Proof The Bible Is True

 I’ve lived out of a suitcase long enough to know that it’s not impossible to do. I did it for a solid ten years when I was traveling as my grandfather’s translator, but evidently, I didn’t have the fashion sense eleven and seven-year-old girls do, nor did I require wardrobe changes midday.

We are on the road, making our way to Romania, where I plan to spend some time with my father. It’s also been a solid three years since I’ve taken a break from daily writing. Until we reach our destination and get settled, my posts will be sporadic and inconsistent. Between the jet lag, long days, short nights, and the odd tantrum that someone dared to wear someone else’s hoodie, there’s only so much I can juggle before it becomes impossible.

I also plan on spending a few days with my girls, away from the rigidity of our daily schedule back home. No wake-up time, no out the door before 7:35, so you can get to school on time, just the family being together.

I thought I’d post this just so you know nothing happened, nothing’s wrong, and we will return to regular posting soon enough. Looking at the world and its machinations, I can’t rightly say how many more opportunities are in store to just breathe in the air, enjoy the sun on your face, smile at the silly jokes your kids make, and make some happy memories. It’s probably a good idea to do it sooner rather than later.

Thank you for your prayers and understanding.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

 Unless one’s goal in life is to see how many hours they can spend on the couch without getting up, everything we endeavor to excel at requires discipline and focus. Dreaded as these words might be to a generation addicted to TikTok and doom scrolling, they are, nevertheless, necessary practices and prerequisites to building upon one’s prayer life with consistency.

There’s nothing so disheartening as giving it your all and seeing no progress. Although this may be the case if you’re attempting to master juggling, doing cartwheels, or high-wire shenanigans, if you are focused and disciplined when it comes to spending time in prayer, the progress will be evident from day to day. It may be incremental, but looking back a month, six months, or a year from where you started to where you are, the evidence of growth will be undeniable.

What started out as three minutes of discombobulated thoughts spoken in a whisper has now turned into thirty minutes, perhaps an hour of dialogue with God. What was once something you delayed and procrastinated over becomes the one thing you look forward to most upon waking, and that’s because the presence of God becomes more important with each encounter, and the need for Him becomes indispensable.

Those who relish performative prayer, and only do so when others are watching or within earshot, not only dismiss Christ’s instruction on the matter, but will never know the intimacy that being alone with Him produces. Prayer does not require an audience. Prayer is not meant to impress those who happen to hear it. Even within the context of corporate prayer, the purpose isn’t to shout over one another, but as one voice and one heart, worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Matthew 6:5-6, “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

There is a time for corporate prayer. We see this clearly in the book of Acts, wherein the followers of Jesus, along with the disciples, gathered together and prayed earnestly, whether for the promise of the Comforter or for boldness when they found themselves on the threshold of what would be the genesis of persecution for the early church.

Corporate prayer, however, is not a substitute for intimate, one-on-one communion with God, and it was never intended to be. Jesus said as much when instructing His disciples on how to pray, not allowing for the possibility that they wouldn’t have consistent prayer lives as individuals.

Prayer for the spiritual man is as necessary as food is for the physical man. No one ever came up to you and said, if you eat, make sure to get some fiber, protein, and fat as well as complex carbs with your meal. It’s always when you eat, because if you don’t eat, you die.

Jesus didn’t say, “If you pray, do it in this manner.” He said, “When you pray.” He left no doubt as to the importance and the indispensable necessity of prayer in the life of the believer. He did not allow for substitutions or replacements for prayer, or infer that if you didn’t want to pray, you could do something else instead.

Given that it was Christ Himself who gave the instructions on how to pray, the manner in which He prescribed it is the most effective, nourishing, and spiritually developmental way to do it. He would not insist that we pray in a certain manner if a better method existed, because when it comes to His own, He reveals His best. Optimal prayer is one that is done the way Jesus instructed us to do it—you and God and no one else.

The time we spend in the secret place with God, communing with Him and having fellowship with Him, will be evident in the effectiveness of our testimony and the authority we walk in when among others. You can’t be in the presence of God consistently without growing in Him. One translates to the other, and if you’ve wondered why there is so little power and authority in the church nowadays, you have your answer.

The less time one spends alone with God, the less power is evident in their ministry. The less time one communes with Him, the less authority they possess. Tragically, rather than return to the source of power and be filled with His presence, many choose to lean on props and gimmicks, smooth words and bombastic entertainment to take away from their evident impotence when it comes to rightly dividing the Word.

It’s not that they don’t know what works or the power that resides in prayer; it’s that they’re unwilling to make it a priority, thereby relying on parlor tricks to emotionally manipulate those in attendance. As the Pharisees of old were wont to do, whenever someone walking in the authority of God crosses their path, they feel threatened and react instinctively to protect what they deem as their fiefdoms.

By this point it’s no longer about Jesus or the Kingdom but about the individual protecting their slice of the pie, and ensuring that none are the wiser when it comes to the reality that there’s more to be had for the spiritual man than holding up one’s Bible every Sunday morning and repeating a mantra. True power, true authority, and the true gifting of the Holy Spirit terrify the lukewarm and mealy-mouthed, especially those in leadership, because once the reality of what God can do, what He promised He would do through those who walk humbly with Him, is evidenced, it exposes their ineffectiveness for all to see.

Rather than crusade against the enemy and the forces of darkness, far too many are preoccupied with keeping a lid on the truth that God is still the same as He ever was, able to do as He’s always done, and if there is anyone to blame for the flickering light that should be as a bonfire, it’s us.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

 You’ll know the spirit in which such individuals walk by their reaction to the rejection of their proclamations. A messenger is tasked with delivering a message and has no emotional attachment to whether those to whom they deliver the message receive it or reject it. Someone trying to elevate their status by claiming supernatural experiences or insight, however, will react with bitterness and vitriol when their assertions are confronted with Scripture, because they had a vested interest in being seen as spiritually superior to those he was addressing.

Simply put, a messenger’s only duty is to deliver the message in the same manner it was received. His feelings don’t enter into the equation, nor do his opinions, and once the message is delivered, his duty is done. Being tasked with delivering a message from God isn’t a springboard to prominence, fame, and fortune for the messenger. A faithful servant, a true messenger, does his utmost to remain unseen, unnoticed, and unassuming, because he doesn’t want to take away from the message itself or make himself the focal point rather than the message.

Self-importance is corrosive to the spiritual man and has led many an individual to set aside their duties in exchange for chasing the limelight. The pattern is as clear as day. An individual receives a message they are tasked with delivering, they deliver the message, those to whom they deliver it begin to elevate them, they take a liking to it, and rather than be in an environment of humility, obedience, prayer, and faithfulness, rather than reject the praises of men and shift the focus to Christ and the cross, they start to believe their own hype, and feed off the adulation of their contemporaries. Because they are no longer in the position they once were, having allowed distraction and the pride of life to divert them from their purpose, that once vibrant relationship becomes stale, and their singular focus shifts to their name, reputation, reach, popularity, and legacy.

Micah 6:8, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

No matter how great the calling you’ve been called to, no matter what duty you have been tasked with, no matter the number of people sitting in your pews on any given week, what is required of you is to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. There is no tier system with God. You don’t get to shrug off His commandments, requirements, or standards once you get beyond a certain number of members or once you’ve walked with Him for an allotted time.

God requires that we start out walking humbly with Him and finish our race in the same manner. He requires that we start out doing justly, and loving mercy, and end our race doing the same. The only thing that changes from when we start our race to when we finish it is the depth to which we know God, the lessening of self, and the increase of Him, the maturing of our spiritual man and the withering of the flesh to the point that it is dead and no longer holds any sway.

At the start of any journey, the destination is afar off. We know where we want to get to, but if we’ve never been there, all we have is an idea in our minds, an image we hope will materialize into reality. If you live in the Midwest and you’re traveling to Florida, you expect that as you get closer, cross from Georgia into Florida, you’ll begin to see palm trees, and eventually, if you drive long enough in the right direction, the glorious ocean with its blue waters and lapping surf. If you start seeing snow-capped mountains and evergreens instead, at some point you’ll have to acknowledge you’re driving in the wrong direction and course correct. The closer we get to where we want to be, the clearer it becomes. It crystallizes, and the signs that we’re getting close become evident.

When we begin the race, the finish line is nowhere in sight, but we know that it exists. We persist, we endure, we press on, because we know the purpose for which we are exerting ourselves, and though we might not see it in the physical, we have faith that one day the race will have been run to completion, we will have completed our journey, and receive our prize.

At some point, the finish line comes into view, it’s so close we can see it before us, and we get our second wind, all the struggle, the hardship, and the pain having been validated by the absolute knowledge that our faith was not misplaced, we weren’t running in circles, but toward a clear and defined goal.

One inevitably grows in faith the longer they walk with God. They have the experience of having known His presence, felt His love, seen His hand, and witnessed His mighty power, and they transition from the faith that comes by hearing to walking in faith, growing in it, and learning to wield it with each passing day.

Faith is active. It is ever-growing, stretching, reaching, maturing, evolving, and those who find themselves in a state of stagnation must not take it lightly or dismiss it. There is always a root cause for why one’s faith stagnates. Usually, it’s because we’ve become so busy being busy that we’ve neglected the essential practices, such as fasting, prayer, and studying the Word. Spiritual stagnation and spiritual decline are not accidental, nor do they occur absent an underlying cause. If the enemy can keep someone from noticing it, from being alarmed by it, and course-correcting, returning to the consistent practice of the things that once made them grow, they will eventually find themselves back where they started, wondering how they got there.

Consistent prayer works consistently. It works to grow, to strengthen, to enlighten, and to mature the spiritual man in ways nothing else can. It may sound like an oversimplification, but the most profound truths are usually simple ones. Do what works!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

 If the recent spiritual state of the modern-day church has proven anything, it’s that the old path, which it has chosen to discard in lieu of more exciting, newly forged goat tracks, isn’t just superior to anything our contemporary luminaries can come up with, but it still remains the only true path that will lead to our desired destination. Jesus said He is the way, and it remains as true today as it was two thousand years ago when He uttered the words.

My purpose in this writing isn’t to reimagine one’s relationship with God or bring new revelation, but to bring to mind what the Word of God says regarding such indispensable practices as prayer, so that we might endeavor to return to the purity, simplicity, and functionality of true worship.

Nothing I write should be new to anyone who’s been walking with the Lord for any length of time, but a refresher, a reminder, that doing the simple things consistently is what has worked since the early church and beyond.

A life of prayer isn’t bombastic or showy, but the inner strength that consistent prayer produces is so vast and deep that one can tap into it whenever the need arises without having to wonder if it’s available.

We must be able to distinguish between genuine strength and chemically enhanced show muscle. The two are not the same, and when true strength is required, the show muscles will fall short every time. We’ve gone from men and women of God walking in His authority, whom the enemy knows by name and is weary of, to a gaggle of entertainers trying to outdo each other with ever more elaborate stage productions that do nothing to fuel the spiritual man to greater heights of power.

If entertainment is what you’re after, then by all means, seek out the closest guy prancing on stage, throwing his coat at people, and punching cancer patients in the gut. If true strength is what you seek, then there is no alternative to spending time with God, in prayer, consistently and unwaveringly.

By nature of being in fellowship with God, prayer is a transformative experience. Prayer changes you. It transforms you. If you are earnestly carving out time to be in His presence, with every encounter, your spiritual man becomes all the stronger, your perception becomes all the clearer, and your ability to know His voice becomes all the more refined.

The more you press in and beseech God with prayers and supplications, the more time you will want to spend with Him. Back in the day, before the kids, when I still had what some call downtime and actually turned on the television once in a while, there was a commercial for a potato chip making the rounds, and its tagline was that you couldn’t eat just one. Once you pop, you can’t stop, and the way they spun the narrative, it was supposed to be a good thing. It was for their bottom line, but likely not so for anyone’s waistline. The same can be said for the pursuit of a life of prayer, although when it comes to spending time in prayer, there is no downside. Once you begin to seek the face of God in earnest and desire to have fellowship with Him, the desire for more of it will only grow, becoming near to compulsory, having known what it is to feel His presence, and know that He is there.  

As such, qualitative prayer will inevitably stir within us a desire for more quantitative ones. There is no muscle fatigue associated with prayer. If you have no clue what I’m referring to, muscle fatigue is the principle that you can overwork a muscle to the point that the exercise is no longer beneficial but detrimental to one’s development. There’s no such thing as praying too much or too long. There’s no hard stop at thirty minutes or three hours from which point you get diminishing rates of return for the time you put in.

Lamentations 3:22-24, “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I hope in Him!’”

God’s mercies do not run out. He is not Santa Claus, discovering he’s reached the bottom of his goody bag, and there’s nothing left but a pair of socks that look suspiciously similar to the ones your mom bought for your dad on his birthday. They are new every morning, and every time you come before Him, you will know the refreshing that comes with spending time in His presence, a refreshing that does not grow stale or diminish over time, but that is vibrant and full of life with each iteration.

