Homeward Bound

Job CCLXXXVIII

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Tue, 12 May 2026 11:32:27 +0000

Job 30:9-15, “And now I am their taunting song; yes, I am their byword. They abhor me, they keep far from me; they do not hesitate to spit in my face. Because He has loosed my bowstring and afflicted me, they have cast off restraint before me. At my right hand the rabble arises; they push away my feet, and they raise against me their ways of destruction. They break up my path, they promote my calamity; they have no helper. They come as broad breakers; under the ruinous storm they roll along. Terrors are turned upon me; they pursue my honor as the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.”

Men will flatter you, defer to you, feign respect, and speak smooth words to your face for as long as they believe they have something to gain from doing so. Those who do so with a vested interest or an ulterior motive were never truly friends or brothers but opportunists who will turn on you, savage your reputation, and spit in your face the instant they can no longer profit from your position, largesse, influence, or authority.

It is a hard-learned lesson that many once influential people, whose influence has waned, have had to learn the hard way, because true friends, friends who are there through the ups and downs, the thick and thin, the feast and the famine, are hard to come by, more so today than ever before.

Everyone seems to have an angle of some sort, and they feign friendship not because they want to be your friend but because they think you are the means by which they might attain what they really want, whatever that thing might be.

I’ll be the first to admit I have very few friends. The older I get, the fewer friends I seem to have, but those I consider friends, I’ve known for years on end. It’s not because I’m unfriendly, but because there is truth in the adage, once bitten, twice shy.

I’ve lived a long life in a short time, and events of the past left their mark. I would be a fool not to have learned from past experiences, and I’ve come to the point in life where calling someone a friend means something, and isn’t a word I throw out willy-nilly. If I deem someone my friend, then they’re my friend, and they remain so for no other reason than that I value our friendship.

The men of Job’s day had concluded there was nothing more they could gain from showing him deference, respecting him, or seeing him as an equal, and they cast off restraint before him. In modern parlance, they revealed their true nature, told him how they really felt, and there was no kindness or empathy in their judgment of him.

One of my biggest pet peeves and something I cannot abide is when a supposed friend exploits another whom they likewise deem a friend. Every time I hear someone ask for a service, then follow up with, “Can I get the friend discount?” it doesn’t sit well with me because if someone’s my friend, my purpose shouldn’t be to try to shortchange them.

I would have needed the job done regardless, whether by him or another, so my asking for a discounted rate just because we are acquainted only goes to show how much value I place on the relationship.

Whether it's car repair or lawn maintenance, I do my best to give my business to people I know and deem as friends. Never once have I gone in for an oil change or had someone come and spray for weeds, only to turn around and demand a discounted rate because we’re friends. They have families to feed and roofs to keep over their heads, and if I am in a position to hire them for the job, I expect no special favors because of our friendship.

Some have even offered to cut me a deal, and I politely declined because our friendship meant more to me than the five bucks I would have saved had I accepted. By the same token, I expect the friends with whom I do business to be fair and not upcharge me just because of our friendship. I’ve had that happen a time or two, and the instant I discovered it, our friendship soured and was never the same again.

One knows their true friends in times of hardship and adversity. When he was the greatest of all the people of the East, there was no shortage of men trying to ingratiate themselves with Job. Now that his prosperity had passed like a cloud and there was nothing they could gain from him, they abhorred him, kept far from him, and spat in his face.

Job’s character had been consistent throughout. Theirs had not. He had done nothing to warrant their animus or their taunting. He had not changed; they’d just revealed their true selves in the absence of any perceived gain from pretending to be his friends.

If you’ve ever had someone you deemed a friend turn their back on you, and wracked your brain as to what you may have done to cause such drastic change, it likely wasn’t you, and it was nothing you did. All that happened is that they concluded they could not gain what they’d planned on gaining from the feigned friendship, and as such, let the mask slip and revealed their true nature.

As children of God, it is our duty to employ wisdom in all things, and that includes choosing our friends. Choose your friend wisely because if you fail to do so, if the day ever comes when you will have to count on them, they’ll vanish like fog in the midday sun.

As my wife is fond of saying, a true friend isn’t someone who shows up for the feast, but someone who helps clean up after. When all the revelers have gone, full bellies and engaging conversation in tow, it’s the couple of people that stayed behind to help with the dishes and the trash and the disarray of it all that are true friends. If you don’t know someone like that, then be that someone, and if you’ve fallen short of being that someone, it’s never too late to start.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXXVII

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Mon, 11 May 2026 09:11:03 +0000

Job 30:1-8, “But now they mock at me, men younger than I, whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock. Indeed, what profit is the strength of their hands to me? Their vigor has perished. They are gaunt from want and famine, fleeing late to the wilderness, desolate and waste, who pluck mallow by the bushes, and broom tree roots for their food. They were driven out from among men, they shouted at them as at a thief. They had to live in the clefts of the valleys, in caves of the earth and the rocks. Among the bushes they brayed, under the nettles they nestled. They were sons of fools, yes, sons of vile men; they were scourged from the land.”

When being mocked, ridiculed, or looked down upon, it matters who is doing the mocking and ridiculing. If it’s coming from someone you respect, someone you deem an equal, or someone you look up to, whatever they might say holds more weight than if it were someone you never knew, or someone who has, over time, proven themselves to be undeserving of your reaction to their mockery.

It’s not so much that hurt people hurt people; it’s someone looking for an axe to grind who will use every opportunity to do so, and Job’s current situation was the perfect opportunity for those who had felt slighted by him in any way throughout their existence to lash out and do their worst.

Job was fully aware of who was mocking him. He had identified them, knew them from his life before he’d lost everything, and there was no reason for him to feel hurt by what they said because they were neither men nor the sons of men he’d respected.

Some might look at Job’s words, a man whom God had deemed blameless and upright, and conclude that his words regarding how he viewed his mockers were a bit harsh, but we don’t know what was said about him, for how long, and how vociferously. Armchair quarterbacking might give someone an inflated sense of their own importance, but it’s rarely factual, true, or warranted.

The thing about mockers is that it’s never a one-and-done endeavor. It’s not as though they say one mean thing and then go on about their lives, especially if the person their barbs are aimed at doesn’t react the way they would like him to.

Job had enough on his plate where it is a logical conclusion that, though he’d heard their mockery, he had not reacted to it. That only emboldened them all the more, and they likely doubled down on their invectives toward him.

If you don’t respond to their attacks, it just makes them angrier and more rabid. If you do respond, it makes them louder and less logical. There’s no winning when it comes to mockers and their desire to put you in your place, at least as far as they see it, because they operate from a position of indignation and pour all the resentments of life, resentments you likely had no hand in causing, into their desire to bring you down a peg.

Sometimes they get so spun up that by the end of it, they see you as the cause of every calamity they’ve endured from the moment of their birth to the present, even if you’ve never met them in person or looked them in the face. You’re just a convenient target, and as far as Job was concerned, he was a target they did not think had enough strength left in him to put up a defense.

Evidently, not only had their words reached his ears, but Job was able to identify who the words belonged to, and in a cutting retort, he reminds those within earshot that he used to disdain putting these selfsame individuals’ fathers with the dogs of his flock. These were not the offspring of men he’d respected, nor were they individuals pregnant with wisdom, for they were younger men than he, and he knew the stock from whence they came.

If the book of Job were set in the Wild West rather than in the desert four thousand years removed, a good comparison of what he said regarding those who mocked him would be “I knew your daddy when he begged to polish my boots, and even that he wasn’t good at.”

Know who it is that’s leveling accusations, mocking, and talking behind your back, and determine their motivation, as well as whether they’re worth the time to acknowledge their backbiting. Is it someone you respect enough to make their words cause you hurt, or is it someone who’s just trying to get attention by using you as the means to do so?

It’s a practice that has become commonplace of late, where someone no one’s ever heard of starts leveling attacks on people they’ve never met, hoping that their attacks will gain the traction they’re dreaming of and elevate them to some level of prominence.

If a teaching is unbiblical, by all means, prove it biblically, but there is a difference between ad hominem personal attacks regarding a personal preference that the Bible never weighs in on and false teaching or false doctrine.

We are called to defend the truth, we are called to stand for it, preach it, teach it, and obey it. We are not called to mock someone endlessly because they wear bolo ties instead of neckties, or because their preferred footwear is cowboy boots rather than Italian loafers.

Job assessed those who mocked him and concluded that they weren’t worth his time. They were gaunt from want and famine, and plucked broom tree roots for their food. They were driven out from among men, sons of fools and vile men who were scourged from the earth, so what did it matter what they thought of him? What did it matter what they said about him?

