels against believers, and more often than not, he uses other believers to do it.

One of the most common criticisms leveled against me is that I am unloving because I refuse to water down the Gospel or insist it says something it clearly doesn’t. In my younger years, before the graying hair and arthritic knees, I used to take the bait more often than I do today, trying to defend myself and insisting that speaking the truth is not unloving but that we should prioritize truth over feelings because truth matters, and feelings don’t.

The explanations never seemed to matter. People had made up their minds; they’d fit me in a specific box, and however much I’d try to explain that it was loving to warn people that sin leads to death, it would fall on deaf ears. It took me a while to figure out the game, but once I did, I stopped playing. I realized it was the enemy trying to demoralize me. That was the game he was playing. His purpose is to prevent you from walking in your calling if he can. How he does it is irrelevant to him as long as he succeeds in some form or fashion.

Since he could find no fault or shortcomings in Job, Satan targeted his motivation, implying that the reason for Job’s faithfulness wasn’t something as noble or pure as true love for God but due to having the work of his hands blessed and increasing his possessions in the land.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job X

 In His grace, God directed the author of Job to describe the majesty of God’s habitation in terms we could understand. He begins by telling us that there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. Are there days in heaven? Is there time? Does God, who is eternal, without beginning or end, measure existence in days as we, who are temporal, do? I don’t believe this to be the case, but for the sake of our understanding, we are told that there was a day when the instigating incident that turned Job’s life on a dime took place.

As I said at the beginning of this study, this isn’t a book one breezes through or reads superficially. There are depths upon depths that require thought, and although there aren’t answers to every question that presents itself, the journey itself is spiritually profitable. How so? Most importantly, it’s humbling. If you ever thought that you’d attained or that you knew all the intricacies of the mysteries of the majesty of the spiritual realm, God, and His habitation, you’ll walk away from the first few verses of the Book of Job, realizing just how little you knew. Being humble is a noble virtue; it’s the alternative that’s corrosive to the soul of man.

God speaks to men on their level that man might perceive and understand. This does not mean God lowers Himself to man’s level, for while He speaks to us in terms that bring about understanding, His ways are still not our ways, and His thoughts are still not ours. Just because we can visualize the interaction between God and Satan and the sons of God coming to present themselves before the Lord, it does not mean we come anywhere to imagining the majesty of the heavenly realm.

2 Corinthians 12:1-4, “It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord: I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago – whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows – such a one was caught up in the third heaven. And I know such a man – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows – how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.”

Juxtapose the utter awe and reverence with which Paul describes being caught up with the way some today so haphazardly speak of sitting on God’s lap, taking the throne for a spin, or braiding God’s beard to make Him look more a Norseman than a graying old man, and you get the sense something isn’t kosher. Their descriptions don’t pass the smell test when compared with the descriptions we find in the Bible.

Every time a biblical author wrote of heaven, the presence of God, or the heavenly habitation, it was with a sense of awe and wonder. They beheld something the human mind could not process or rightly retell and heard inexpressible words that were not lawful for a man to utter. You cannot be in the presence of God and not be in awe of Him. You cannot be in the presence of the divine and not fall on your face in worship at the unfathomable majesty and glory of the God we serve.

It’s because they speak of such things so flippantly that I know most of those who insist they’ve walked the halls of heaven are putting on airs and lying through their veneered teeth. I don’t have to dig any deeper than that. Their attitude tells me they’ve never had a genuine encounter with God, for if they had, their reverence for the glory of God would show.

Steer clear of people trying to impress you with their experiences rather than their obedience. Those walking in obedience will never try to impress you with either, but it seems the claims these individuals need to make in order to make others believe they have been sent, chosen, and equipped keep getting more and more fantastical. I’m waiting for one of these people to insist that God let them be Him for a day just to see what it’s like. You think I’m joking; give it time. It’s inevitable.

There once was a man named Moses who had found grace in God's sight and whom God knew by name. No small feat that, but when Moses asked God to show him His glory, his request was denied for one incontrovertible reason: no man shall see Him and live!

Exodus 33:20-23, “But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” And the Lord said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with My hand while I pass by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.’”

So what you’re telling me is that Moses, the Moses, didn’t get to see the face of God, but you’re claiming that He bounced you on His knee and let you play with His beard? Not angels, not messengers, not visions, dreams, or visitations, but literal translation into the holy of holies where you beheld God Himself! Just so we’re clear, that is what certain individuals are claiming, and the church, by and large, is so Scripturally illiterate that they shudder with excitement at the prospect that they, too, will one day sit on God’s lap and stare dreamily into His eyes.

Why do I keep harping on such individuals? Is it jealousy? Is it envy? Do I feel left out of the club because I can’t claim to have sat on God’s lap? No, it’s none of those things. The reason for my continued insistence that these individuals should not be believed is simple: Either they are lying, or God was when He said no man could see His glory and live. Pick one! Who do you suppose is the odds in favor of being proven a liar? God, or the spiky-haired loudmouths who base their entire so-called ministries and ability to generate legal tender on the insistence that they went to heaven?

Reverence and awe of God are implicit and inherent when someone still tethered to this mortal coil has an experience with the divine. When they are absent and fail to materialize as someone discusses the prospect of having seen God with their eyes of flesh, whether they are lying is a foregone conclusion. Because God said no man could see Him and live, whenever such claims are made, it is a lie ten times out of ten.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.