When I first bought it, my cell phone would hold a charge for a couple of days. I don’t use it much to begin with, nor have I increased my screen time, yet a few years in, if I don’t charge it every couple of hours, the battery dies. It is not so when it comes to what we experience in prayer. You don’t feel less of God with each passing day; you feel more of Him. Your strength is not more readily depleted, but grows exponentially as you continue building the bond of faith, trust, obedience, and submission.

Prayer is not a fad. It’s not something that’s here today and gone tomorrow. It is the foundation and support structure for both faith and the relationship we, as His children, must have with God, our Father. While the Scriptures are how He speaks to us corporately, prayer is how we communicate with Him and how He communicates with us on a personal, one-on-one level.

There is one caveat that needs mentioning, given the recent spate of unbiblical revelation by individuals who insist we should trust them over the written Word, and that is that God will never contradict His Word. He is not double-minded, He is not flighty, and He will never give an individual message that contravenes, or stands in stark opposition to Scripture itself.

Yes, there are those who speak when God has not spoken. There are those who go that God has not sent. Whenever you encounter an individual who places themselves above the authority of Scripture, insisting they should be believed over what the Bible says, they are not to be placated, indulged, or humored, but wholly rejected and given a wide berth.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 Psalm 34:8, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!”

My eldest daughter is fully convinced she doesn’t like fruit. Has she ever eaten any? No, that would be logical and make some sort of sense, but without having had a banana, an apple, a pear, or watermelon, she is certain, beyond a shadow of doubt, that she’ll hate it, and it will be the grossest thing she’s ever put in her mouth.

Unbeknownst to her, my wife blends apple puree into the pancake batter, mixes banana into the muffins she bakes, and does her best to ensure that she gets some fruit in her diet.

My youngest, on the other hand, would eat fruit with every meal, and there is no fruit she won’t try at least once to see if she likes it. From kiwi to mango to papaya to the more commonplace apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, and plums, she eats them all with delight, insisting with every opportunity how delicious they are to her sister’s chagrin.

Those who have never tasted cannot know that the Lord is good. You can try to explain it to them, describe what it is to have fellowship with God, be in His presence, and hear His voice, but until such a time as they themselves come before Him in humility with expectation and anticipation, they cannot know the full measure of it.

It’s no accident that those who have started the journey of a life of prayer continue to walk it until their last day. It’s not as though countless people throughout the millennia, on different continents, from diverse backgrounds, speaking different languages, somehow colluded to tell everyone how effective and fruitful prayer was, while they found it underwhelming and easily replaceable with some other pursuit.

As far as conspiracy theories go, that would be a whopper, on the same scale as those who insist that well over half of humanity has been replaced by robots wearing human skin suits, and soon enough, will replace the other half. Given that the tools men use to collude with each other in our modern era did not exist until recently, it’s not just improbable, but impossible that all the men and women who testified to the great and wondrous benefits of prayer somehow secretly got together and wove a false narrative that has been perpetrated for thousands of years.

Even so, men would rather cling to the most improbable hypothetical theories to justify their unwillingness to submit to the Word and follow the examples of those who came before them than humble themselves and put in the time to get to know God. They’ll focus on the one individual who insists prayer doesn’t work because they prayed for a new Porsche and never got it, rather than the thousands of testimonies that highlight the power of prayer and the benefits thereof.

If you taste, you will see that the Lord is good. You cannot form an opinion about something without having experienced it, nor should your opinion be considered as viable or factual. Those who pray consistently and prioritize prayer as needful and necessary know what it is to feel the presence of God, feel the indwelling of His Spirit, and walk in His authority. Those who don’t will insist that it’s cumbersome and mundane, and doesn’t do much of anything, even though they’ve never committed to it as the Word says we ought.

Ephesians 6:14-18, “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked on. And take up the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”

We’re quick to quote the first part of this passage, but less so the latter. Putting on the whole armor of God and praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit are part of the same body of instruction. We cannot do one but fail to do the other, and still expect to be battle-ready, at full strength, and ready to take on the darkness.

If you want to stand, then the set of instructions Paul laid out in his letter to the church at Ephesus is non-negotiable. You wake up every morning and conduct an armor check, ensuring your waist is girded with truth, your breastplate is well-fastened, your feet are shod, your shield is at hand, your helmet is on, your sword is sharp, and then pray. Pray always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end.

It’s not something we do haphazardly, but methodically, almost ritualistically, to the point that it becomes like muscle memory. When a soldier goes to war, he makes sure he has everything he needs. He doesn’t hope it’s there, but he checks, double-checks, and triple-checks that all the necessary tools for warfare are present and accounted for, knowing it can be the difference between life and death.

If you show up to the battle with an empty scabbard, it’s not as though you can borrow a sword from someone else, and the same goes for every article of armor with which you must be clothed.

God won’t send anyone into battle without providing everything they need to stand and be victorious. However, because some are neither sober-minded nor methodical in ensuring that they have the armor they’ve been provided, and that their strength and lines of communication are in good working order, they show up to battle in nothing more than a pair of khakis and a muscle shirt.

It’s not God’s fault that you packed your armor away the day you received it, or that you never once bothered to unsheathe your sword, wield it, and see how it fits in your hand. When we dismiss God’s instruction, we do so at our peril and to our detriment. Whatever newfangled way someone insists they’ve come up with to circumvent the necessary will eventually and inevitably lead to ruin, because the only way to spiritual growth and maturity is clearly outlined in God’s Word.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 There is no area of one’s spiritual walk that prayer will not improve, enhance, strengthen, bolster, or fuel. Prayer is the superfood of the spiritual man. It brings peace when we are anxious, it gives us strength when we are weak, it provides clarity when we are uncertain, and it nourishes us when we are hungry.

There is nothing that can replace it, nor is there a substitute for it. Likewise, there is no barrier to entry when it comes to developing, nurturing, and growing a life of prayer. You don’t need a diploma or certificate of completion from some seminary to begin your journey of prayer. You don’t need someone’s permission or anyone telling you that you’re ready to earnestly endeavor to know more of God. All that is required is willingness and desire. You must have the willingness to set aside all distractions, the things that eat away at your time, and the desire to grow in God.

If no words come, start with the Lord’s prayer, and work your way from there. If your heart is burdened, unburden yourself before Him. If your heart is joyful, thank Him for His many blessings. If you are feeling weak, ask Him for strength. There are no limitations to what we can share with God, because we are addressing our Father in heaven, whose desire is to reveal more of Himself to us with each passing day.

We cannot underestimate the importance of honesty when we come before God in prayer. He already knows it all. We are an open book before Him, and not only is there no point in putting on airs or pretending we are stronger than what we know ourselves to be, it’s counterproductive.

Whenever we see a prophet or an apostle declare themselves as such in the Bible, God had already cosigned their position and awarded them the requisite authority that they might walk in the power of the office, and not just claim a title for the sake of impressing someone.

Most people claiming to be prophets today aren’t. That’s just the sad reality of it, and the same goes for those insisting that they are apostles. Prophets are rare, so are apostles, because the standard to which God holds such men is high indeed, as is the accountability they have to God for the words they speak in His name.

Jesus had twelve apostles, and these twelve turned the world upside down. Nowadays, you’re bound to find twelve self-titled apostles in a church of thirty, all vying for the honorific and implied status the title grants them, while shying away from living up to the standard explicitly detailed in the Word of God.

The standard of the calling is obligatory. It’s not optional, it’s not something men can circumvent while still claiming to have been chosen to some high office. Because they talk the talk but fail to walk the walk, every day, it seems, new horror stories of men in authority being exposed as depraved wolves and charlatans come to the fore.

The desire of their heart isn’t to walk humbly with their Lord, and obey Him in all things; it’s the acquisition of benefits that comes with the status symbol of being called an apostle or a prophet. We’ve seen time and again that it never ends well, and more tragic still is the collateral damage these individuals perpetrate on the household of faith.

I have only so much empathy, and mine is reserved not for the wolves who know precisely what they were doing, but for the sheep whose faith was shaken, tattered, and shipwrecked because they failed to heed the warnings regarding the dangers of placing their trust in men. Steer clear of men who insist that their title or station affords them special treatment, benefits, or requires your subservience. We are all servants of God, on equal footing, none more special than the other, all accountable to Him. There is no substitute for God. The place of honor is reserved for Him and Him alone, and anyone who insists otherwise is not His servant but a savage wolf intent on the destruction of the flock.    

God knows our imperfections. He knows our weakness, our frailty, our struggle, and our pain. To stand before Him and pretend otherwise is to diminish who He is and insist that He play along with the new trend of self-identifying as something we are clearly not. Be humble enough to understand that His grace is sufficient, and honest enough to ask for help in the areas you know help is needed.

But what will people think of me if they find out sometimes there is disquiet in my heart? What will people say if they discover I sometimes worry about my children’s future? Likely, they’ll think you’re human. Likely, they’ll think you are being sanctified daily like everyone else, and that you’ve not reached your destination, but are running your race faithfully until you reach the finish line.

If they think less of you for showing weariness or admitting that the battle rages on and that there is still an enemy to resist, it’s because they’ve put you on an undeserved pedestal. As long as you haven’t put yourself there, it’s a ‘they’ problem, not a ‘you’ problem. My duty as a servant of God is to live up to His standard, not the standards others try to project onto me.

Yes, I wear shorts in the summer. No, I’m not always in a suit. Yes, you’re likelier to encounter me with a bit of scruff on my face than fresh-shaven. No, I don’t wear wing tips and a necktie when I go into the office. Yes, I have laugh lines. No, I’m not trying to impress anyone.

When you come before God, be you. Not an image you’re trying to project, or what you think God would like to see, but who you are, warts and all, knowing that He can make you clean, He can make you whole, He can give you strength and boldness and courage to be light in this world of darkness, and be seen as different and peculiar without going out of your way to be so. Running into someone wearing a toga and a headdress is just weird. Seeing someone smile when everyone else is frowning, encountering someone who radiates peace while chaos reigns around them, is peculiar. Know the difference, and strive to be the latter rather than the former.     

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 The quickest way to become ineffectual for the Kingdom and the work of the Kingdom is to stop doing the things that made you effective in the first place. If prayer got you to a certain place in your walk, and the growth is visible and calculable, then rest assured, you will continue to grow in such a manner if you continue practicing it and dedicating yourself to it.

The biggest complaint of people who have a few pounds to lose isn’t that their preferred diet is ineffective; it’s that once they reach their stated goal, they struggle to maintain their new weight. The reason they can’t maintain it is because once the scale hits the magic number they’ve been sweating toward for the better part of a year, everything they did to get them to that place suddenly stops and they revert back to their old ways, their old eating habits, and their lack of physical movement.

I lose the weight, but I just can’t keep it off. When you ask if they’ve been watching what they eat, or being aware of how much or how little exercise they get, the standard answer is no, because they’re no longer on their diet, so why bother?

A life of prayer is one without a destination in mind. It is a lifelong endeavor, and once we cross the finish line into eternity is when we stop crying out, interceding, and praying to God, and simply praise Him for all eternity. Until such a time, the consistency with which we entreat God will determine our strength, our passion, our endurance, and our ability to discern His voice, recognizing it for what it is, and dismissing all others along the way.

When you pray is a conscious choice, for a determined amount of time. Spending time with God is a choice. Spending time in prayer is a choice, and in order for us to choose Him first and always, it requires a proper understanding of who we are addressing.

I keep coming back to this point because it’s so salient. Whenever you choose to do so, for however long you choose to do so, you get the honor, privilege, and grace to talk to God the Almighty, the Creator of all that is seen and unseen.

Prayer is not cumbersome. It’s not a task, a burden, or something we would otherwise not do given the choice. Anyone who sees prayers as a chore rather than a grace has not come to the understanding of who God is and how great an honor has been bestowed upon them that they can come before Him and know that He hears.

The same individuals who have no qualms about binge-watching six seasons of a middling series within a two-day span feel put out when spending ten minutes in prayer. How does that work exactly? Is your heart truly His if you spend more time trying to avoid Him than you do engaging with Him? Is He the desire of your heart if you’d rather be doing anything else than pressing in and having fellowship with Him?

I don’t ask these questions to be mean-spirited or edgy, but to reveal a truth that many choose to ignore because of what it implies. The reason we do not see the presence, power, and authority of God in most churches is that those who make up the body spend little to no time in His presence, and wouldn’t know His voice from a bleating goat half the time.

God hasn’t changed. He hasn’t suddenly decided to withhold His love, His peace, His grace, His light, or His voice. It’s that much of the modern-day church does not seek, therefore they will never find that’s the problem. They do not knock, therefore the door will never be opened, and He will never come in and dine with them.

We lay the blame on God because it excuses our culpability. We come up with theories as to why God can’t do what He once did, why He doesn’t speak as He once spoke, because it makes our inconsistency, duplicity, and faithlessness less glaring.