His own friends, men he respected, men who by their own words were proven to retain a modicum of wisdom, had done their best to dispirit Job, and it hadn’t worked, so why would the words of those who were driven out from among men and shouted at as at a thief have an effect on him?

The only opinion that mattered to Job was vertically focused, and not horizontally. What God thought meant everything. What men thought meant less than nothing. Value the opinion that matters, and the only opinion that matters is God’s.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXXVI

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Fri, 08 May 2026 11:30:01 +0000

Job 29:18-25, “Then I said, ‘I shall die in my nest, and multiply my days as the sand. My root is spread out to the waters, and the dew lies all night on my branch. My glory is fresh within me, and my bow is renewed in my hand.’ Men listened to me and waited, and kept silence for my counsel. After my words they did not speak again, and my speech settled on them as dew. They waited for me as for the rain, and they opened their mouth wide as for the spring rain. If I mocked at them, they did not believe it, and the light of my countenance they did not cast down. I chose the way for them, and sat as chief; so I dwelt as a king in the army, as one who comforts mourners.”

True contentment is a jewel, a priceless treasure that, although often sought, is rarely found. As Job looks back on his life, he declares that once he had committed to causing the widow's heart to sing for joy, putting on righteousness as a cloak, and being a father to the poor, he had found his purpose, and in that purpose he’d found true contentment. There was no more for him to do than to keep doing what he’d been doing. Now that I’ve acquired this treasure, now that I’ve obtained this contentment, I shall die in my nest and multiply my days as the sand.

There was no bucket list; there wasn’t anything he felt he needed to do left undone; he wasn’t scrambling to acquire more, nor was he dissatisfied with what God had already given him. He was a man at peace, a man content, a man who’d found his purpose, and that purpose was to serve others, to help wherever he could, and to defend the innocent and vulnerable from the wicked.

I’ve known people who had next to nothing yet had contentment in abundance, and people who had more than they could ever spend who were miserable and perpetually anxious for fear of losing what they’d amassed.

Even at his apex, when Job was the greatest of all the people of the East, he was not defined by his wealth, nor did he see what he possessed as the thing that gave him meaning and purpose. Rich or poor, covered in fine linens or sitting in the dust covered in boils, his heart’s desire was to know the presence of God and have fellowship with Him.

What matters isn’t the number of zeros in a bank account; it’s who is sitting on the throne of your heart. Men spend their entire lives chasing zeros on a screen only to find themselves empty, rudderless, hopeless, joyless, and dissatisfied with life, even though, objectively speaking, they have all that one would ever need to attain happiness if happiness were found in possessions.

Job acknowledges that men deferred to him, listened and waited, kept silent for his counsel because of the position he held, but that was how they viewed him, rather than how he viewed himself. You can’t help how people see you, how people judge you, how much people respect you, or don’t. If your focus is on others rather than on God, you will inevitably steer toward becoming a people-pleaser, saying what they want you to say and doing what they want you to do, rather than what God would have you do and say.

Job knew full well he wasn’t making any friends by breaking the fangs of the wicked. It was likely fellow men of means with whom he tussled in his attempt to pluck the victim out of their teeth, and more than likely, they resented him for it, even hated him on some level, but felt compelled to bite their tongue because his status was superior to theirs.

If one could have been a fly on the wall of any of those noblemen’s homes after Job lost everything, the things one would have heard would confirm that they reveled in his demise, and the merriment and glee with which they recalled his downfall would have been stomach-churning.

Because they saw his demise through the prism of their self-interest, they likely also concluded that Job had gotten what was coming to him. He had stood in the way of what they deemed progress, had hindered their plans to exploit the widow and orphan to their dark purposes, and now the chickens had come home to roost, and he was getting exactly what he deserved.

On the one hand, you had Job’s friend who had concluded he was getting his just deserts for being wicked; on the other, you had wicked men concluding the same, only not because Job had committed wickedness, but had hindered them in theirs.

You can spend your time and energy worrying about how others see you, or you can dedicate that time to growing in God, building up your faith, and learning to hear His voice. The net benefit of doing the latter rather than the former is astronomical, and you will learn some powerful and indispensable lessons along the way.

The first lesson you will learn is that men’s opinions, whether for good or ill, should in no way affect you positively or negatively. Someone who praises you today will drive a dagger into your back tomorrow because man is fickle and self-serving. God, on the other hand, is faithful, and the more we cling to Him, the more He will cling to us.

The second lesson you will learn is that the things you once thought mattered, didn’t, the things you believed were of great import really weren’t, and when the dust settles and you look back on life, the only thing that will stand out as worthwhile and worth the investment was the time you spent in God’s presence, and the things you did to further cement that relationship.

Every noble virtue, every good thing in your life, every act of kindness, empathy, or selflessness, if pure, flows from one’s relationship with God. Yes, godless men perform acts of kindness once in a while, they show empathy here and there, but the purpose for which they do it, the reason behind why they chose to be charitable, is tainted, having some ulterior motive, whether the praise of their contemporaries, or the desire to be seen as noble and virtuous. Intent matters, and if what we do, whatever it may be, whether giving water to a thirsty soul or giving a hungry man a meal, stems from obedience to God, He will reward it in kind.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXXV

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Tue, 05 May 2026 10:55:00 +0000

Job 29:13-17, “The blessing of a perishing man came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind, and I was feet to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and I searched out the case that I did not know. I broke the fangs of the wicked, and plucked the victim from his teeth.”

It’s the things that define you, that you value, that you see as worth remembering that reveal your character more than any words you can speak. Job didn’t say he had his name on a building, drove a Ferrari, or had the fastest camel in the city. Whatever possessions Job was blessed with were not the things that he valued, nor were they the things that defined him or gave him worth as a person.

He wasn’t remembering designer sandals, or that one time he bought a gold-etched, personalized chariot with cash, he wasn’t reminiscing about his walk-in closet full of linen tunics, or how the only drink to pass his lips was grass-fed, pasture-raised, organic goat’s milk. None of that pasteurized stuff, no sir, fresh from the source is the only way to go.

What he did remember, what he thought worthy of mention, was that he’d caused the widow's heart to sing for joy, and the blessings of a perishing man had come upon him. By the latter, Job did not mean that he received reciprocity from God for his generosity toward a perishing man, but that a perishing man showed gratitude and blessed him for not walking by, ignoring him, or pretending he wasn’t there, and actively doing what he could to keep him from perishing.

I’ve not yet reached the age when what I’ll be remembered for weighs on me, but I know that season is coming and well on its way. For now, I’m more in the camp of asking myself what I’d like to be remembered for rather than what I’ll be remembered for in truth, and I can’t think of anything better I’d rather be remembered for than what Job desired, which was that he heard the cries of the desperate and saw the needs of the widow. Not a jet, not a mansion, not a watch that costs more than an entire neighborhood, but that my heart was tender enough to be a help to the helpless and give of my bread to feed one hungrier than myself.

For the believer, it’s not about leaving behind a legacy but about leaving behind a testimony of what Jesus can do in a life wholly surrendered to Him.

Last year, my father went to his eternal reward. He never amassed a fortune, never had his name up in lights, never rubbed elbows with the elites, yet he left behind a testimony of service, of pouring love into the lives of those without, and of being about the Father’s business with the consistency of a Swiss timepiece.

What you do with your time, how you steward what God has given you, the things you prioritize in this life, all come down to individual choice. Men choose to be selfish or selfless, self-serving or sacrificial, givers or takers, and the testimony they leave behind will be reflected in the choices they made along the way.

It’s not a judgment on anyone. I don’t subscribe to the idea that I have the right to tell another who has earned their money with the sweat of their brow how to spend it, or decide when they’ve bought enough homes or enough cars. I can, however, say, based on the historical data available and what the Bible says, that while cars rust, and homes crumble and decay, causing the widow’s heart to sing for joy will be remembered beyond this life by the One whose memory does not deteriorate with time, and who keeps pristine accounting of all we do in His name.

Throughout his discourse, Job did not boast of his possessions but rather of what he did with the things God entrusted to him, and it is a beautiful synopsis of a life well lived in service to others, not to make a name for himself, not to rise higher in the eyes of his contemporaries, but to be eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and a father to the poor.

Given what Job says, we can also deduce that there were those in his time who exploited the poor, abused them, and discarded them. Rather than being indifferent to their mistreatment of the widow, the orphan, the lame, and the poor, Job says he broke the fangs of the wicked and plucked the victim from his teeth.

Job was not passive in his defense of the helpless. He was not one to sit idly by and see the wicked devour the widow and the orphan, but actively sought to defend and protect them. For those inclined to imagery, Job breaking the fangs of the wicked is by no means something timid, gentle, or mild. He both made his feelings known regarding the wicked who victimized the weak, as well as the lengths to which he had gone, and would again if the need arose to pluck them from their teeth.