For some, accountability is as kryptonite is to Superman. They can’t be near it lest it reveal their true heart, and they might have to acknowledge that the most they’re willing to do is pay God lip service in the hope of winning the lottery, or waking up thirty pounds lighter.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Paul lists three things that are the will of God in Christ Jesus for you and me, and not one has anything to do with calling money down from heaven, speaking prosperity into existence, or symbolically washing our debt away.

These three things are somewhat symbiotic. It’s far easier to rejoice always and to give thanks in everything when you are praying without ceasing. When our focus is the will of God for our lives, when we are wholly devoted to a life of prayer and obedience, then we rejoice not in the things we possess, or the square footage of the home we live in, but in His presence.

When our will is no longer our own, then we are able to give thanks in everything, even when what we’re giving thanks for might seem like a detriment to anyone on the outside looking in. We give thanks because we know He has a plan and a purpose. We give thanks because we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, and are called according to His purpose.

Prayer is the anchor that keeps us steadfast in God. When we are in constant fellowship with Him, we are not swayed to and fro by the trials and hardships of life, nor by the machinations of governments and nations. We are in Christ. Therefore, we have the blessed assurance that He will see us through our valleys. We are in Christ. Therefore, we have the blessed assurance that when our strength falters, His strength will take up the slack and give us the wherewithal to press ever onward toward the prize.    

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 You can’t claim to be a mechanic without the in-depth knowledge of how an engine works. If you’re a mechanic in name only, it will be revealed the moment you’re presented with a problem you have no clue how to fix. The same goes for every profession under the sun. Identifying as a painter, musician, mechanic, plumber, entomologist, or dermatologist holds little weight unless you know what you’re doing and have the requisite set of skills to carry out the tasks necessary to confirm that you are what you claim to be.

One clear identifier of a follower of Jesus isn’t the fish sticker on their back bumper, or that their radio is permanently switched to K-Love, but that they are men and women of prayer. By this, I don’t mean sporadic prayers once in a while, or when we have a need beyond our ability to resolve, but something we practice with such regularity as to be woven into our daily existence, so necessary to us that we can’t do without it.

There are four quantities of measurement as far as memory serves. There is length, then mass, temperature, and time. By any metric, Jesus was the shining example of one who prayed, whether in time, passion, length, or weight. Yes, I do believe some prayers are weightier than others. It’s one thing to pray over a meal your wife cooked; it’s another to pray so earnestly as to sweat drops of blood.

If we look to Jesus as our example, then we must look to Him as our example in all things. We like to point out that He overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple whenever we feel the need to pontificate on some point or another, but rarely do we point out that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer.

Keep in mind, this was Jesus, the sinless, perfect Son of God, yet He found it a needful thing to spend entire nights in prayer before the Father. If Jesus needed prayer in order to be strengthened and encouraged, what makes us think we don’t, or that we can get by with less?

If prayer and communion with the Father were the only source of comfort, strength, and encouragement to one such as Jesus, it’s easy to intuit that whenever we are in need of such things, prayer should be our first go-to as well.

Well, you see, I was feeling down the other day, and started reading the collected works of the wisdom of Joel Osteen, a short read by all accounts. Although it didn’t make me feel any better, I learned I should pretend it did. It’s not so much about feeling the joy of the Lord as it is about manifesting joy until eventually it becomes a reality. By the by, another term for manifesting is self-imposed delusion.

When we come before God in prayer, we don’t have to pretend to have peace; He gives us peace. The peace He gives is a peace that is superior to anything the world has to offer, because the peace God gives is the peace that surpasses all understanding.

When we endeavor to spend time in His presence, we don’t have to pretend to have joy; we receive the joy of the Lord for having been in His presence, are comforted and strengthened in our spiritual journey, and freely receive all the unquantifiable blessings the world is searching for to no avail.

There is no substitute for prayer. You can’t choose to do something else in lieu of prayer and expect the presence of God as you would, had you taken the time to come before Him and pour your heart out to Him.

Those of the early church took Christ’s example to heart and did not dismiss prayer as something optional, antiquated, or tertiary to a well-rounded, healthy, and strong spiritual man. Even when it came to doing good at the expense of spending time in prayer, the apostles chose to appoint others to distribute food to the widows, so that they might be able to continually devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word.

If ministry is keeping you away from spending time in prayer, step back from ministry. No matter how noble a cause, no matter how indispensable the work you do might be, never allow it to take away from the time you spend in God’s presence.

But you don’t understand, brother. The ministry is growing, and there are only so many hours in the day. I understand more than most, just as those of the early church understood. However, they also understood that carving out time to devote to prayer consistently was a non-negotiable, and something necessary for their spiritual well-being.

We’ve heard enough stories of ministerial burnout throughout the years to see the pattern for what it is. When you dig a little and start asking the probing, uncomfortable, but necessary questions, the root cause of the disillusionment, burnout, and exhaustion is always the same. They got so busy doing the work, growing the church, the ministry, or the outreach, that they neglected their prayer lives, spending time with God, and being alone with Him. Even when they started feeling the drag, or the exhaustion, even when they began to notice that every day there was less joy in the work itself, they powered through, because people were counting on them, and they couldn’t let them down.

Because they neglected prayer in favor of the work of ministry, their strength leeched away incrementally, but consistently, until they found themselves hitting a wall, and didn’t have the energy to get back up.    

It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon, and a life of consistent prayer will build up your endurance, refill your vessel, top off your strength, and solidify your purpose so that you may continue walking in the calling to which you were called, whatever that might be.

When we fail to spend time in God’s presence, when we fail to pray consistently, we are essentially decoupling from the power source, and whatever reserves we might have had are quickly depleted.

Ministry, in whatever capacity, does not and cannot replace a life of prayer. Whether you preach, teach, sing in the choir, or sweep the church after service, none of these are substitutes for spending time in God’s presence. It’s not selfish to prioritize your prayer life; it’s wisdom. Jesus did it, and you should too.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 We remain rooted in Christ, knowing He is the source of life. Prayer facilitates our remaining in Him, keeping us connected just as a branch remains attached to the vine. If we do not abide in Christ, all our plans, endeavors, and pursuits will come to naught as far as producing fruit goes. One cannot be separated from the life-giving presence of Jesus and still expect to produce good fruit.

In order for a seed to produce a harvest, it requires good soil, water, and sunlight. These three are essential, and without them, whatever you’ve planted will not come to full maturation, producing the desired outcome. If one’s heart is the soil, then the water and sun are God’s word and prayer. We nourish ourselves daily with the Word of God, knowing it is the source of spiritual sustenance, and entreat Him daily, strengthening our bond and fellowship with Him, knowing it produces life.

If your desire is to grow in God, the blueprint is simple. There is no second option, and the study of scripture and a life of prayer are indispensable in this pursuit. As one grows, they begin to incorporate fasting into their walk, likewise understanding its benefits, because as far as our spiritual man is concerned, stagnation is never an option.

We serve an infinite God, and for anyone to insist that there is no more of Him to discover reveals an abject ignorance of who God really is. It’s more a pride thing than anything else. Men feel as though they’ll be seen in a certain light, lauded and looked up to if they claim they’ve reached the mountaintop and acquired full knowledge of the unfathomable God they purport to serve.

Were we given a thousand lifetimes, we would still fall short of knowing the fullness of God in all His majesty, grandeur, and wonder. Every morning is a new opportunity to know more of Him, to feel His presence, and grow in His love, and this can only be accomplished by coming before Him in prayer and supplication.

What terrifies the enemy isn’t opulent buildings, popular worship teams, fancy lighting, or using props to get a point across. What terrifies the enemy is a church body or an individual who has consecrated themselves to prayer and fasting, to pursuing God at the expense of all else, and making Him the focal point of their existence.

You can have all these things, the opulence, the overflowing building fund, the fog machines, and a coffee shop in the lobby, and still be wretched, poor, miserable, blind, and naked. Conversely, you can have none of these things, none of the trappings or the baubles men use to define success, but have a vibrant prayer life, and you will walk in the authority reserved exclusively for the children of God.

I’m not saying you can’t have both, or that if a church is large and has a beautiful building, it is automatically absent a culture of prayer. However, most people today gravitate toward the easy thing, the comfortable thing, the experience for its own sake, rather than the presence of God.

Walk into any church and within the first thirty minutes of the service, you will know what their focus is. You will know their purpose, whether it is to grow in God or to grow in numbers. It is expedient to sacrifice quality for the sake of quantity, and once you start on that path, it’s difficult to redress and refocus on the things that matter.

We choose to seek the favor of God or the favor of men, understanding that we can’t do both, as they are often at odds with each other. When we desire God’s favor exclusively, it is bound to rankle those who want to displace God and make of themselves something they were never meant to be.

The world can do as the world does. Men can seek the favor of men, stroking their egos, and undeservedly flattering them, pretending they agree with some sentiment or another, even when they don’t, but when it occurs within the household of faith, when a shepherd sees himself as something more than a servant but someone who must be praised and lifted up, the showing of favoritism to those who inflate their egos to bursting is inevitable.

Great or small, prince or pauper, once we surrender and submit, once we humble ourselves at the foot of the cross, we are all bondservants of Christ, none greater than the other. The only thing that differs from one individual to the other is accountability, for to whom much is given, much will be required.

Matthew 6:5-7, “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.”

These are instructions not from second-hand accounts, not from someone who heard someone repeat what they thought they heard Jesus say, but from the mouth of Christ Himself. You can doubt men’s take on certain issues, you can doubt men’s opinions or declarative statements, but as followers of Christ, one thing we cannot doubt are the words of Christ.

One of the most overlooked aspects of Christ’s words took place in the opening sentence. Jesus began by saying, ‘When you pray, not if you pray.’  This isn’t a distinction without a difference, but something far deeper-reaching. Jesus saw prayer as such an indispensable part of one’s spiritual walk that He did not allow for the possibility that those who followed Him wouldn’t have active prayer lives or spend time in prayer.

That one sentence should cement the importance of prayer in our hearts and minds, and encourage us to dedicate ourselves to it, not like the hypocrites who do so that men might see them, but as true sons and daughters of God whose only desire is more of His presence.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 To hear some men tell it, God is akin to an angry schoolmarm, switch in hand, waiting for you to stumble so that He can exact vengeance. In their eyes, His singular desire is to rap your knuckles as often and as brutally as He can manage, just to see you wince in pain. If you are from a younger generation, you will never know the dread of having caught your teacher’s eye doing something she deemed worthy of the switch, then waiting in horrid anticipation for her to insist that you extend your hands in front of you, palms down.

Until the age of nine, when we were kicked out of Romania, I think I got more beatings from my teachers than I ever did from my mom or grandma. That I came from a family of believers was an open secret. That in the eyes of the system, my parents were seen as fanatics, cultists, and those who would impede the progress of the great and wondrous equalizing force known as Communism, was also an opinion those charged with educating the young shared with their party overseers.

I finished the third grade before we left Romania. It was a small village school with no more than four rooms in total, but somehow they managed to find a small alcove for me and another boy who was also the progeny of troublemakers, where we were kept isolated and taught separately from the rest of our peers. It wasn’t so much education as it was indoctrination.

It was my mother who taught me to read and do math. The only thing my teachers attempted to teach me was how barbarian my parents were for believing in Jesus, and how I should denounce them for their refusal to comply and go along with the approved narrative. One of the teachers liked to use an open hand as a means of discipline. In modern parlance, she had anger issues. It didn’t take much to set her off, and once she got started, ringing ears and double vision were only a matter of time.  

The other had a thick wooden ruler that was never out of reach, and in hindsight, I think she enjoyed the ritual of humiliation of having us stand with our hands outstretched, waiting for the sound of wood on flesh more than inflicting actual pain. There was an air of sadism in how she stretched out the discipline, pacing back and forth, tapping her ruler into her hand until she finally did the deed.

There was no one to complain to when it happened. Christians, by and large, were considered subhuman, and so filing a report with the administration would only serve to anger the teachers who would be told about it, but never disciplined for their actions. You waited for the day to end, knowing another would be short in coming, and hoped your fingers still worked well enough so you could play with your slingshot when you got home. High hopes indeed.  

It’s sad and tragic that this is the prism through which some see a good and loving God. Because they never took the time to study the Word and know God personally, they believe this image of God that others have presented to them, and so they live in constant fear, if not outright terror, of the switch.

I’m going to behave myself because if I don’t, God’s going to beat me, and I will flee the appearance of evil because not doing so will dishonor God and be detrimental to my spiritual growth are two very different mindsets.

If fear is one’s driving motivator, their heart will never be in what they’re doing. They will not be joyfully pursuing they ways of God with abandon and desire, but rather shuffle their feet, always keeping an eye on the things they think they missed out on, growing bitter in their hearts because they feel as though they’ve been kept from doing what they really want to do by the proverbial sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

When love is the driving force behind our obedience, however, our eyes are firmly fixed upon Him, and we follow after Him with joy and purpose, knowing that the destination toward which He is leading us is the singular desire of our heart.  

2 Chronicles 16:9, “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.”

Does that sound like a God who's just looking for an excuse to whip you and grind your face into the dust of the earth? Does that sound like a God whose singular desire is to find a reason for punishing you? The eyes of the Lord run to and fro to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are loyal to Him. That’s His purpose in keeping an eye on His creation. Love and the desire to show Himself strong to those who trust in Him are God’s motivations, and not looking for reasons to punish His creation.

God doesn’t play gotcha with His children. If this were the case, none of us would be standing, and all would be limping about with hideous wounds and bruises, desiring nothing more than for it all to end.

Psalm 145:8-9, “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.”

Psalm 145:14, “The Lord upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down.”

It all revolves around the issue of the heart, and whether the heart is loyal to Him. If a heart is fully surrendered, though imperfect, it strives for perfection, placing obedience to the word and will of God above all else, and to such a heart the Lord is gracious and full of compassion.

If you think you’re reading the words of a perfect man, allow me to dispel you of this illusion. I still get flustered by slow drivers in the fast lane, I still get frustrated by people who don’t signal, but every day it’s less so. I don’t react to external forces the way I used to in my twenties or thirties, and I refuse to allow such things to steal my peace, for the most part.

It’s not so much that my flesh doesn’t have the desire to start waving my hands at the car in front of me, hoping they'll spot me in the rearview mirror; it’s because I know that doing so will not bring glory to God that I reign in my baser instinct and just let it go.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 There are two main reasons deceivers have a high rate of success when it comes to deceiving, and both have to do with the sheep rather than the faux-shepherds. You can’t blame a rat for being a rat, you can’t blame a wolf for being a wolf, and you can’t blame the devil for being the devil. All three do precisely what you would expect, with such consistency as to make their next move predictable and anticipatory.

The problem lies in the fact that the sheep no longer want to be sheep. They no longer want to follow but lead. They no longer take the nature of the wolf into account, understanding that even if at the moment it’s not baring its fangs, it’s only a matter of time until it does. When the sheep begin to attack the shepherds because they feel as though the shepherds treated the wolves too harshly, were too short, direct, and firm with them, and did not give them the benefit of the doubt, you know you’ve got a problem on your hands. This problem is exacerbated by the dangerous trend of ignorance of scripture. The more we neglect the Word of God, the more vulnerable we become to deception. Only God can remedy this, and if He doesn’t step in, then rent flesh and bloodied wool are not afar off.

This is what Jesus said, and this is what we must do! But we don’t like what Jesus said. That whole thing about denying ourselves, picking up our crosses, and following after Him seems needlessly laborious. So and so said so. Why are you attacking him because he gave an opinion? But it wasn’t an opinion. It was a different path that stood in stark opposition to the one true path, which leads further away from Jesus rather than toward Him.

You’re just jealous because he’s getting new revelation. It’s not new revelation, though; it’s old deception repackaged for a modern audience, that the Apostles and early church fathers warned against over and over again.

When the sheep resist the Shepherd in favor of the wolves and defend them at the expense of the Word of God, the chaos in which the enemy thrives becomes inevitable, as does the collateral damage that will surely follow.

If God said one thing but we choose to do another while still expecting the favor, protection, and presence of God, all we’re doing is deluding ourselves.

There are those living in darkness who are far more devoted to the destruction of the household of faith than many of those living in the light are to preserving it and defending it. They work tirelessly to sow division, doubt, and heresy wherever the soil is fertile, and given that so many have turned from the truth and embraced demonstrable lies, there is no end to the ruin they are able to exact upon the unsuspecting.

Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

It’s not a possibility that such individuals will attempt to infiltrate the household of faith and turn the hearts of men away from Christ; it’s a certainty. Jesus said that such individuals would not only exist but would also prophesy, cast out demons, and do many wonders in His name, but would practice lawlessness, defend it, and present it as a viable path toward eternity in the presence of God.

If a man said it, but God didn’t, your duty is to trust God and follow Him rather than the machinations of men. It’s not complicated or mysterious; it’s not something we must ponder endlessly to see the truth of it. Either God said something or He didn’t, and if He didn’t say it, there can be a chorus of men insisting that God won’t mind it if your loyalties, your heart, and your goals are divided, it’s still a lie.

Currently, more damage is being done and more destruction is being wrought from within the church than from without. The enemy isn’t at the gate; they’ve breached the walls and they’re inside. It’s never been easier because those tasked with holding the line and defending the truth have never been as weak-willed, mealy-mouthed, and interested in their own fame and prominence rather than standing as a bulwark against deception.

We’ve redefined love to mean tolerance, acceptance, and validation, and the first accusation thrown at anyone who would dare to point to Scripture and insist that what is being practiced is against Biblical standards is that they’re unloving.

Ever since he talked Eve into taking a bite of the forbidden fruit, the devil has been a master of word games and enjoys playing them to no end. He’s been at it for a long time, and no matter how good you think you may be at playing them, he’s better at it than you. Your duty isn’t to debate with him or try to convince him, but to resist him. Only when you resist the devil will he flee.

There’s been this notion going around that the truth needs no defense. On the contrary, given the glut of deception worming its way into the household of faith, the truth needs defending now more than ever before. Just because we’re cowards and shy away from confrontation, it doesn’t give us the right to shroud ourselves in magnanimity and pretend we’re above it all, and so choose to keep silent when the truth of Scripture is being dismantled, reshaped, and reimagined by those who seek the destruction of men’s souls.

It is the duty of the sons and daughters of God to defend the truth at all times before all men, but when defending it, they must not do so with personal opinions, feelings, or emotions. We defend the truth with the truth of Scripture, and in order to accomplish this, we must know it. The sad reality is that far too many within the church are too ignorant of Scripture to be able to defend the truth with Scripture, and so resign themselves to a passive Christianity wherein they hear horrors upon horrors being preached from the pulpit as gospel truth and the best they can manage is to bite their tongue, roll their eyes, and grow bitter.

John 8:31-32, “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”’

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 Proverbs 23:26, “My son, give Me your heart and let your eyes observe My ways.”

Jeremiah 29:13, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Of all the things God could have required of man, why is it that He asks for the heart? He could have asked for the deed to my house, the couple of bucks in my bank account, my left ear, or my right eye, but He settled on the heart.

The answer to this question is no mystery. It is evident, as it is profound. If my heart belongs to God, so does everything that I have and everything that I am. When the heart is truly His, there is nothing we will withhold from God or deem too high a price to pay.

One’s heart can belong wholly to the light, wholly to the darkness, or be divided in such a way that there is no light or darkness but just a murkiness of sorts that stands at the crossroads of indecision, never fully committed to one course or the other. Of the three, the divided heart is the worst possible option, because as Jesus said to the church of Laodicea, I could wish you were hot or cold, but because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

By Christ’s own words, what has been sold to the modern-day church as a viable option will result in being vomited out of His mouth.

We’ve been discussing the effectiveness and necessity of prayer for some time because it is an inexhaustible topic. From seeing its results in the lives of those who came before us, to understanding it was one of a handful of practices Jesus Himself assumed His followers would pursue and devote themselves to, prayer is a topic worth exploring and deepening our knowledge of.

As yet, the one facet of prayer we have not discussed is what can make it ineffective and ineffectual. Is there anything that can hinder prayer? Is there anything that can keep your prayers from reaching the halls of heaven, or that can keep God from hearing them? The answer is, yes, there is. If the heart is not wholly His, if one’s loyalties are divided, if the prayers we pray are not heart cries but merely habitual lip service, then our prayers will neither be heard nor answered.

Because we know that out of the heart spring the issues of life, and that our duty before God is to keep our hearts with all diligence, before we can pray for power, gifts, revelation, or authority, we must humble ourselves and ask God to create in us a clean heart.

Search our hearts, Oh God, and if there is any dross, any shadow, any darkness, any duplicity or inconsistency, burn it out, make it clean, so that when we cry out to You, You will hear, so that when we ask of You, we will receive.

Far too many have been lulled into believing they can have the best of both worlds, when in reality, they have neither of the two. Because they attempt to hopscotch between kingdoms and divide their loyalties, they can never know the fullness of God, nor do they allow themselves to pursue the lusts of the flesh with abandon. They live their days in doubt, wondering if they belong to a God they’ve never felt, but the fear of judgment compels them to pull back on the reins of their desires whenever they conclude they’re getting out of hand.

I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news, but halfway inside the kingdom means you’re completely out. This isn’t baseball, and nobody who’s tried to slide into home plate at the last possible moment has succeeded. When we start playing games with God, we can be sure our hearts do not belong to Him. When we start justifying compromise, telling ourselves it’s okay to look as long as we don’t touch, or we can touch as long as we don’t taste, then taste as long as we don’t swallow, eventually, because the heart is not wholly His, you won’t just taste the cake, you’ll eat it all, then lick the tray hoping for another.

You can’t give God your heart on the weekends, then to the world the rest of the week. It doesn’t work that way. When we pray that He creates a clean heart in us, it becomes new and is not interchangeable with the old heart whenever the opportunity arises.

We’re either clean or dirty. We can’t be a little clean or a little dirty. We either belong to Him or we don’t, and there is no in between. This is what the Book says, and I have no desire to spend my mornings trying to pander to those who insist that a third option exists.

Long before the fat acceptance movement got a foothold in modern society, there was the sin acceptance movement that torched its way through the church like an out-of-control brushfire. The end result for both movements was predictable and tragic.

If you have no idea what I’m referring to, then you’re fortunate. In a nutshell, the fat acceptance movement revolved around a handful of morbidly obese influencers trying to wheeze their way through a sentence, insisting that they were as healthy as any marathon runner. The entire movement flamed out when the aforementioned influencers started dropping dead of coronaries and heart attacks with such frequency as to cast doubt on the entire enterprise.

When it came to the sin acceptance movement, the ripple effects of the aftermath of insisting that a divided heart is not only acceptable but preferable can still be felt through every denomination in the West, leaving a swath of broken homes, shattered faith, empty churches, and countless non-apology apologies from men once deemed spiritual giants in its wake.

Rather than learn from the mistakes of those who fell into the snare of allowing for duplicity within the congregation or their individual hearts, the new iteration of smiling faces has chosen to repackage what was demonstrably proven not to work and present it to a new generation of starry-eyed sheep insisting that they would be the exception to the rule. They won’t, because the Word of God says they won’t.

The tragedy of it all is that while much of what we call the church today is getting their popcorn ready for the greatest revival to sweep the world in any generation, what we will inevitably see is a new wave of destruction brought about by rebellion and disobedience to the Word and will of God.     

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 If Jesus gave everything for me, what makes me think He will be content and satisfied with only half of me? If He laid down His life that I might have life, what makes me think that He will accept anything less than my all? These are the questions the practitioners of casual Christianity refuse to answer, and do all within their power to avoid answering.

The reason is obvious. They know that situational faithfulness, superficial understanding, and inconsistent obedience are not only less than what God deserves but also less than what He will accept. Even so, they find more pleasure in their sin than they do in the presence of God, and as such must justify their duplicity, if only to themselves, because acknowledging the reality of their current state would compel them to make a choice. You can’t have both. It’s either or. Either you choose God, or you prefer the world. You can’t have a bit of both, or rightly divide your heart wherein half belongs to God, and half to the destructive practices that are slowly killing you.

A halfhearted prayer or attending church every other Sunday doesn’t offset rebellion or sin. It’s akin to the guy who insists he wants soy milk in his latte because it has less fat while downing a dozen donuts in a sitting and washing it down with a few puffs of his lavender scented vape.

During all the craziness a couple of years back, when everyone was convinced that a diaper across your face was the best way to achieve immortality, there were a handful of memes depicting an obese individual in a mobility scooter yelling at a gym rat for not wearing their mask insisting that they were endangering their health by not wearing one. The air may have been the last nail in the coffin, but you chose to hammer a bunch of nails in before that final one all by yourself.

The seemingly little things men fail to do consistently over time, such as praying, fasting, reading the Word, and walking circumspectly, weaken their spiritual immunity to the point that some small sin or vice they otherwise would have resisted without much effort will be their downfall. It’s not that the sin was so overwhelmingly tempting that they could not have resisted it had they possessed a vibrant relationship with God, it’s that they were unable to resist it because they had forsaken the practices that made them strong long ago, and now, any old virus leaves them on the floor gasping for breath.

A consistent prayer life strengthens your spiritual immunity. The attacks will come; they always do. They are inevitable, yet the stronger you become in God, the easier it is to resist them, deflect them, and be unaffected by them. There are layered reasons as to why we should pray. There are layered reasons as to why we should fast, and know what the Word of God says for ourselves, and not from some secondhand interpretation by someone who’s trying to sell us a course or a new book.

God isn’t some bitter schoolmarm who’s just trying to give us extra homework for no other reason than to keep us from enjoying our free time. When we are commanded to pray and seek His face, it’s not because God has low self-esteem and needs validation. We are commanded to do these things for our own spiritual well-being, so that we might be able to do as the Word says, putting on the whole armor of God, and standing, having done all to stand.