Indifference is by far worse than ignorance, because indifference presupposes that one knew of a situation and chose to do nothing about it, while ignorance implies that one was not aware of the situation at all. While some attempt to mask their indifference by claiming ignorance, God still knows the truth of it. Job saw the poor, the hurting, the widow, and the orphan; he saw the attempts of the wicked to exploit them, and neither flinched away from doing what he knew to be the right thing, nor did he feign ignorance of their plight.

If one’s steps are ordered by the Lord, as Scripture tells us they are, then that person needing comfort you ran into wasn’t by accident, nor was the person needing a meal, a coat, or some encouragement. The truth of it, uncomfortable as it might be, is that even many believers today are so self-absorbed that they can’t be bothered to show kindness to strangers. They are so myopic in their quest to amass, acquire, and squirrel away all that their eyes see that they fail to recognize the moments when God Himself arranged a divine appointment so that they might be a blessing, a comfort, and a helping hand.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXXIV

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Sun, 03 May 2026 11:12:00 +0000

Job 29:7-12, “When I went out to the gate by the city, when I took my seat in the open square, the young men saw me and hid, and the aged arose and stood; the princes refrained from talking, and put their hand on their mouth; the voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth. When the ear heard, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw, then it approved me; because I delivered the poor who cried out, the fatherless and the one who had no helper.”

Job wasn’t a nobody who stayed a nobody. He was a somebody who became a nobody in the eyes of his contemporaries. It’s the difference between falling off a stepstool and falling off the roof of the house. Neither is pleasant, but one will hurt far worse than the other.

Job had been a man of great influence in his city, one who garnered respect and admiration, so much so that when he was present, even princes refrained from talking and put their hands on their mouths. Even the nobles were hushed in his presence, and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouth, because even in their hubris, they realized Job was a notch above their station, whether in possessions, position, or authority and influence.

Even though he was the greatest of all the people of the East, he did not use his wealth to subjugate the weak, nor was he a man lacking in character and morals. He did not look down on the poor, the fatherless, and those who had no helper, but delivered them.

Because his relationship with God defined him, Job was a man with a heart for the hurting, one who, out of his own largesse, helped those who had no way to repay his kindness. His inclination was not to hobnob with the nobles or ingratiate himself with those in power but to show kindness, empathy, and charity to those who went largely ignored and seen as a nuisance rather than fellow human beings.

There is no way of knowing if Job had always been kind, generous, and charitable, but what we can know with certainty is that his relationship with God amplified these qualities in him, as God’s presence always does.

The presence of God transforms a man from the inward parts. A heart of stone is replaced with a heart of flesh, an indifferent posture toward the needs of others transforms into a desire to reach out and help those who are hurting, not because there is something to gain from showing kindness to strangers, or because it will polish one’s image with the public, but because it has become one’s nature to do so.

When Job delivered the poor who cried out, or the fatherless who had no helper, he wasn’t doing it because there were cameras present, or because a news crew had just arrived, and it would elevate his status with the masses if they saw him being magnanimous. It wasn’t about him or his image but about being obedient to the voice of God, and doing the things he knew would be well pleasing to the Lord.

It’s not so much that the presence of God makes you the best version of yourself as some are fond of saying, but rather the presence of God transforms you into a likeness of Him, which transcends who you are or what you could become on your own.

Some of the most impactful testimonies I’ve ever heard had to do with the juxtaposition between who someone was before Jesus and who He transformed them into after His indwelling presence. Men, once given to violence, anger, and malice, became gentle and meek by the transformative power of Jesus, not because they tried really hard to be better men, but because God made them better men.

From the outside looking in, such a transformation makes no sense and seems impossible. For those still in darkness, even the flicker of a candle can be blinding. Eventually, some get up the courage to ask what the secret is, what steps the person took to turn his life around. Was it meditation, reflection, journaling, therapy, pharmaceutical-grade anti-depressants? And there’s your window. There’s your opportunity to speak the name that changed your life for the better, that transformed you, and set you on the path of righteousness: Jesus!

Job’s discourse does not come off as a lament over the loss of his possessions, his status, or the way others viewed him. His singular desire was the knowledge of God, and for such a man, what others say about you, whether for good or ill, doesn’t affect you or impact you, whether positively or negatively. He was looking back on his life and stating facts. He didn’t try to make himself out to be more generous, influential, or respected than he had been; he was looking back on a life well lived and remembering.

There are those who amplify and trumpet the smallest of kindness they show toward others, then there are those who do the heavy lifting, who give, and sacrifice, and understand that God sees the truth of it, He sees the heart with which we help the poor and the fatherless and though we may help in secret, the Father who sees in secret will Himself reward us openly. Job wasn’t praise-farming, nor was he trying to elicit a positive response from his friends. By this point, they’d already made up their minds; they thought him a wicked man, and nothing he could say would change their minds. If for nothing else, then for posterity, Job took a stroll down memory lane and remembered those he helped along the way, who would likely be dead and gone if not for his godly heart.

Yes, the notion of giving has been perverted and twisted into something more closely resembling a pyramid scheme, but this does not mean God will not reward us if we do it from a pure heart and with pure intentions. Job didn’t help the poor, hoping to get more, or because he expected a return on his investment, but because it was the right thing to do, and he knew it. That God blessed him was a by-product, and not the purpose for his generosity.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXXIII

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Fri, 01 May 2026 11:10:00 +0000

If, as God Himself clearly stated, the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding, why are these things so sparsely, anemically, and infrequently taught in the modern-day church? We go out of our way to repackage and rebrand humanism and present it as wisdom; we twist ourselves into pretzels trying to circumvent the fear of the Lord and the need to depart from evil, while still insisting we can attain it without these two pillars. We regurgitate tropes and mantras that time has proven to be worthless and ineffective, all to avoid addressing these two biblically sound truths.

Why are the fear of the Lord and departing from evil avoided like the plague in the contemporary church? Why are we so reticent to preach the whole counsel of God, and rather choose to cherry-pick passages that do nothing to challenge us, chasten us, or correct us? There could only be one of two answers to this question: either those responsible for rightly dividing the Word do not want those under them to attain wisdom and understanding, or they do not believe God at His word. Either one is bad optics on the best of days, and rebellious disobedience on the worst.

Job 29:1-6, “Job further continued his discourse, and said: ‘Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me; when His lamp shone upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness; just as I was in the days of my prime, when the friendly counsel of God was over my tent; when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were around me; when my steps were bathed with cream, and the rock poured out rivers of oil for me!”’

When the presence of God is a constant in one’s life, any deviation from it, any absence of it, even a temporary one, is like a hammer blow. It is likened to suddenly having your airflow constricted and not being able to take your next breath. Everything was normal, life was as life is, then suddenly, you exhale, and try as you might, you can’t catch your next breath.

People who don’t miss the presence of God never had it to begin with. That may sound harsh, but it is nevertheless the truth. If one wanders from the way, if one ceases to have the fear of the Lord, or no longer departs from evil but instead surrenders to it, and they do not feel God’s absence, then they never truly felt His presence. They may have had some emotional reaction to a sermon or a hymn, it may even have elicited tears, but as far as the abiding presence of God, if it was present and begins to wane, or is absent altogether, alarm bells would be going off, and the only thing on their mind would be to return to their first love, and reestablish fellowship with the Almighty.

Job knew what was missing because he’d lived with God’s presence for years on end. He did not know the reasons behind why he felt abandoned and forsaken; he just knew that things were not as they were, not because of the things he’d lost but because of the absence of His presence.

Perhaps God’s presence wasn’t absent altogether, and Job still saw glimpses of Him through the haze of his pain and loss, but what was once a raging bonfire was now mere embers, and Job remembered the fire. He remembered the warmth of it, the brightness of it, and knowing what had been and comparing it to what now was, tore at him.

Job was not vague about what was missing. The specificity with which he detailed these things only proves the depth of devotion, fellowship, and relationship Job possessed. He knew God had watched over him, but felt it no longer. He knew God’s lamp shone upon his head, and that he walked through darkness by His light, yet now, things were dim, and he was no longer sure-footed. The friendly counsel of God once over his tent was no longer present, and he felt the loss of all these things.

It wasn’t a tingle in his toes that Job was missing; it was verifiable attributes of a true relationship with the Almighty that Job no longer felt. It didn’t matter what area of his life he was referring to, Job acknowledged God in every single one. It was by His light that he walked through darkness, not by his sharpened senses, not because he’d bought the newest flashlight, not even because the ground he trod in the darkness was so well known to him that he knew where every loose stone and pebble was. His dependence was not on his own faculties to guide him through life, but on the God he served, trusting Him to light the way.