The less consistent your spiritual succor, the less time you spend in the presence of God, the weaker your spiritual man becomes. It’s as basic a principle as calories in, calories out when it comes to weight gain or weight loss. Knowing that the less time we spend with God, our spiritual man suffers and grows depleted, our priority should be to spend ever more time with Him, understanding the benefits thereof, and seeing it for what it is through spiritual eyes, rather than physical.

Norman Schwarzkopf, a famed US Army General, once said that the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. It is an apt principle to apply to our spiritual growth as well. Once spiritual battle is upon you, it’s hard to grow your spiritual man with any noticeable consistency. You’re too busy fighting the fight, and whether or not you were prepared for it before it began will determine how difficult a time you will have during it.

If you’ve ever wondered how some men weather the storms of life seemingly unscathed, while others are wholly undone by the slightest breeze, it’s because those who stand amid the tempest took the time to build up their most holy faith, they took the time to cement their relationship with God and anchor themselves in the Word long before the storm clouds started to gather.

If we are given a season of relative peace, it’s not so that we squander the time pursuing the things of this earth, but to solidify our faith and trust in the God we serve. It’s to grow our reliance upon Him, identify where we are lacking, and shore up the weaknesses, so that when the battle is raging, we will not retreat or surrender, but press ever onward toward victory.

I can’t will spiritual strength into you. The best any of us can do is point to the Word and tell you what works. Growing your faith, growing your spiritual man, and growing your prayer life are individual endeavors we must pursue as individuals. It’s not collective, and just because a handful of people in the congregation are pressing in and growing in God doesn’t mean we will likewise grow if we fail to do what they are doing.

We know prayer works because the Bible says it does. It’s not anecdotal. It’s not like it worked for one out of ten individuals throughout scripture, but for everyone who dedicated themselves to it. It’s akin to people insisting that fire doesn’t burn because, for those who have gotten burned, it was an anecdotal experience. Not so. Everyone who puts their hand in the fire will burn themselves. Therefore, it’s no longer anecdotal, but absolute and proven. The same goes for prayer. It doesn’t just work for some people, it works for all people who purpose in their hearts to devote themselves to spending time with God and in His presence.    

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 My little brother and I have the same tonal pitch. In layman’s terms, it means we sound alike. It’s happened more than once that I’ll pick up the ministry phone, and someone heartily greets me with a hey, Daniel, then proceeds to talk until they have to take a breath, whereupon I inform them that although it pains me to be the source of their disappointment, it’s the other brother they’re talking to.

The only people it doesn’t work on are the wives, and my daughters, and it’s not for lack of trying. People have said we sound alike for so long that, on occasion, we’ve attempted to see if they could tell the difference, even using each other’s phones to make the ruse legitimate, but to no avail. Even my seven-year-old can tell the difference, not because she has some extraordinary ear for vocal pitch, but because she’s around me every day, and she knows what I sound like, the cadence I use, and the words I prefer whenever addressing her.

His sheep know His voice because they know Him. They know His nature, they know His character, they know His attributes, they know His word, and no matter how close another may get to mimicking His voice, they know it’s not Him. When men possess a superficial awareness of God, they are easily swayed and led astray because they do not know His voice. They’ve heard it, perhaps, once upon a time, but as far as knowing it to the extent that they can discern the difference, they didn’t spend enough time in His presence to differentiate between Him and another.

The more we know God, the deeper our relationship and fellowship with Him, the less likely it is that we will be swayed by the voices of others. Even if they were to say all the right things, and use the latest Christianese talking about breakthroughs, outpourings, and alignments, having known His voice intimately, you can tell it’s not God speaking, but another pretending to be Him.

Psalm 139:1-6, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it.”

David was fully aware of who God is. He understood that there is nothing God does not know, nothing God does not see, and nothing God cannot do. This is the God we serve and worship. This is the God with which we are given the grace to fellowship and build a relationship with, yet so few avail themselves of this gift, preferring to chase after men who can guess their phone number, or the name of the street they live on, as though that were more fulfilling and satisfying than being in His presence, and hearing His voice.

God is not just a good shepherd; He is the good shepherd. A shepherd’s primary duty is to protect the sheep, and oftentimes it’s to protect the sheep from themselves. When God corrects us, when He chastens us, it’s not out of animosity or disdain, but out of love. When we know the God we serve, we will not resist His correction or grow bitter at His chastening, but thank Him all the more for the love His chastening evidences.

Anyone who does not know His character or nature will interpret His chastening as a negative, bristling at being corrected, or kept from continuing down the path they are going down, not understanding that it’s for their benefit rather than their detriment. Because they do not know Him, they are suspicious of His intentions, always wondering why God is trying to keep them from pursuing the desires of their heart, unwilling to acknowledge that the desire God is keeping them from pursuing will lead to despondency and death.

Cliché as it may sound, God does know you better than you know yourself. He has searched you and knows you, He knows your sitting down and your rising up, and understands your thoughts afar off. His ways are better, His path is straighter, His plan and purpose for you are greater, no matter how much your flesh might insist otherwise.

The flesh has the ulterior motive to keep you in the flesh. It doesn’t want to die. It doesn’t want to be mortified, crucified, and done away with. Its survival instinct demands that it do everything it can to remain viable and in control, to assert influence, and keep itself from dying.

Psalm 139:16-18, “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You.”

Hebrews 4:13, “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”

When we seize upon the understanding of who our God is, when we see Him in His glory and majesty, and know what He can do all the worry and fear melt away. We are no longer troubled by thoughts of what tomorrow might bring because we know that the days fashioned for us were written in His book from before we breathed our first. It’s comforting and liberating to know that God has our days in His hands, and that all things are naked and open to His eyes.

We have the liberty to pursue Him, to grow in Him, to trust Him, and obey Him without the constant fear and trepidation the world battles daily. God is in control. His ways are good, and His thoughts toward us are precious.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 I must confess, I’ve been guilty of yo-yo dieting throughout my fifty years on this earth. Actually, more like 35 years, since up until the age of fifteen, I didn’t think anything of it, and ate what I wanted, when I wanted, deluding myself into believing that you can flex flab. All told, I’ve probably lost and gained close to a thousand pounds. It’s not so much that I start feeling some kind of way when I decide to shed a few pounds, but that my clothes are getting tight, and I’m too cheap to buy a new wardrobe just to facilitate my growing midsection.

In hindsight, it would have been easier and less taxing on my body to maintain the first time I lost sixty or seventy pounds than to fall off the wagon and start the whole thing over again. That’s the thing about hindsight, though, you can only learn from the experience going forward because no matter how much we would like it to be so, time travel is a fantasy, and there’s no going back and doing it differently.

It’s in the latter stages of life that we get honest with ourselves. It’s once we come to the realization that we’re way past the halfway point of our lives here on earth, and that the bulk of our lived experiences are behind us, that we tend to become more introspective and prioritize the things that matter. The wise ones among us get a head start. They learn what’s important at an earlier age and commit to doing what they know they must to get the results they envision.

I have yet to meet anyone who, in the twilight of their existence, wished they’d spend less time in God’s presence, less time in prayer, and less time growing their faith. It’s always the opposite. They look back on the life they’ve lived and can identify countless hours they wasted on pursuits that did nothing to bring them closer to God, that grew their spiritual man, or that revealed more of Him in their daily walk.

No one’s lying on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time at work. Many do so, wishing they’d spent more time with their family, friends, those they love and who love them in kind, and in becoming that mature believer who understands that submitting to the authority and sovereignty of God is not cowardice or capitulation, but the right attitude with which a servant approaches their Master.

The moment we realize that nothing in this world can give us what God can, the notion of casual Christianity dies a quick and sudden death. There is no replacing God with something else. There is no replacing fellowship with Him with entertainment, riches, or fame.

There are enough testimonies from early church history onward wherein men willingly and joyfully forfeited all things for the great high calling of being called a son or daughter of God, and not a one looked back on the decision and thought it too high a price to pay. When we begin to understand God, who He is, and what He has promised to those who become His, we endeavor to empty ourselves of ourselves and the world so that we may be filled with Christ.

Those yet still of the world may look upon our choices with derision, displeasure, or think us fools, but there is joy in being a fool for Christ, a joy they could never know or tap into while they still wander in the dark.

Why do you pray so much? Because I see the fruit it produces. Why do you spend so much time reading your Bible and studying the Word? Because it feeds my soul. Why don’t you take up golf, or some other hobby, to get out of your head once in a while? Because I find no pleasure in them. Everything in life is an either-or proposition. You determine what you devote your time and energy to, you choose what you pursue, and the beauty of pursuing God is that there will never be disappointment in it. You won’t be let down by the presence of God. You won’t be underwhelmed by feeling Him, hearing Him, communing with Him, and growing in Him.

Every day is a new opportunity to commune with the Creator of all that is. Nothing compares to it, nothing even comes close, yet, somehow, we always find reasons and excuses to put it off another day, convincing ourselves that tomorrow is certain, and not allowing for the possibility that for any one of us as individuals, tomorrow may never come.

I’ve had enough conversations with individuals who have dedicated their lives to prayer over the years to see a pattern emerging, and thankfully, it is a replicable pattern. As is usually the case, if you want to replicate success, do what other successful people are doing. If you want to replicate failure, find someone who is one, and do accordingly.

The first thing that every one of the individuals who had vibrant, consistent, and well-rounded prayer lives that I’ve spoken to has echoed was the reality that they didn’t set out to break some sort of record for most time spent in prayer, nor did they consider that they were more righteous the more time they spent on their knees.

The motivation for their spending time in prayer was the longing and desire to be in the presence of God. It wasn’t so they could brag to their neighbor that they’d just prayed for three hours straight, it was because nothing satisfied their soul the way being alone with God did.

The second thing that almost all concluded was that once they get alone with God, their prayers aren’t forced, or redundantly repetitive just because they want to see the minutes ticking by. Their aim was always sincerity, and a coming before God with qualitative prayers, rather than quantitative. This doesn’t mean their prayers were rehearsed or that they wrote them down, but that every time they came before God, they came before Him with the full awareness of whom they were communing with. If you do not know who you are addressing when you pray, then there is no foundation for your faith to rest upon.

 There is a difference between having to do something and getting to do something. When you have to do something, the underlying perception is that it’s a chore, a burden, or something we would rather not do, like waking up before dawn to commute to a job we are indifferent toward on the best of days, and spending eight hours doing tasks we would never consider doing were we not being paid for it.

Getting to do something denotes both willingness and desire, presupposing that it’s fun, enjoyable, and something that, given the chance, we would gladly keep doing for the rest of our days, like eating cake for dinner, or enjoying the sun on a perfect day while our toes curl in the sand. Granted, for some, spending time in the mountains is the ideal, but personally, I’d take the beach over the forest every time, without fail.

Coming before God in prayer is not a chore. It is not a burden, or something we have to do, but rather something we get to do. We get to speak to God. We get to fellowship with Him. We get to grow our relationship, and be in His presence, and we should look forward to our time alone with God with as much enthusiasm and joy as we would doing anything else we look forward to and yearn for.

If ever prayer feels like it’s becoming a chore rather than a grace, it’s a telltale sign that you’re losing sight of who God is and who we are in relation to Him. If first love burns bright in your heart, there will always be a sense of excitement and anticipation when contemplating spending time with God. It’s not something we put off; it’s something we make time for because of who it is we are addressing and pouring our hearts out to.

Isaiah 46:9-10, “Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.’”

Even if you are unaware of it, and it occurs subconsciously, you will have a different demeanor when interacting with someone in authority than you would with a store clerk or a greeter at the local grocer. When we approach God with the awareness and understanding of who He is, we do not do so flippantly or glibly, but with the requisite reverence His station demands.

We honor God because of who He is, and those who fail to grasp who He is will always tend to downplay the awe and reverence the situation demands. By now, we’ve all heard the tall tales of individuals claiming to play with God’s beard or beat Him at a game of chess, and you can tell they are no more than fanciful fabrications because there is no awe and wonder in their fantastical yarns. You’re telling me you sat on God’s lap, braided His beard, and walked away as unaffected as you would have been petting a stranger’s labradoodle in the park?

You stood before the majesty of He who declared He is God and there is none like Him, and you weren’t wholly undone, you didn’t tremble, you didn’t cry out Oh wretched man that I am? The flippancy with which you relate your supposed experience tells me you’re lying through your veneers. The lack of reverence, awe, and wonder at having supposedly seen God face to face tells me it was not so.

Any man or woman who’s had a genuine encounter with God does not, and cannot, come away unchanged. His righteousness will inevitably reveal their wretchedness, and His majesty will inevitably reveal their insignificance. This is why no true servant of God has ever declared themselves indispensable. They understand how small they are in contrast to the greatness of God, and that He will do all His pleasure with or without their active participation.

God is not dependent on any one man, any one church, or any one denomination. They are all dependent upon Him. In Him we live, and move, and have our being, and absent Him we are no more than dust, destined to return to the earth from which we were fashioned.

The goodness of God is on full display not in the blessings He gives, but in that He makes Himself available to each and every one of us, at any time of the day, including weekends, and all we need do is avail ourselves of this grace, press in, and have fellowship with Him.

There is no greater blessing than being able to talk to God and know that He hears us. There is no greater blessing than knowing that when we pour our hearts out to Him, He will not turn a deaf ear or dismiss us out of hand because He has more important things to do.

If men understood the power of prayer and the grace that it is, perhaps they would not be so quick to ignore it in lieu of bombastic experiences, or fanciful stories about pet dinosaurs in heaven, or how Jesus is a big Marvel fan. Children believe in fairy tales. Grown men and women shouldn’t.

There is growth, maturing, and edification in one-on-one prayer time with God that no amount of second-hand retelling of stories or testimonies can replicate. When we endeavor to have strong, vibrant, and consistent prayer lives, the experiences of others we deemed as supernatural will become our lived experiences, because the closer we draw to God, the nearer He will draw to us, and the more of Himself He will reveal on an individual basis.

Walk humbly with your Lord. Spend time with Him. Let the desire of your heart be fellowship and relationship, rather than bombastic experiences, and your faith will grow, stretch, and mature to the point that six months from now, or a year from now, your walk will be unrecognizable. It’s not a sprint, it’s a lifelong marathon, and consistency in prioritizing God is the key to spiritual growth.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

 Proverbs 15:3, “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch over the evil and the good.”

Every place means every place. Not just some places, only when it’s light out, or when you’re in a group setting, but even those moments of solitude, where no one else but God can see you, He is keeping watch.

Although He keeps watch over the evil and the good alike, His reaction, interaction, and response to them differ based on whether they are known to Him as His own or are removed from His light, love, and presence. God is not a politician and has no need to play word games. He won’t make promises He does not intend to keep, nor give you His undivided attention only until you sign on the dotted line, then ignore you wholesale until the next time He has need of you.

People nowadays are so used to being used that they can’t process the notion of God desiring a relationship with them for no other reason than the relationship. There must be something He wants, surely, there must be some vested interest or an ulterior motive I have yet to suss out, because His wanting to give me eternity in exchange for my brokenness just doesn’t make sense.

Why would God offer me peace in exchange for my despondency? Why would He offer me joy in exchange for my despondency? Why would He offer me clarity in exchange for my confusion? Why would He offer me eternal life in exchange for this present life, which is but a flicker? Short answer, because He loves you! He loves you so deeply, and beyond your comprehension, that He sent His only begotten Son in order to facilitate your ability to have eternal life if you believe in Him.

The parent of a wayward child still sees them as their child. Their heart breaks for the choices they’ve made, and the hope they cling to isn’t that they would remain lost but that they would return, reconcile, repent, and acknowledge the error of their ways. The lost can be found if the desire of their heart isn’t to remain lost.

Just as a mother or a father would never turn away one of their children, God will never turn away anyone who seeks to know Him and feel His presence in their life. It doesn’t matter how deep the hole they dug for themselves; if they desire to climb out, God will reach out with a helping hand.

We serve a good God. This is one of those truths that continues to crystallize in my heart and mind the older I get. I’ve always known He was good, I just never realized the depth and width of His goodness, in all its majesty. I don’t think I ever will. Every day, it expands and grows, and a new layer of His goodness becomes evident, surpassing my previous understanding. His goodness is so vast that it humbles us and fills us with awe.

One of the greatest unsung blessings of being a child of God, especially in our ‘what’s God going to give me today’ era, is that there is always more to discover about Him. Even if we were given ten lifetimes, there would still be more to discover about the infinite Creator of all that is, from His attributes, to His grace, His mercy, His love, and His longsuffering.

Psalm 33:13-19, “The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works. No king is saved by the multitude of an army; a mighty man is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety; neither shall it deliver any by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.”

This is just one snapshot of the multi-faceted God we serve, a solitary glimpse into His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, yet some consider one encounter with Him enough to claim full understanding and knowledge of Him for the rest of their lives.

I got saved, brother. Twenty-two years ago, I was at a crusade, and I raised my hand and walked the aisle. All well and good, but have you deepened your understanding of God since? Have you nurtured a relationship with Him since? Have you been in awe of His majesty every day since? Have you desired to know Him not just on a superficial level, but deeper and more profoundly with the passing of the years?

Those who doubt God’s ability to do all things do not truly know Him. Those who spend their days troubled in their spirit, allowing the chaos of the world to encroach upon their peace, have not surrendered their all to Him, knowing without equivocation that their hope in Him is not misplaced, and that He can and will deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine.

What have you to fear when you hear of wars and rumors of war? What have you to fear when you hear of pestilence, disaster, or uncertainty? You are a child of God. He knows you, and He sees you. Rest your hope fully in Him, and you will have the peace that surpasses all understanding. Cling to Him, and the storms and tempests will seem like no great thing, while others around you are beside themselves with fear and trepidation.

When our hope rests fully in Him, the prism through which we see the goings on around us is naturally different than how those who hope in themselves, their aptitudes, or their abilities see the world. We see the chaos, we acknowledge it, but are not affected by it, because our peace and safety are not contingent upon men, governments, or governing bodies.

God will keep His own. He will protect His own. He will make a way for those who belong to Him even when everyone else sees no path forward, and no viable option but to capitulate to the despondency. Be a happy warrior, knowing that the battle belongs to the Lord!       

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 While we may know in part and see in a mirror dimly, the God we serve has no such limitations. Another of His attributes reserved exclusively for Himself, added onto His omnipotence and omnipresence, is His omniscience. God is all-knowing. There isn’t a question He doesn’t know the answer to, or a mystery that remains a mystery in His eyes. He knows all things. Whether past, present, or future, God knows all things, and there is nothing He is ignorant of throughout eternity.

Before God ever uttered “let there be” in His omniscience, God knew every aspect of every thread of human history so meticulously that there is not one event, situation, or circumstance that fell through the cracks or that He was unaware of.

For someone who forgets where he places his keys from one moment to the next, it’s hard to wrap my mind around the notion of omniscience. The older we get, the harder it becomes to remember certain things, time having a way of fading even the most precious of memories, but not so with God.

Why does this matter? Because oftentimes we find ourselves thinking that God either doesn’t understand a situation we are going through, or is unaware of a trial, a setback, or a testing in our lives. He is fully aware and has intimate knowledge of every aspect of our lives, and in all things, there is a purpose that, although we might not see in the moment, we have faith and trust that He does.

Lord, do you not see my struggle? Lord, do you not see my pain? Lord, do you not see my tears? He does, but He also sees what strength and faith the valley will produce in you. He also sees the end result of your testing, having gone through the fire and coming out the other side, all the stronger for it.

God’s omniscience was not acquired over time or through diligent study. He has always possessed it, and throughout the millennia, there has been no oversight on His part regarding anything pertaining to human existence.

Only a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent can be a truly just God. There can never be a miscarriage of justice when it comes to God. The prosecution can neither manufacture evidence nor withhold evidence; the defense can’t contrive or stretch the truth, insisting that if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit. God knows all things; nothing is hidden from His all-seeing eyes. When He sits in judgment and dispenses justice, it is with full and complete knowledge of the situation, the circumstances, and the intent.

Some people use the motto that God knows their heart as an excuse and justification for their duplicity and irreverence. They believe it to be their defense when, in truth, it is the proof of their guilt. Yes, God knows your heart, and for some this is a reason for dread, for in their hearts they know they chose disobedience, they chose rebellion, they chose to be situationally committed to the ways of Christ, rather than wholly sold out and surrendered to Him.

If you have children, you know that accidents occur once in a while, but you also know that sometimes, even though they insist it was an accident, it really wasn’t, and there was intent behind their action. Even when you were witness to the entire thing, and you could see the premeditation on their face, they’ll still insist that picking up the wiffle ball bat, sauntering up to her big sister, and whacking her across the back, was wholly accidental, even though thirty seconds prior her big sister wouldn’t share her Legos, and she walked away in a huff.

They’ll tell you they didn’t mean to do it with such sincerity and heartfelt emotion that had you not witnessed the entire interaction, you would likely believe them. This is similar to how men interact with God. Rather than humbling themselves, confessing, and repenting, they insist they are innocent, even though they know they are not. God sees all and He knows all. He was a present and credible witness to the choices that led to the action that led to your situation. To claim innocence when we are fully aware of our guilt and complicity is to diminish who God is.

There are instances within scripture where certain men failed spectacularly, yet due to the sincerity of their heart, their contriteness, and their willingness to humble themselves and admit fault, they still found grace and favor in the sight of God.

One such individual is David, whom God declared as being a man after His own heart who would do all His will. Yet, in studying David's life, we see that he was far from perfect. The reason David found favor in the sight of God wasn’t because he never stumbled, but that when he stumbled, he repented, understanding he was at fault, and he owned up to it.

Willful, habitual sin isn’t stumbling; it’s rebellion. It’s not what David was guilty of, just in case some would use his story to justify their lifestyle, but the purpose of this idea thread has more to do with God’s omniscience, and our admission of guilt, and ensuing repentance, rather than a broader conversation regarding what has become a sin culture within the church justified by taking a handful of scriptures out of context.

Whatever excuses men might come up with in order to justify their faithlessness will be deemed insufficient when they stand before the all-knowing Creator of all that is. We will stand before Him as individuals, and though we might try to scapegoat others for our actions, we are accountable for what we do, how we live, what we believe, and whether or not we walk in obedience to His word. God knows everything not just in part, but in whole. There is no nuance one can highlight to make His understanding of a situation change, or declare His righteous judgments unjust.

Walk circumspectly. Search your heart. Be honest with God, knowing He already knows. Set aside whatever self-aggrandizing image you might have of yourself and know that if you stand, it is by grace and the power He has endowed you with. It’s not you. It’s never been you. It’s always been Him working in you and through you, and this knowledge should serve to keep you humble, no matter the lengths to which God chooses to use you.       

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 Jeremiah 23:23-24, ‘“Am I a God near at hand,’ says the Lord, ‘and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?’ says the Lord; ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says the Lord.”

There is nowhere you can go that God does not see you. There are no words you can whisper that God does not hear. There are no prayers and supplications you can bring before the altar that God is not aware of, or that He does not acknowledge. This is His promise. He sees, He hears, for the whole earth is filled with His glory, and not one among us is deemed insignificant by Him, even if the world might deem us as such. You are not just a part of His creation, but a cherished individual in His eyes.

The lowliest son or daughter of God has the same access to Him as the most renowned preacher, teacher, or evangelist. Nobody gets privileged access because of their calling, or the size of their church or ministry. Nobody gets to cut to the head of the line, or claim exclusivity when it comes to spending time with God and in His presence, because of how much money they give, or how influential they are. God doesn’t have a Patreon. You don’t get special treatment the more you increase your monthly pledge, financially speaking. It’s in the time you spend with Him, and the burning desire of your heart to know more of Him, that God responds to and acts in kind.

One of the most frequent complaints you hear from individuals attending mega churches is that they feel invisible. Even though they’ve been attending the church for years, they never once got to shake the pastor’s hand or speak two words to him. Every time they tried, security got in the way, insisting that they needed to be vetted, because we can’t just have anybody come up and shake the man of God’s hand.

There are no barriers to entry when it comes to spending time with God. There is no security to manhandle you, you will never be told that His schedule is full by a bubbly, overly cheerful secretary, and you will never feel ignored by Him if you come before Him in faith and humility. God is ever present, ever aware, and ever desirous to have fellowship with you. He has no hidden agenda or vested interest. He won’t run your credit score before He agrees to take the meeting, and He will not despise small faith or discordant prayers. You are free to approach Him at any time, in any state, and He will always be there for you.

You don’t have to be perfect to come before God, just perfectible. If the desire of your heart is to be more like Jesus, God will take you through the process of sanctification, of dying to self, of mortifying the flesh, all to His glory. It’s when men resist the molding, the pruning, the sifting, and the transforming of God that progress ceases to be made. It’s when men prioritize this present life, their comfort, their reputations, or their aspirations over the will of God that there is discordance and stalled growth.

When Isaiah recounts the vision he had of the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and that he heard the Seraphim crying out, “holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory,” it wasn’t hyperbole or exaggeration. The glory of God is the manifest presence of God Himself that envelops the earth and fills it. How can we, for a second, consider that God does not hear the cries of our hearts when the earth in its entirety is filled with His glory? If anything can give us boldness to press in and come to the throne of grace, it is this irrefutable truth: He is present, he is engaged, and He hears you!

There is only one requirement when it comes to worshipping God: that we do so in spirit and truth. We don’t have to be in a certain place at a certain time in a certain position. Wherever you are, God is there. Whenever you speak, He hears. That we would rather spend our days arguing needlessly with people we’ve never met than commit to spending time with God is not only telling but indictable.

We can’t go around insisting that God doesn’t hear us when we don’t take the time to speak to Him. We can’t throw up our hands in frustration and insist that we don’t feel His presence when there is no desire to be in His presence. It’s not about feeling your feelings or being compelled to approach Him due to untenable circumstances; it’s about desiring to worship Him in spirit and truth, prioritizing Him above all else, and making Him our everything.