As a father, I also found it highly relatable that, of all the things he’d lost, the one thing he remembers with both sadness, fondness, and regret was the times when his children were around him. He makes no mention of the oxen, goats, camels, or earthly possessions he’d been stripped of, but he does mention his children, remembering the time when they were around him.

The world makes treasures of worthless things, of baubles and fool’s gold, while dismissing the true treasures, those things that come from the hand of God, that bring joy, fulfillment, and wholeness in ways no material things can. You can lament for those still blind to life’s true treasures if they are still of the world, but as sons and daughters of God, we should know better and use our time accordingly. It’s the things that don’t have a price tag, that aren’t exclusive to the elite, that aren’t reserved for the rich that reveal the majesty of our creator God, from the flutter of a butterfly’s wings, to the smile of a newborn babe in swaddles.

Not only was Job a blameless and upright man, but he also had his priorities in order and valued what truly mattered in this life. Most people read the book of Job and conclude that it is the quintessential prototype of how to suffer well, but it’s these small glimpses into his life that reveal there was more to him than the ability to endure hardship, and more lessons could be learned from his life than submitting to God’s sovereignty in all things. Yes, that one lesson stands head and shoulders above the rest, but we dismiss the others to our detriment.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXXII

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:29:00 +0000

It goes without saying that none of the attributes Job ascribed to God were because Job was an autodidact, because even though he might have been, there was nowhere he could go to glean such wisdom during his time. Whether opining on God making a law for the rain, or establishing a weight for the wind, these were revelatory in nature, of divine origin, a truth breathed into Job, not of himself or his own wisdom.

It is intriguing, to say the least, that four thousand years later, what we deem scientific breakthroughs corroborate the statements made by a man living in the desert, without claiming the title of scholar or wise man, but who God Himself said feared the Lord and shunned evil. That was the extent of his education, the extent of his pedigree, yet he spoke of things so far removed from the learned men of his time that millennia had to pass for scientific discovery to catch up to him.

For the vain and the proud, those who lean on their understanding, such insights are irrelevant and readily glossed over, because were they to take the time and consider the implications of the words Job spoke without having the natural ability to know these things, it would point to the reality of God, His presence, and His wisdom.

Those who refuse to acknowledge God will find ways around having to contend with the truth that Job knew things he had no way of knowing, at a time when such wisdom was impossible to acquire via natural means.

For those willing to humble themselves and see the truth of what Job says, he answers two all-important questions that men have been asking for millennia. The first question he answers is from where does wisdom come. The second question he answers is what is wisdom.

Anyone who can’t answer these two questions will forever be likened to a blind man groping in the dark when it comes to wisdom. There is no true wisdom to be had without the presence of God in one’s life. Men can be learned, men can possess vast quantities of useless facts, they can boast of diplomas and degrees, but as far as true wisdom goes, it is only found in one place, and as Job so poetically tells us, that place is in God.

Some two thousand years later, James, the half-brother of Jesus, even goes so far as to give us step-by-step instructions as to how we can acquire this oft-sought-after but rarely found wisdom.

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

There it is, simple and direct. If you lack wisdom, ask it of God, and He will give it to you. The reason so few find wisdom nowadays is twofold: first, they don’t know where to find it, or if they do, they’re unwilling to humble themselves enough to ask it of God, and second, they believe true wisdom to be something other than what the Word of God says it is.

If you are looking for a specific thing and there is only one place to find it, then the way forward is clear enough. I know where to find a decent burger in the town I live in. If I’m in the mood for a burger, I won’t go in search of one at the local Mexican joint, nor will I try to hassle the people at the Chinese buffet into making me one. I will go where I know I will find what I’m looking for, without wasting time trying to get it where I know it isn’t.

The Word of God is prescriptive. It tells us where to go and what to do to attain what we are seeking. Granted, one must possess enough self-awareness to know that they lack wisdom, but once that hurdle is overcome, the rest is as easy as asking God, who, as James says, will give it liberally and without reproach.

This means that God will never look down on you for asking Him for wisdom. He won’t browbeat you or shame you for lacking it, but will gladly give it to you. All you need to do is ask.

We have not, because we ask not; and sometimes, when we ask, we do so without faith, doubting that God will give us the wisdom we’re asking for. We can ask in full faith and assurance that God will give us wisdom, because He has promised to do so. We don’t need to go down rabbit trails or start playing the what-if game with ourselves. God said He would give it if we ask in faith, and that’s all there is to it.

So what is wisdom? When you ask God for wisdom, will you suddenly be able to do quantum equations in your head, or understand the intricacies of theoretical physics? Will you suddenly know all there is to know of horticulture or apiculture? Will you be able to finally solve that Rubik's Cube that’s been gathering dust in a drawer because the kids decided it would be fun to play with it, and you couldn’t figure out how to put it back the way it was? No, most, if not all, of these things can be learned through diligent study, and though they contain knowledge, they are not wisdom.

God Himself defined true wisdom. Not a preacher, a teacher, an evangelist, or some third party that thought they knew better, but God Himself. He said, “The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”

Some bristle at the idea of the fear of the Lord because they do not understand it. They associate the fear of the Lord with the fear one expresses toward someone who is violent toward them, or is liable to fly off the handle at the drop of a hat and beat them senseless.

Within the context of Scripture, the best way to define the fear of the Lord is as a reverential awe, rather than the constant terror of waiting for the other shoe to drop and for violence to ensue. He is God, and I am not. He is the Creator, and I am creation. He is sovereign, supreme, and omnipotent. My having the fear of the Lord does not stem from an expectation of being pummeled into the dust by His unseen hand, but from who He is and the authority rightfully His. I am in constant, reverent awe of the God I serve, who He is, what He has done, and the lengths to which He went that I might be reconciled to Him.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXXI

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 11:32:04 +0000

I am not what one might call a meticulous planner or orderly when it comes to my personal space. At a glance, it looks like some small explosive device has gone off, and what remains are the scattered remnants of something that was once a workspace, but for me, it’s just another Tuesday. I know where everything is amidst the clutter that is my desk, whether a napkin with a few thoughts from a year ago, or a complete manuscript from a month ago, it may not seem like it to any sane person that happens to see it for the first time, but the chaos is an illusion.

Whether one calls it controlled or ordered chaos, it’s only so because they were not the ones responsible for putting everything where it lies; I was, and as such, I am the only one who knows where to find anything I’m looking for in the manner of a heartbeat or two.

Because it’s my desk, and they’re my things, I also know if anyone moved anything while I was not present. It doesn’t have to be an entire reshuffling of the clutter for me to notice; just a pen, a piece of paper, or some small thing out of place is enough for me to notice that things are not as I left them the last time I was there.

Whether man sees it or not, whether he chooses to acknowledge it or not, there is a divine order to all things on the earth, beneath the earth, in the realm of the seen and unseen alike, perfectly established and well thought out. What may seem chaotic to us, given our limited ability to perceive such things, is nothing less than the perfect synchronicity of billions upon billions of moving parts. You can take one thing on its own, like the human body, and be in awe of its complexity, all that is required for it to function optimally, and everything that takes place at a cellular level every time you inhale and exhale. That complexity, that wonder, is replicated a billion times over in everything that surrounds us, while being interdependent, wonderfully woven together, harmonious, and complementary.

In his ignorance, man can brush it off as a cosmic accident, but Job gives credit where credit is due and reveals the meticulous thought process that went into what we take for granted most days. This was no happy accident. This was the master architect, artist, and creator, looking to the ends of the earth, seeing under the whole heavens, establishing a weight for the wind, and apportioning the waters by measure. There were no overlooked details, there was nothing left to chance, and everything was put in its appropriate place, established, and spoken into existence.

From the first chapter of Genesis, we read the history of creation, and although it was no great feat for God, it was no great feat because He is God. None other could speak the universe into being, none other could speak light into existence, or separate the waters from the waters by speaking the firmament into existence. All that we see, from the grass to the trees, to the abundance of the creatures in the sea, and the birds flying in the air, the cattle, creeping things, and the beasts of the earth, were spoken into existence by the God we serve.

Yes, He is worthy of glory, He is worthy of praise, our awe of Him is justified because He is awe-inspiring. Man’s limited understanding of Him does not limit God. He is sovereign and supreme over all creation, and that includes man, try as man might to think himself on equal footing with Him.

This same God who spoke creation into being, this same God who made a law for the rain, and a path for the thunderbolt, turns His focus on His creation, and speaks to man directly. There is no mystery in His declaration; it’s not something that requires a degree to understand, because God does not speak in riddles, He does not needlessly complicate the way we ought to follow, nor does He have any ulterior motives when addressing the crown jewel of His creation, and the only one made in His image.