God wants more for you than He does from you. Everywhere you turn, someone’s trying to get something from you. Whether it’s your attention, your time, or your money, everyone’s presenting themselves as the one thing you can’t do without. You need this vitamin! You need this supplement! You need to buy this course, this kitchen utensil, this form-fitting shirt, or this beard trimmer.

The only thing God wants from you is your heart, and even that one thing is not out of selfish motives, but rather because He knows that once you surrender your heart, what He will do for you is incomparable to what He demanded from you.

It's an astounding realization. Dare I say, a life-altering, reality-shattering, realization. Before God ever asked for your heart, He gave His only begotten Son. Before God ever asked for your time, He promised that whenever you came before Him, there would never be a ‘temporarily out of the office’ sign on His door, nor a reprimand for not coming before Him during business hours.

Even with all that He has done and all that He promised He would do in us and through us, we remain fickle and faithless, swayed to and from by the merest of breezes. We yearn for the melons, the onions, the leeks, and the garlic of Egypt, forgetting that we were slaves, beaten, abused, and broken, with no hope, no joy, and no future. Think on that the next time someone says God is not as forbearing and long-suffering as they would like Him to be. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 When faith is anchored in the power of God and not in the wisdom of men, it removes all nagging doubt as to whether God can do a certain thing. Men fail all the time. Even those with the best of intentions fall short because their power is limited, and though they might desire to do grandiose and noble things, they are incapable of doing them because they have neither the ability nor the capacity.

God, on the other hand, is not limited in His power. He is not limited in His ability to do all that He desires, speaking worlds into existence, and creating man from the dust of the earth. Once we come to understand that we serve a God of power, we will never again wonder if God is able to do something, no matter how impossible it may seem to human intellect. We are confident that God can do and will do all He has promised, because we know Him to be omnipotent. The question isn’t if He can do it, it’s whether it is His will to do it.

That’s the sticking point for many people, because they’ve gotten it into their heads that they can dictate terms to God, demand things of Him, and He must bend to their will, rather than them having to submit to His. God owes me nothing. It doesn’t matter how much of a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum I act like, He is not compelled to do something He knows will end up hobbling my walk, or shipwrecking my faith.  

God isn’t the Lord of your life only when He does things that seem to benefit you, or things you agree with. He doesn’t cease being omnipotent because He didn’t do the thing you asked Him to do, because, unlike man, He knows the end from the beginning, and sees the final outcome of what would have been had He acquiesced.

God’s primary concern is and always has been your spiritual well-being. Though we might ask it of Him, anything detrimental to our spiritual growth, our maturing, our learning to walk by faith and in His authority will be denied us because He knows it would harm us in the long run even though living on easy street and still having a couple of dollars in the bank at the end of the month after all the bills are paid would be nice for a change.

By the prayers He answers and the prayers He doesn’t, God is daily shifting our focus from the things of this earth to the things above. He constantly reminds us that this present life is but a flicker, a grain of sand in an ocean of time, then eternity awaits. Not to belabor the point, but eternity is a long time. God’s primary concern isn’t whether you can afford the muscle car of your dreams, but where you will spend eternity. There are only two destinations, and no third option exists. Every soul that has ever walked the earth will either be welcomed into His presence or cast into the outer darkness. There is no third option. There is no purgatory, no neutral existence for those who tried to be good people; it’s either or, and the deciding factor is whether, as an individual, Christ is Lord of your life, and you’ve been born again to a new life in Him. You’re not saved by osmosis or grandfathered in because your parents were regular churchgoers. You must come to the foot of the cross in repentance. You must surrender your life. You must deny yourself, pick up your cross, and daily follow after Him.   

Our trust in God’s purpose isn’t baseless. We trust because we know He is already present in our tomorrow, and knows the end from the beginning of all things. God is omnipresent. This not only means He is everywhere all at once geographically, but also in time. It’s both time and space that God is omnipresent in, throughout the universe, at all times. God doesn’t take breaks. He doesn’t go on vacation. He doesn’t delegate the responsibilities of His sovereignty for a few decades because He happened upon a new hobby He’d like to pursue.

Even when it seems to us that God isn’t there, He is. Even when it seems He is not hearing the cries of our hearts, He is. This is a certainty we as His children must possess and anchor ourselves in, knowing that the enemy’s great joy is to sow doubt and make us question whether God is truly there.

His omnipresence confirms that any doubt we have is baseless and unfounded. His love affirms that when we cry out to Him, He hears, and in His time, He will do as He wills.

God’s omnipresence is also one of the attributes that sets Him apart from all other gods. There is no religion in the world, and no deity men have worshipped throughout time, which has made the claim that their god is omnipresent. You can go down the list, to every continent, every deity, and every religion, and you will not find one that has even hinted at what the God of the Bible has declared.

Acts 17:26-28, “And He has made from one blood every nation of men who dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’”

No matter where you happen to be geographically, no matter what continent or nation, God is not far from each of us. You don’t have to go on a quest to find God. He is not far from you, He is not hiding Himself, or so far removed from your proximity that the hope of knowing Him is futile. We approach God with confidence because we know He is near. We desire a relationship with Him because we know it will not be one-sided, but reciprocal.

If the realization of who our God is in all His wondrous glory doesn’t humble us and stir gratitude in our hearts for the grace bestowed upon us to have fellowship with Him, then we either have an inflated sense of self or do not fully grasp the magnitude of the God we serve.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

When we found out my wife was pregnant with our second child, we were still living in an apartment barely big enough for the three of us, with no prospects of finding a bigger place. We were scrambling, realizing we were now on the clock, and in a few months’ time, a fourth member would join our family, and there would be no way around needing to move to a bigger place.

The housing craze had started in earnest, and people were offering tens of thousands of dollars above asking price, waving inspections, and making all manner of exceptions they otherwise would not have, just to sign the papers and ensure they got into a home.

We’d been actively looking for a bigger place for some time, and on more than one occasion, by the time we got to an open house, it had already sold above asking, via telephone, without the individual who bought it ever seeing it in person.

Pursuing something from a position of desperation is never a good idea. When doing so, thinking clearly becomes almost impossible, and only in hindsight does one realize that the desperation drove them to make decisions they otherwise would not have, that in the moment seemed like the right choice, but that have a lifelong negative impact.

We thought we’d finally caught a break when we showed up at a viewing, and the real estate agent was there, informing us that the home was still available. On the outside, the house seemed nice enough, cozy even, but as we started the walk-through, I began to notice a few things that didn’t quite add up. The floor seemed slanted in places, a couple of the doors seemed to stick, but the biggest giveaway was when we got to the basement and noticed a handful of cracks and fissures in the foundation.

I will admit I am no expert in how a home should look, but even I knew that cracks and slanted floors were a bad sign, and something that should be avoided. Our desperation, coupled with my wife’s now-evident morning sickness, and the ever-present thought that we were running out of time before the baby arrived, actually made us consider putting an offer in on the house, but after we got back to our apartment and discussed it at length, we concluded it was a risk we couldn’t afford to take. Cosmetic issues are one thing. Foundation issues when it comes to a home are something wholly different and can end up being very expensive.

You can have a less-than-ideal structure sitting on a good foundation, or you can have a structure pleasing to the eye, yet whose foundation is in ruins. The wise man will always choose the former over the latter because he understands that if the foundation is bad, the entire edifice is at risk, and there is very little you can do to make it habitable once the foundations have crumbled.

For decades now, the Western church has focused on cosmetic issues while ignoring its crumbling foundation. Nobody visits the basement anyway, so why bother? We need to have fresh paint on the walls to cover up the cracks, we need to plush seats to make the people feel at ease, we need to have good entertainment to keep people engaged and enthusiastic, but as far as the foundation goes, the one thing that holds it all together, and allows the house to stand, that’s thankless work that nobody notices, and some people get put off by insisting that foundation matters, anyway.

We need to appeal to emotion, be sensitive to seekers, embrace compromise, and align ourselves with the majority in order to grow. Once we’ve grown, then we can consider the foundation and see if it needs a bit of work. By then, it’s too late. By then, you’ve built a monster you have to feed every month with payrolls and ad buys with air time and billboards. We can’t risk upsetting the apple cart by insisting on proper biblical standards, or unpopular practices such as praying, fasting, studying Scripture, and submitting to God’s authority. We have a brand to think about, and we can’t damage it because we have big plans and we can’t impede our momentum.

All the while, the things that make the faith what it is are being ignored, minimized, and memory-holed for fear of upsetting the vast majority who are only looking for fire insurance and a good time. Any mention of repentance, sanctification, or holiness is met with an onslaught of angry sheep who insist that had they known the pastor would turn into a fire-and-brimstone sort of preacher, they never would have signed up, reminding the elder board that there are plenty of other options within a two-mile radius that are more than happy to take their money and let them live as they will without all that judgmental stuff.

1 Corinthians 2:4-5, “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

If anyone were able to entreat men with persuasive words of human wisdom, it would have been Paul. Known for having written thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, even if we exclude Hebrews, since it’s been a point of contention for so many, his body of work makes his wisdom undeniable. Having been a student of Gamaliel, one of the most renowned scholars of his time, didn’t hurt either, yet he laid all his wealth of knowledge aside, dispensed with words of human wisdom, and came to the masses in demonstration of the Spirit and power of God.

He clearly states the reason for this, wherein he declares that his desire was that their faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Comparatively speaking, Paul was a wise man among his peers, but he understood that the wisdom of God so far transcends the wisdom of men that it’s not even worthy of mention.

The wisdom of men dictates that compromise is necessary in order to build a church or a ministry. The power of God, however, proves that God can do through one man what the world cannot accomplish with ten thousand, as long as that one man yields, submits, obeys, follows, and keeps the lines of communication between him and God open at all times.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

 If all one ever has is declarative faith in God, they are no better off than the demons. Not only do the demons believe that there is one God, they go one step further and tremble, understanding more about His authority than most superficial believers do, and acknowledging His sovereignty over all things. It’s a heady thing to realize, yet it is nevertheless true.

James 2:19, “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe – and tremble!”

When we walk by faith, having full assurance in His guiding hand, and possessing complete trust that He will lead us to green pastures and beside still waters, we have gone beyond a declarative faith, into the domain of experiential faith wherein we act upon that which we believe, and not merely declaring that we believe it.

Making a statement regarding a certain thing and following through with action, proving that they were more than words, are two different things. Some time ago, there was a popular song that got so much airplay that you couldn’t escape it. Whether it's the grocery store, your local coffee shop, or cars passing by, on any given day, you were likely to hear a crooner insist that he believes he can fly. Oddly enough, he never acted on the sentiment, even though he sang it often enough. If he had, we’d know, because his falling off a building while attempting to take flight would have likely made the news.

Men can claim they believe, but their lives tell another tale. Saying it is often easy. Doing it is less so, because it involves the mortification of the flesh, and the denial of oneself in order to walk in faith.

Praying in faith isn’t crying out to God, not really expecting anything to happen, and being uncertain as to whether God hears you. Sure, if your prayer is answered, it will be a pleasant surprise, but it was one of many avenues you pursued in hoping to resolve your situation. You threw a bunch of stuff against a wall and waited to see what stuck.

God is not a last resort. He is not who we run to after we’ve exhausted all other options. For those who possess active, experiential faith, He is the first and only one we run to because we know that none other can do what He can.

The idea that we can keep God in a box, out of sight and out of mind, until our hubris leads us to an untenable position, and only then bother to let Him out and expect Him to fix what we broke, isn’t what faith or the Christian walk are about.

I am the captain of my ship, I’m in the driver’s seat, I am piloting this craft, and no one can tell me any different! That is the attitude of many people today, and only when they find themselves nosediving toward a rock cliff do they relent and give up control because they see themselves as having no other options. Love of God, submission, obedience, or faithfulness never entered the equation. They just need a Mr. Fix-it, and not only are they surprised but grow outright bitter when the God to whom they haven’t spoken in a decade isn’t quick to put the broken pieces of their life back together, even though their rebellion and disobedience were the cause of it in the first place.

Prayer is the means by which we foster, nurture, maintain, and grow our relationship with God. An individual without a prayer life, or one whose prayer life is sporadic, and who only approaches God when they have need of something, isn’t interested in a relationship but in exploiting and manipulating God to serve their ends.

I traveled with my grandfather for ten years. I was his interpreter, and whenever we were on the road, we would share a room. More often than not, whenever I would wake up at random hours of the night, I’d find him kneeling by the side of his bed in prayer. These weren’t five-minute prayers, or something so habitual as to become ordinary, but oftentimes for hours on end, he would kneel by his bedside, and have fellowship with God.

It wasn’t because he had a need or was in some existential crisis, but because the desire of his heart was to have communion with God and be in fellowship with Him. No one demanded this of him, no one was watching, no one was keeping track of how many hours he prayed. There was no competition, he wasn’t trying to make the leader board, and there was no prize for most hours prayed in a given month; it was what gave him joy and peace. It was what satisfied the soul, and even when his body was wracked with pain, and he could barely move, it was the one thing he did consistently and without fail.