And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.’

It couldn’t be that simple, could it? There must be more to wisdom than the fear of the Lord, mustn’t there? Perhaps some astrological charts having to do with planetary alignments, some grafts pertaining to interdimensional travel, or perhaps a white paper on multiverses, but it can’t be as simple as the fear of the Lord. It is because God declared it so.

He saw wisdom and declared it, and what He declared is that the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. Nothing of what anyone else says matters on the topic because God has established the truth of it, and declared it to be so.

When we attempt to overcomplicate matters or weigh in with our minuscule intellect, insisting that God didn’t mean what He said, we fall into the same snare as Eve did when encountering the serpent in the garden. Had God indeed said that the fear of the Lord is wisdom? Yes, He did! That should be the end of the conversation, the end of the debate, and the end of the discussion.

What God commanded Adam and Eve was clear enough, yet the enemy was able to convince Eve that God hadn’t said what He clearly had by planting seeds of doubt and reshaping the narrative to reach his intended goal. The same tactics are employed to this day, wherein men take the Word and twist it to fit their predetermined narratives rather than submit to its authority and obey it as it ought to be obeyed.

To know what God said, you must know what God said, and you can know what God said by knowing His Word. The easiest prey the enemy catches in his snare are those who do not know the Word of God for themselves. They do not take the time to read it, know it, understand it, or hide it in their heart, and when he comes along whispering an approximation of truth but not the truth, they get caught up in his net, soon to be devoured if they do not find a means of escape.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXX

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 11:36:00 +0000

Where can wisdom be found? From where does wisdom come? Two questions that Job answers conclusively, but first, he tells us where wisdom is not, cannot, and will not be found. It is not among the living, it is not in the deep, it is not in the sea, it is concealed from the birds of the air who soar high above the earth, and though Destruction and Death have heard a report about it with their ears, they cannot lay claim to it, or pretend as though they possess it.

By this point, we’re running out of runway. One after the other, the places where men think wisdom might be found have been thoroughly eliminated, until only one place remains: in God! One source, that’s all. Not multiple sources gushing forth the same wisdom, but one source that possesses true and divine wisdom. Anything else, anyone else, any other god trying to lay claim to possessing wisdom is no less than a liar and a deceiver.

If God is unwilling to share the throne or allow for the possibility that wisdom can be found anywhere but in Him, why are those who insist they are following after Him so quick to try to do it on His behalf? It’s not as though God gave them a special exemption to try and make a deal on His behalf, and it required that He share authority and wisdom with lesser gods. It’s likewise not as though God has had a change of heart, and what He would have never done a few thousand years ago is something He might be considering now.

It has not gone unnoticed that Destruction and Death are capitalized, implying that they are independent, individual entities of some kind, rather than merely vague, opaque terms for something in the general ethos of men throughout. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, how you grew up, or what your level of education is; everyone understands the idea of destruction and death.

Whatever form destruction might take, whether earthquake, hurricane, volcano, or tornado, it is well defined and recognizable. The same can be said of death, wherein no matter what form it takes, it is readily seen for what it is and recognized as such.

As Job describes them, they are not just abstract ideas, but Destruction and Death are distinct, whether creatures or creations, and given what we know of both death and destruction, it is not as though they are without power of their own. Even so, they cannot claim to possess wisdom, only that they’d heard of it.

Only after firmly establishing where wisdom cannot be found does Job pull back the curtain and reveal that of all that exists in this universe, whether seen or unseen, only God understands its way and knows its place. That’s it: one of one.

Psalm 104:24-26, “O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. The earth is full of Your possessions – this great and wide sea, in which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great. There the ships sail about; there is that Leviathan which You made to play there.”

Few passages in scripture encapsulate the sovereign power, creation, and creativity of God better than the hundred and fourth psalm, and the underlying foundation that holds it all together is that God made all things in wisdom. Whether great or small, of the sea and without, everything God spoke into being was purposeful and precise, well-ordered and established that they might not only survive but thrive in the places He created for them.

Even trying to understand and perceive all the interdependent ecosystems operating in tandem on this earth is enough to make one’s brain freeze and give up altogether. Yet we are expected to believe that all of this, from the blade of grass to the bumblebee to the teaming ocean life to man himself, was a happy, fortuitous, even serendipitous accident.

Well, you see, there was a bang, but not any bang, a big bang, and then millions of years later, whammo-blammo, here we all are screaming at the barista because she ran out of soy milk before it was our turn. Intelligent design? Nah, that’s just for the uneducated, the knuckle draggers, the rubes, the people who need to believe in a higher power to give their lives meaning. By the way, how do you like my third septum ring? It goes well with the new shade of blue I painted my hair, don’t you think? But as I was saying, only the unintelligent cling to these patriarchal norms about divinity and God, because they feel like they have to fit in.

It takes more faith to believe that everything we can see was a happy accident, that everything came together perfectly, seamlessly, and singularly all on its own for no other reason than happenstance, than it does to believe that God spoke it into existence, making everything in wisdom.

For the last couple of years my wife has gotten into bread-baking aggressively, so much so that she has her own sourdough starter, experiments with different types of flour, half the fridge is usually full of resting dough because apparently that’s a thing, but I could just imagine what her reaction would be if I were to one day open the oven, see a beautiful bread, and exclaim, “who put that there? That’s a lovely bread, what are the odds that it came together all on its own?”

Absurd, I know, but it’s not far off the mark when considering the way some people view creation, the world, and the universe beyond. We see it, have no clue the painstaking effort it took to bring it together, shrug our shoulders, and say, wow, lucky us this thing magically pulled itself together in such a way as to keep us from being incinerated one moment and turned into icicles the next. What quirk of fate, that. Would have hated to see what would have happened if any of the hundred billion billion things that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. I guess we’re just lucky none of them did. Happy accident, indeed.

Psalm 14:1-2, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXIX

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 11:08:00 +0000

Job 28:20-28, “From where then does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air. Destruction and Death say, ‘We have heard a report about it with our ears.’ God understands its way, and He knows its place. For He looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole heavens, to establish a weight for the wind, and apportion the waters by measure. When He made a law for the rain, and a path for the thunderbolt, then He saw wisdom and declared it; He prepared it, indeed, He searched it out. And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.’”

If the twenty-eight chapter of Job were a song, from where does wisdom come, and where is the place of understanding would be the chorus that repeats between each verse. It is the defining question of this chapter, and Job asks it rhetorically because he already knew the answer to this most pressing question.

Given that Job insists that wisdom is hidden from the eyes of all living, what we deem as wisdom is but a muddled approximation rather than the real thing if God is not the source, the wellspring, and the cornerstone of it.

Believing oneself wise isn’t the same as being wise, and as Paul points out, there are many who, having professed to be wise, became fools. How so? Because their wisdom was a byproduct of their inner thoughts, their own minds, and their wicked hearts, having nothing to do with anything outside themselves and their desires. True wisdom comes from outside ourselves. Its source must be external, its nature divine, and its purpose to reveal the glory of God.

The further one gets from the source of something, the greater the chance it will be diluted or contain impurities. There’s a bottled water company whose claim to fame is that it is bottled at the source, directly from some aquifer in Fiji, and because of this one reason, they charge three times what other waters cost, and still manage to have a loyal clientele who shell out the extra money for the privilege. Whether or not it's worth it is debatable, but at least for some people it is, and they’re willing to pay the extra cost.

When it comes to true wisdom, one can only find it at the source, and unlike the aforementioned water, it is always worth acquiring, no matter the effort it takes.

Rather than chase after men who claim to have what is, at best, second-hand wisdom, why not go straight to the source? Why not tap into the spring itself rather than get a water jug that’s been sitting in a hot truck from a third party?

Are you saying we should all fly to Fiji to drink directly from the Viti Levu aquifer? No, that would be impractical. What I am saying is that we can go to God and gain wisdom directly from Him. Just like the water, if you want wisdom straight from the source, it will not come to you; you must go to it. You must make the effort to seek it out and assign enough value to it that you will not balk at the effort required to attain it.

But you don’t understand; the second-hand wisdom has added flavors and electrolytes, comes in a fancy bottle with a mountain etched into it, and the only effort it requires is that I log on to Facebook to acquire it. I can get all the second-hand wisdom I could ever consume from the comfort of my own home while in my pajamas. There are so many varieties to pick from, so many favors to sample, and the effort I’m required to put in is minimal. True enough, but the only question you should be asking, the only question that matters, is whether or not it’s pure. Is what men are claiming to be true wisdom really that, or is it just a fancy bottle filled to the brim with bath water and a pinch of lemon to mask its bitter taste?

There is no doubt as to the purity of the wisdom when God is the source. There is no wondering if anything is missing, or if there’s too much of one thing or another, because you know that what He gives is perfect, lacking nothing, and abundant in its benefits.

You may not know this, but some people will go to great lengths to complicate what should be simple. They will do their utmost to put their spin on wisdom, add to it, massage it, sometimes twist it to the point that it’s no longer what it claims to be, far from it in fact.

Thankfully, it hasn’t made its way stateside, at least that I’m aware of, but while visiting the homeland a couple of years ago, I ran into something that threatened to make me wretch right there in the grocery store aisle. It was called aloe vera water, and yes, it looked as disgusting as it sounds. It was water with globules of aloe vera floating in it, looking like some failed science experiment, but as I stood there with a grossed-out look on my face, no less than three people picked up a bottle.

Whatever it was, however it had started out, what was in those bottles could no longer be defined as water. Call it what you will, but don’t call it what it isn’t. When you combine sugar, lemons, and water, it’s no longer water but lemonade. When you attempt to mix feelings, emotions, cultural ethos, and personal opinion with divine wisdom, it’s no longer wisdom.

We were given a glimpse of what the world will look like in these last days, and among the many signs heralding the return of Christ, we were told there would be a disproportionate number of souls turning their ears from the truth and turning aside to fables. We must be ever wary that we are not counted among them, and the only way we can ensure it is to go to the source of truth, the source of wisdom, the source of direction for the path we trod and submit to His authority in all things.

Yes, going to the source may be more time-consuming than lapping up whatever is on offer as the day’s special, but it is well worth the effort, and the only means by which true wisdom is attained.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXVIII

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:36:00 +0000

Job 28:13-19, “Man does not know its value, nor is it found in the land of the living. The deep says, ‘It is not in me’, and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ It cannot be purchased for gold, nor can silver be weighed for its price. It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. Neither gold nor crystal can equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewelry of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or quartz, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, nor can it be valued in pure gold.”

If men knew the value of wisdom, it would become their lifelong, singular pursuit. Nothing else would have equal prominence in their life; there would be no shiny thing to distract them from seeking it out, and as Job said, there is no place you can find it but in God. It’s neither in the land of the living, the deep, or the sea, and though men might search for it in these places, they will come up short, empty-handed, no matter how diligent they are in their quest.

If one does not understand the value of wisdom, they will never take the time, make the effort, or dedicate themselves to pursuing it. Understanding the value of wisdom is where it all begins. In the rare moments I have some free time, I enjoy going to estate sales. If you don’t know what an estate sale is, it’s usually the offspring of the recently deceased homeowner selling all their earthly possessions just to be rid of them. More often than not, the only real value they see in what their parents left behind is the home itself, treating the contents as little more than worthless baubles they need to clear out before they sell the home.

I was walking through one such home, late in the day, after countless others had gone through it, when I noticed a statue on a side table. For some reason, it caught my eye, and when I went to pick it up, it had weight to it, so much so that I knew it wasn’t plastic or anything of the sort but likely a bronze sculpture. Upon inspecting it more thoroughly, I also saw a signature on the back, hard to make out, but there nonetheless, and after a few more minutes of walking through the home, I asked the lady sitting behind the plastic table, hunching over her money drawer, how much she wanted for the statue.

“Ten dollars?” Her answer was in the form of a question, but not being one to haggle when I see no need for it, I pulled two five-dollar bills from my pocket and handed them to her.

I got home later that day, found the magnifying glass my girls had been trying to use to light a fire when the sun was out, and made out the signature on the back of the sculpture. It turned out to be a well-known sculptor whose creations regularly sold for low four-digit prices on the open market.

Others had passed by it and saw no value in it. Even though I did not know the details, I perceived value and was willing to pay $10 to find out if I was right. Some people see no value in a relationship with God and pass Him by. Others understand that His presence in their lives is priceless and are willing to pursue Him in lieu of the other things vying for their time. The beauty of it all is that if you seek Him, you will find Him, and in Him you will discover wisdom untold.

True wisdom stems from intimacy, fellowship, and a relationship with God. There is no place where wisdom can be purchased, no matter how much one is willing to spend. There are no kiosks selling wisdom, there’s no online retailer you can order some from, and you won’t find someone on the street corner selling wisdom in transparent baggies. Wisdom is knowledge, experience, and good judgment all rolled up into one, and it’s not something that can be delegated, subcontracted, or farmed out to a third party.

You can’t hire a virtual assistant to make you wiser, nor can you employ someone to increase your level of wisdom. Job made this clear, yet we’re still, to this day, buying courses, going to conventions, and finding gurus who insist they can impart the wisdom of the ages for a small handling fee to one and all, for as long as seats are still available.

The truly remarkable thing is that the more we grow in wisdom, the more we acknowledge our own limitations and how little we know. A wise man will not boast of his wisdom, nor will the first thing he does once it is acquired be to try to monetize it somehow.

Anyone trying to sell you wisdom doesn’t have it to sell. What they’re selling you is a fake, a forgery, whether that entails instructing you to transcendentally meditate, open your third eye, dabble with Spiritism, or a glut of other forms of foolishness that they’ll attempt to push on you in lieu of reading the Word of God, and sitting with it, allowing it to take root, and treating it not as mere words on a page but food for your soul.

The sea knows its place, the deep knows its place, even the land of the living knows, and cannot feign wisdom when they know it does not reside with them. They do, however, know with whom wisdom resides, and every flower, every forest, every creature great and small, all things above the earth and beneath it, point to God. It’s not subtle. No one has to guess at it, no one has to wonder, because His invisible attributes are clearly seen and understood by the things that are made.

If man is too blind to see the evidence of God’s design, creation, and active participation in His creation, it is because he chooses to be so. It is because he does not want to deal with the implications of acknowledging God in all His glory, and what that would mean insofar as having to humble himself and submit to His will. Many would rather remain blind to the truth than see the light of His glory because it would compel a choice: either follow Him, or reject Him, obey Him, or be in rebellion against His commands.

As long as they don’t stand at that crossroads, as long as they don’t make the conscious choice to go to the left or to the right, God becomes a version of Schrodinger’s cat, wherein as long as it's still in the box it’s both alive and dead. As long as man delays wrestling with the reality of God, he can convince himself that God both is and isn’t real. It’s a disingenuous and cowardly position to be sure, but bravery nowadays is in short supply, and honesty even at the risk of having one’s reality shattered into a million pieces is rarer than a poor politician.

Either God exists, or He doesn’t. To insist that there is the possibility of a higher power existing somewhere in the cosmos is akin to being lukewarm. If one believes that God is real, present, and knowable, they are likened to being hot. If one does not believe, he is cold. If one, however, is content with being indifferent toward the answer to the most important question of one’s entire existence, then they are by all accounts deemed worthy of being pitied by great and small alike.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXVII

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 11:37:14 +0000

Job 28:8-12, “The proud lions have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed over it. He puts his hand on the flint; He overturns the mountains at the roots. He cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing. He dams up the streams from trickling; what is hidden he brings forth to light. But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?”

It’s not that Job is looking down on or dismissing the impressive scale of human ingenuity. He gives credit to where credit is due, recalling what man can do when he puts his mind to it, from cutting channels in the rocks to overturning mountains at the roots, all in the pursuit of something that, when compared and contrasted with wisdom, is beggarly.

We know where to find ore; we know where to dig up sapphires; we figure out ways not only to find where they are but to get to them and acquire these things from the earth. But pray tell, where can wisdom be found?

If one does not know the source of all wisdom, then their quest to acquire it is far more daunting than mining for gold or digging in the earth for precious stones. Some men spend their entire lives in search of wisdom, never attaining it because no one ever pointed them in the right direction, never took the time to show them the source, and whatever they discover is mere table scraps if God is not at the center of their search.

We will go to great lengths to acquire the meaningless while putting no effort toward attaining the priceless. The absence of hunger for God, the things of God, and the ways of God, is the proof that both wisdom and understanding are far removed from us.

It all boils down to the value we place on the things around us. If I place more value on the things of this earth than the wisdom of God, then I will pursue those things more ardently than Him because I’ve assigned more value to them than I did in growing in God. It’s not that we don’t have the time, it’s that we don’t want to make the time. We refuse to structure our lives in such a way that God is first; we refuse to prioritize Him above all other things, and our lack of a prayer life, our lack of time in the Word, and our lack of being in His presence for any meaningful length of time reveal these truths. They are as self-evident as all men having been created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

How is it that some men can pray upwards of three, four, five hours per day, while we can’t manage to spare ten minutes every morning? It’s not as though they have more time than we do, or have fewer worries than we do; it’s not as though they don’t have to earn their daily bread, or get the kids ready for school every morning. They make the time because fellowship with God is essential in their lives. He is an existential need, and they arrange their lives accordingly.