I’ve heard some people insist that God wakes them up at odd hours of the night to pray. Personally, I believe that is a misnomer. It’s not so much that God woke them up to pray; it’s that upon waking, their singular desire was to be in His presence and dialogue with Him. Yes, there are times when we get an urging to pray for a specific individual, or a specific situation, but those who are consistent in coming before God before they do anything else on a given morning are doing so not because they were compelled but because it is their true desire.

Do you hunger for God? Do you hunger for His presence? Does He have the place of prominence in your hierarchy of needs wherein everything else pales in comparison to spending time in His presence? These are questions only you can answer for yourself, but know that regardless of where you are in your spiritual walk, the more you desire God, the more of Himself He will reveal to you. He will not force you into fellowship. He will not twist your arm to spend time with Him. It is something voluntary, and must be done with purity of heart, without vested interest or hidden agendas. God sees the truth of it, for all is laid bare before Him.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

 As children of God, our allegiance is exclusive. Our allegiance is not to ideology, denomination, a political party, or an individual, but to God. We serve Him, we obey Him, and we worship Him because He is worthy of all these things and more. Because our allegiance is to God, our singular focus is to be pleasing in His sight, not in the sight of men, or a certain demographic that seethes with hatred for the God of the Bible, but is willing to make use of those who ally with their cause until they are no longer useful.

Any man who places anything or anyone above God is no longer serving Him but serving their cause d'jour, or the creation rather than the Creator. If your feelings, emotions, or opinions are in opposition to the Word and will of God, it is not God who must change in order to accommodate you; it is you who must submit to His authority and do as He commands.

It takes a special kind of hubris to insist that the everlasting God, the one who spoke the universe into existence, He who is omnipotent, should do a sudden heel turn because His standard, if He were to maintain it, would hurt your feelings, or keep you from doing the things the flesh yearns to do. Yes, men take it upon themselves to widen the narrow path, including men who others see as spiritual authorities, but it does not mean God suddenly changed His mind or that He’s gone back on what He deems sin.

It would be nice to have a deeper relationship with God, it would be nice to walk in authority, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to devote myself to prayer, so God has to make an exception for me. No, He doesn’t. That’s not the way it works, and anyone who thinks themselves more special than anyone else and deserving of a special carve-out is only deluding themselves.

Pride has a way of warping men’s minds to the point that they see themselves as indispensable, and because they believe that God’s entire plan for mankind rests on their shoulders, and would surely fall apart without them, they allow themselves liberties that Scripture never signs off on.

We may be short on equal application of the law when it comes to men nowadays, but when it comes to God, the same rules apply to everyone, and there are no exceptions. The soul that sins will die. That’s what the Book says! It’s not the soul that sins, will die, with the exception of Bill or Janet, who can do as they will and still get a pass.

I understand the following may sting a bit, especially if you’re from the generation that was told incessantly that they were special by everyone from their auntie to granny, to mom, dad, and the mailman, but you’re not. You’re no more special than anyone else, regardless of your pedigree, social standing, net worth, or digital footprint. We may all have different gifts, different intelligence levels, different aptitudes and abilities, but in the eyes of God, those things don’t make us more special or deserving of special treatment.

We all start out as wretches, whether rich wretches, poor wretches, smart wretches, or wretches of average intelligence. We all start out needing a savior, needing redemption, and needing rebirth. It’s the same starting line for everyone, but the finish line differs from person to person because while some receive the gift of salvation, others dismiss and reject it as though eternity didn’t hang in the balance.

No man who understands grace, salvation, and the price Jesus paid on the cross is arrogant or boastful of the gifts God has bestowed upon him. Every time I hear a braggart, regardless of the context, alarm bells start going off, and that’s doubly so if it has anything to do with the spiritual.

A vessel is a vessel. What makes a vessel valuable is what is placed inside it, and the vessel itself has no agency over its contents. God decides what He pours into a vessel after it has been made clean. If God has given you a gift, what right do you or I have to boast of the gift as though it were acquired by our own prowess, and is now proprietary to us?

Faith is the essence of prayer. It is the environment in which prayer transcends someone talking to a wall, and opens the lines of communication between man and God. We are not like the Greeks of old, praying to every god under the sun, and even to an unknown god, just to cover all the bases. We know who we pray to and have faith that He hears. We have faith that when we cry out, He is there to comfort; when we are broken, He is there to restore; and when we forfeit this life for the life to come, He will bestow it upon us and abundantly so.

The central pivot of the altar of prayer, upon which a strong and vibrant prayer life hinges, is faith, for without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith itself can be declarative, experiential, or both. Someone who says they believe in God, but never quantifies which god they are referring to, has made a declarative statement about an abstract notion with which they had no intimate encounter or interaction. Excluding the outright atheists, most people today fall into this category. They believe there is something more, but they cannot define what that is. Whether God, a higher power, or a force, they believe in the existence of a deity of some sort; they made a declarative statement to this effect, but they’ve never known the one true God or felt His presence.

Those who possess experiential faith, however, likewise have declarative faith, wherein, having experienced the presence of God, having known the goodness of the Lord, they declare boldly that He is, that He lives, that He transforms and saves. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

 On the heels of having fed the multitudes with the fishes and loaves, and having mysteriously crossed the sea to Capernaum, because the people had not seen Him enter the boat with His disciples, the people came to Jesus and asked, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”

Contrary to modern-day practices, Jesus did not refer them to his course on spirituality, hand out cards with QR codes where they could purchase an in-depth study on the topic, or ask them to become Patreon members so they too could unlock the secrets to working the works of God. His answer wasn’t long, drawn out, or needlessly complicated, and He summarized what they needed to do in no more than one sentence.

John 6:29, “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom sent Me.”’

Since Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, He knew that the message would fall on deaf ears unless those who heard it believed in the God whose gospel and kingdom He was preaching. One cannot separate God, the lordship of Christ, and the salvific power of His death, burial, and resurrection from the works of God and still present it as gospel.

There are many types of gospels being preached nowadays. There’s the social gospel, the tolerance gospel, the inclusive gospel, the good works gospel, the prosperity gospel, but only one gospel has the power to save, heal, and restore, and that is the gospel of the kingdom of God.

People can be charitable and still end up in hell. They can be tolerant and affirming and still end up in hell. They can be rich and prosperous, have everything their grubby little fingers could point to and claim, and still end up in hell. The gospel of the kingdom of God is about none of these things, but one thing exclusively, and that is the person of Christ Jesus, who He is, what He did, what He said, and the promises He made to those who would daily deny themselves, pick up their crosses, and follow after Him.

The message of the gospel of the Kingdom of God has been clear and resonant since the early church. Rarely have we seen any generation so dedicated to chipping away at it, twisting it, and dismissing it as this one.

Acts 3:19-21, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”

Men with self-serving agendas will complicate the gospel, salvation, faith, prayer, and anything else they think they can monetize or funnel people into. Men whose only desire is to do the work of the Kingdom will point the way to Jesus and give Him the glory He rightly deserves.

There was never an inconsistency between the words Jesus spoke and the life He lived. He did not subscribe to the do as I say, not as I do model of faith, because He was not interested in impressing anyone, nor was hypocrisy something He was willing to consider.

When we desire to be Christlike, we are desiring true sanctification and transformation, not the ability to put on airs or pretend at being something we know ourselves not to be. It’s why so many today give off the stench of hypocrisy, whether in leadership or their day-to-day interactions with those outside the body of Christ. We talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, and it shows. The mask inevitably slips, and people get a glimpse of what lies beneath that is so off-putting as to make them recoil.

Jesus was the Word made flesh. When we believe in the words of Christ, the actions of Christ, and the character of Christ, we are actively fulfilling the work of God. We must possess all three in order to be complete. Some believe the words of Jesus but do not have His character. Others strive to do the works that He did, without believing His words. Two out of three won’t cut it, and if we do not strive to possess His character, believe His words, and do the works to which He has tasked us, we will always be stunted in our growth and incomplete.

John 5:24-25, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My words and believes in Him who sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.”

It’s not enough to hear; we must act upon that which we hear. Faith comes by hearing. We hear the Word of God, we hear the words of Jesus, but to have everlasting life, we must believe. Only those who hear and believe will not come into judgment, because they have passed from death to life.

We hear the gospel, then submit to it, obey it, follow it, and give it reign over our hearts and minds. Hearing only, and not allowing what we hear to stir us to action, and spark faith in our hearts, leaves us as empty, hollow, and rudderless as we were before we heard the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Prayer works in much the same way. We can read the testimonies of others who prayed and what God was able to accomplish through them. We can study the theory of prayer and even read the prayers themselves, but unless we commit to pressing in and acting upon what we’ve learned, actively nurturing a life of prayer and prioritizing our time alone with God, all we will possess is the knowledge of what God did through others, or how others prayed, but it will have no effect upon our spiritual growth.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Anyone insisting that the growth of your faith or understanding of God is solely dependent upon them is neither your brother, your friend, nor someone who has your best interest at heart. They are attempting to replace Jesus, not pointing you to Him, and that makes for someone to be marked and avoided at all costs.

1 Timothy 2:5-6, “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”

One! A singularity, one of one, without the possibility of being replicated or replaced. This singular role of Christ as the Mediator is a testament to the unique and irreplaceable relationship each of us has with Him. Jesus didn’t come to bring good news; He was the embodiment of the good news. There has never been, nor will there ever be, another like Him to walk the earth. The singularity of Christ confirms what the Word has oft repeated, that there aren’t many paths to the same destination, but one path, one way, and that is through Him.

Apart from Christ, there is no hope. Apart from Him, man can never be reconciled to God. It doesn’t matter who says otherwise, how respected they might be in certain circles, or how many followers they have on Instagram; they’re still wrong, still liars, and one day they will have to stand before God and answer for the deception they perpetrated upon the household of faith.

That should be enough for most to understand when they are being manipulated, lied to, and steered off course, but the promises of those who come in His name but are not His, the charisma of the false Christs who insist that theirs is a better way is so mesmerizing as to make many suspend common sense, disregard Scripture, and follow after them with far greater fervor and zeal than ever they followed the true Christ.

It’s eye-opening to see so many speak out in defense of men who demonstrably committed indefensible acts, with a passion they would never speak in defense of Jesus with. Would that some would defend the name of Jesus with the same zeal they defend men, there would be a renaissance of individuals standing up for the faith and boldly declaring the lordship of Jesus.

When it comes to faith, it is one of the attributes that transcends and bridges the Old and New Testaments. Although many things changed with the advent of Christ, as far as rituals, traditions, or the ability of all who would believe in Him to be grafted in, adopted, and called sons and daughters of God regardless of race, nationality, or ethnicity, faith remained a prerequisite for those who desire to know Him, grow in Him, and walk in His authority. Faith is a requirement for everything concerning man’s relationship with God.

It is the primary and indispensable ingredient. Just as you can’t make an omelet without eggs, you cannot be pleasing in the sight of God without faith.  

Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

There is no wiggle room in this declarative statement. We are not told that without faith it’s difficult, hard but still doable, or that you can please God without faith as long as you substitute it with good works, charity, or wearing some itchy, rough-spun underclothes at all times. Without faith, it is impossible to please God!

The faith of which the author of Hebrews speaks is not generic, general, or unfocused; rather, it is a targeted, well-defined faith that has God as its purpose. One must believe that He is, have faith in Him, and not in their abilities or their accomplishments. God responds to faith. He is neither indifferent nor unmoved by it. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, who walk by faith and not by sight, trusting in His mighty hand and submitting to His sovereign will.

Because I have faith in Him, I know that God sees my struggle, He sees my pain, He sees my weakness, He sees my insecurities, He sees my desire to know more of Him and grow in Him, and He responds in kind without delay.

Faith is an attitude of complete trust in God. It extends beyond hope into the domain of full assurance. When my daughters were younger, to their mother’s chagrin, they liked climbing the furniture to the highest point possible, yelling “catch me, daddy”, then jumping off, not once thinking that I would let them fall to the ground. They were fully assured that I would catch them, and there was not a shred of doubt in their hearts as to this reality. To their credit, they made sure I was close enough to hear and catch them, but once that was out of the way, there was no hesitation in their leaping from the counter, the edge of the sofa, or the kitchen table.

The question isn’t whether God can catch us, but whether we are close enough so that He hears us. The question is whether we are His sons and daughters, not just in word but in deed. God can, and God will. His hand is not short, and His power is limitless.    

There is no area of our lives wherein we can withhold faith, or conclude that God cannot intervene or is unable to rectify. Faith is man’s answer and response to what God promised, to who He is, and to what He is able to do. He promised eternal life to all who would believe, and we have faith that it is so. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and we have faith in His permanence. He is omnipotent. Therefore, we have faith that He can do all things and is not limited by the understanding or abilities of man.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.