I sometimes wonder what some people will do in the presence of God, for all eternity, if they can’t spare a full hour every week to immerse themselves in the hearing of the Word, without being able to resist the urge to scroll Facebook or Instagram while the man tasked with rightly dividing it is doing his best not to lose his cool as new alerts keep going off in the sanctuary, and people consider them more important in the moment than hearing Scripture being read and taught.

Not to belabor the point, but you do realize that there’s no Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, or Rumble in heaven. When we rise incorruptible, when we are transformed in the blink of an eye, it won’t be with the latest iPhone strapped to our palm. For the life of me, I can’t reconcile how the same souls that are compelled to check the time after five minutes of corporate prayer, or ten minutes of worship, will glory in the presence of God without distraction for all eternity.

We’re already supposed to have a renewed mind, a new heart, new desires, and new pursuits. You don’t get those as a swag bag or a welcome gift as you stand before the pearly gates. If you’re waiting for heaven to have the desire to be in the presence of God, if you’re waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb to want to fellowship with Him, then He is not the treasure you seek, and for the joy of which you surrender all else.

When I get to heaven, I’ll pray more, fast more, desire to know God more, grow my faith more, and walk in His ways more. That’s not the way it works, though. Heaven is the finish line, not the race, and in order to obtain the prize, we must run the race in such a way as to obtain it.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”

You are not running a race for a participation trophy. You are running the race to obtain the prize. The prize in question is not some plastic statue or first-place ribbon long abandoned in a cardboard box until it makes its way to the trash when the wife decides it’s time to declutter, but an imperishable crown. The prize is worth the effort. The prize is worth the race, and knowing this, we neither run with uncertainty nor fight as one who beats the air.

The way we master our focus is by mastering ourselves, disciplining our thoughts, our actions, and our bodies, bringing them under subjection, doing all things through the prism of the indescribable worth of knowing God and walking with Him, assigning the appropriate value to prayer, fasting, reading the Word, and spending time in His presence. We strive and struggle, sacrifice and bleed for things that will one day be but ashes blowing in the wind, but lest we forget, he who does the will of God abides forever.

While you have breath, you can. You can make Him your purpose, your joy, your peace, and your refuge. You can make Him Lord of your heart, captain of your life, and master of your soul. While you have breath, you can commit to running the race not as one who has nothing better to do on a given day, but as one whose singular desire is to obtain the prize.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXVI

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 11:33:25 +0000

Job 28:1-7, “Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is smelted from ore. Man puts an end to darkness, and searches every recess for ore in the darkness and shadow of death. He breaks open a shaft away from people; in places forgotten by feet they hang far away from men; they swing to and fro. As for the earth, from it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire; its stones are the source of sapphires, and it contains gold dust. That path no bird knows, nor has the falcon’s eye seen it.”

And thus begins what has been aptly described as Job’s discourse on wisdom. The more Job speaks, the more we understand the depth of his wisdom. When factoring in that he lived somewhere between the great flood and the time of Moses, when wisdom would have been acquired independently, through diligent dedication, without the use of the tools we take for granted today, or even a public library he could pop into regularly, we come to understand that his wisdom was not his own but something derived from God.

Have you ever had one of those moments of clarity when you were certain that you knew something but had no idea where you’d learned it from? The world calls it intuition, or a sixth sense, but the children of God call it inspiration, or divine revelation. While intuition fails men miserably and at the worst possible moments, because it originates in man, divine inspiration or revelation is consistently true because of the source from which it proceeds.

There are a multitude of examples within the Word of God, especially when the prophetic was involved, of those tasked with writing what they had seen or heard having no way of knowing or understanding what they were seeing, yet faithfully recording it nonetheless. What they were shown in no way matched the reality they were living. If they’d attempted to interpret what they saw through the prism of human reason, it would have made no sense.

John the Revelator recorded hearing of a two-hundred-million army of horsemen during a time when the entire world’s population hovered around three hundred million. There was no way he could wrap his mind around that number. Wi-Fi wasn’t what it is today, and the Isle of Patmos likely didn’t have great cell service. I jest, of course, but for anyone to read the Bible while acknowledging the historical context of the time of its writing, and not see divine inspiration in passage after passage, is no less than willful ignorance. It’s not that they can’t see it; they don’t want to see it.

What would a man living in the desert know about mining for silver or refining gold? What would he know about smelting copper from ore, or that stones are the source of sapphires? If the discussion had revolved around shearing sheep or herding oxen, then it wouldn’t stand out. Such things were, after all, in Job’s wheelhouse. He’d had seven thousand sheep at one point, as well as five hundred yoke of oxen, so he knew a bit about these things. But smelting, refining, and mining for precious metals? There wasn’t much of that going on in the desert, and there still isn’t.

This wasn’t a session of fun facts with Job. He hadn’t dedicated his life to learning little-known particulars about niche careers, nor does the Word tell us that he was an amateur rock hound, or an aspiring gemologist.

Every insight, word of wisdom, or truth he spoke that would have been unknowable to him at the time stemmed from his relationship with God. His was a life lived not in pursuit of a hobby, or a greater understanding of how stones become sapphires, but in knowing the One who created all that is seen and unseen. God is the source of true wisdom. He is the source of true knowledge.

Some of the dumbest people nowadays seem to have the most degrees. Are you telling me you went to college for twenty years and you can’t tell the difference between a man and a woman? You can’t say with clarity, conviction, and directness what makes each unique in their own right, or feign ignorance when it comes to something as obvious as the biological impossibility of a man birthing a baby? But congratulations, you have a piece of paper hanging on your wall that declares to the world that you’re smart!

What’s worse is that some of these individuals demand that we defer to them and their way of thinking simply because they have that piece of paper. Well, you see, if you insist men can’t be women and are biologically incapable of getting pregnant, you’re just ignorant. Am I though?

Have you ever seen a flying hippopotamus?

No, I haven’t, but I have a degree, and I believe they exist, so you must validate my delusion and believe likewise.

But they don’t exist; that’s the whole point.

That you know of.

That anyone knows of! Never once has there ever been a flying hippopotamus, and no matter how many want to believe it or insist that they exist, the reality is that they don’t and never will!

Job wasn’t spouting off inanities just to make himself seem wise. He was speaking verifiable, demonstrable, timeless truths he had no way of knowing save for inspiration from God. He wasn’t beating his chest demanding that all look upon him and his brilliance; he was a man humbled beyond what we can fully grasp, yet trusted in the wisdom of the God he served and did not keep from speaking the things that flowed from that relationship.

Whether men nowadays are too proud to listen to the voice of the Lord, or too busy to hear it, whether they think they know better, or are unwilling to humble themselves and submit to His wisdom, there is a glut of supposed super spiritual voices clamoring for your attention who are nothing more than silly children opining on things they know nothing about professing to be wise yet having become fools.

Men will move mountains and dam up rivers, search every recess for ore in the darkness and shadow of death, while ignoring, avoiding, and dismissing the greatest treasure that is within reach of their fingertips day in and day out. Job’s true wisdom lay not in understanding that surely there was a mine for silver, or a place where gold was refined, but in acknowledging that God is more precious than gold, silver, sapphires, or copper. God is not the map to treasure; He is the treasure.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXV

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 10:03:03 +0000

Job 27:18-23, “He builds his house like a moth, like a booth which a watchman makes. The rich man will lie down, but not be gathered up; he opens his eyes, and he is no more. Terrors overtake him like a flood; a tempest steals him away in the night. The east wind carries him away, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place. It hurls against him and does not spare; he flees desperately from its power. Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place.”

The absence of light leads those living in darkness to believe that darkness is all there is to life. They cannot fathom the beauty of the light of Christ, nor can they reconcile the joy of the believer with the misery they experience in their daily lives.

They convince themselves that status will make them happy, or money, or fame, only to discover that after they’ve sacrificed their lives in pursuit of that one thing they believed would fulfill them, it leaves them just as cold and empty as before. Maybe the next thing will work, or maybe the one after that, is what they tell themselves only to discover the same dead end, the same emptiness, and the ever-present awareness that something is missing. Not something irrelevant or tertiary, but something of paramount importance and of an existential nature.

It is because they cannot understand or perceive the joy that surpasses understanding that the presence of Christ in one’s heart produces that they lash out, whether in anger, frustration, bitterness, or resentment, and set out to demean, mock, ridicule, and look down upon the followers of Jesus with all the vitriol they can muster.

Their joy, purpose, and fulfillment are anchored to the physical, to things they can touch and hold and boast about, not understanding that any joy they might experience is only temporary, a fleeting emotion that they will attempt to grasp anew only to watch it slip through their fingers, perpetually chasing after the new thing, almost instantly dissatisfied with the thing they strived to acquire and sacrificed for, and believed would bring them both satisfaction and validation.

Those who have a product to sell are overjoyed that the culture of consumerism this generation has created has so engulfed the minds and hearts of most, because only in this constant state of delusion that some new phone, car, or piece of clothing will bring about this ever-elusive joy can they keep the hamsters on the hamster wheel, perpetually dissatisfied with what they have, and greedily eying what they don’t.

Some awake from their stupor and, in a moment of epiphany, ask, to what end, but most feel compelled to keep doing what they’ve always done, even though it never produces different results.

If, for the past six iterations, you were first in line for the newest version of the iPhone, thinking this would be the moment you would know true joy, only to be disheartened two days later, understand that the pattern will hold for the next sixty iterations of it. The emotional rollercoaster will end the same way as before, because nothing on earth satisfies, fulfills, or gives one purpose in perpetuity.

This is the point Job was trying to make to his friends, in the hope that they would see his situation for what it was rather than throw him in the same basket as the wicked. His joy never came from the things he possessed but from his relationship with the Almighty. He did not see his wealth as any sort of validation, rather as a blessing from God that He could take away as He saw fit, and Job would not begrudge Him.

The things Job was saying regarding the wicked were similar to what his three friends had said about them, but though they may have been true, generally speaking, they were not true when it came to Job. Sometimes we can speak a general truth to an individual person, and though it may be factual, it does not apply to that person in that moment, given their situation.

As a general rule, telling someone to go for a walk as the weather allows is solid advice. It has a multitude of health benefits: it’s good for your heart, and you may even get some vitamin D. But when you tell someone in a wheelchair that they should be walking more, it makes no sense and is useless advice.

Job’s friends had tirelessly enumerated the lot of the wicked to him; the only problem was that Job was not a wicked man as they’d concluded. Job, too, agreed with them that the east wind carries the wicked away, sweeps him out of his place, hurls him, and does not spare, but Job made it clear that he was not counted among them.

A man who trusts in his possessions lives in constant fear of losing them. A man whose identity is wrapped up in his position will be obsessed with solidifying it and ensuring that no one can kick him off his perch. Any joy they might have had from having achieved what their heart desired is summarily doused by the constant fear of losing it.

The greatest folly in this way of thinking is not acknowledging the reality that sooner or later, whether in ten years or fifty, we will all return to the dust of the earth, no matter how much we’ve built up, and squirreled away, or how high up the corporate ladder we managed to climb. To place one’s hope in the things of this earth, or to make what we possess the determining factor in whether we have peace, joy, and fulfillment, is so myopic as to be pitiable.

1 John 2:17, “And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

I don’t expect those of the world to know better, but I do expect the household of faith to. Our goals, desires, what animates us and gives us purpose must be different than those of the world because we are no longer of the world but belong to God, having been bought with a price, redeemed from darkness, and reconciled to Him.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXIV

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 11:14:00 +0000

Had I been a hypocrite, I could not rightly know what I am about to tell you. Had I had a superficial relationship with the Almighty, I would be as in the dark regarding His sovereignty, power, and majesty, but since I am not, I will teach you about the hand of God, and what is with the Almighty I will not conceal.

You already know this, but chose to ignore it because your pride demanded that I fit neatly into the box you’ve predetermined I should be in. Surely you have seen it; why, then, do you behave with complete nonsense?

It seems as though Job caught his second wind, and this will be the longest of his speeches, spanning some four chapters in total, with gems of wisdom strewn throughout as he verbally processes his life up to this point, as well as his understanding of God. It wasn’t forced; he didn’t sit at a desk with a quill and parchment to iron out his autobiography. He spoke from the heart, from experience, with his lifelong worship of God as the firm ground upon which he would build his case.

Job 27:13-17, “This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage of the oppressors, received from the Almighty: If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword; and his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread. Those who survive him shall be buried in death, and their widows shall not weep, though he heaps up silver like dust, and piles up clothing like clay – he may pile it up, but the just will wear it, and the innocent will divide the silver.”

Divine truth is timeless. It neither expires, grows stale, nor does it become irrelevant with the passage of time. What was true millennia ago is as true and relevant today, and when Job describes the portion of a wicked man with God, and what heritage he will receive from the Almighty, one can’t help but look around and see the truth of it in plain sight.

How do the offspring of some of the most prominent individuals who have every privilege and opportunity to make something of themselves, to succeed, to be productive members of society, become little more than ambulatory train wrecks, and cautionary tales of what not to do in life?

How is it that someone born in poverty, with no discernible advantages, can outperform and eclipse the offspring of those who have need of nothing and should by all rights excel at any endeavor they put their minds to?

How is it that the offspring of the wicked are not satisfied with bread, with living lives others dare not dream about, and feel the need to mutilate themselves, destroy their lives, and surrender to ultimately fatal addictions?

Job insists that these things are not accidental, but rather the heritage of the oppressors. If the one thing you instill in your children is not the fear of the Lord, the love of God, and the vanity of pursuing anything other than fellowship with Him, no matter how much you’ve squirreled away in their college fund, no matter what inheritance you leave behind, you have failed as a parent.

That may have come off as harsh, but it was as much for me as it was for anyone else, because I often find myself resisting the urge to ensure that my girls have an easier life than I did growing up, in lieu of teaching them that all the things the godless value are little more than vanity.

It is a constant battle, and one that is purposefully waged. Yes, it would be easier for me to buy them a couple of cell phones so they can fit in with the rest of their class, or have a tablet as the proverbial co-parent, wherein every waking minute is spent staring at a screen, but since children are a heritage from the Lord, I will do my utmost to raise them as such.

Every year, it becomes harder to push back against the norm, the status quo, the things that the majority accept as inevitable, but the reward of that labor is evident in the hobbies they choose to pursue, the things that interest them, and the manner in which they interact with those around them.

It’s not so much about the generational curses some people are obsessed with nowadays, but about the fact that the wicked have no frame of reference to what it means to raise up your children in the way they must go, nor do they possess the fear of the Lord, so that they can pass it down to their offspring.

The generational rejection of God and the unwillingness to humble oneself in the sight of the Lord is itself the curse that is passed down to the offspring of the wicked as their portion. Having not come to the knowledge of the saving grace of Jesus Christ, having not repented and humbled themselves at the foot of the cross, the wicked ensure that their offspring are for the sword, and they will not be satisfied with bread.

Any joy they might experience in this life is fleeting and temporary, and though they have need of nothing, they feel no satisfaction in the things they possess, the things others told them would make them happy and fulfilled, the things that would bring warmth, comfort, purpose, and meaning into their lives.

It’s a stark picture Job paints, but not an unrealistic one. Men spend their entire lives amassing, only for their earthly goods to be bought up for pennies on the dollar by strangers or to end up in a landfill somewhere, because what they thought had value had value only to them.

As a father of two bright, bubbly, effervescent, beautiful daughters, I can say with sincerity that your children would rather have your presence than presents, and the only way for them to know the way they must go is if you teach it to them, consistently, repetitively, and purposefully.

In a year’s time, one of them will be a teenager, and the other won’t be far behind, and it’s as though it’s been a breath, the blink of an eye. No man can get back the time he’s squandered, but he can make use of the time he has left. When it comes to being present in your children’s lives, being an active participant rather than a spectator, better late than never is the best course of action.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXIII

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 11:24:00 +0000

Job 27:8-12, “May my enemy be like the wicked, and he who rises up against me like the unrighteous. For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he may gain much, if God takes away his life? Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him? Will he delight himself in the Almighty? Will he always call on God? I will teach you about the hand of God; what is with the Almighty I will not conceal. Surely all of you have seen it; why then do you behave with complete nonsense?”

Look for the differences between a righteous man and a hypocrite long enough, over a span and time horizon of more than an hour, a day, or a week, and they will be so obvious and glaring as to make one wonder why they didn’t spot them sooner.

Job doesn’t say that the hypocrite won’t succeed at putting on a believable performance, they may even be so good in their pretense as to gain much through their endeavor, but when it comes to it, when the rubber meets the road, the hypocrite has no hope, nothing to cling to, nothing to buoy him, and nothing to sustain him.

Since his friends had intimated that he was a hypocrite, a farceur, someone who pretended at righteousness and devotion rather than sincerely loving God for who He was, Job sets about dismantling their narrative and pointing out the differences between the hypocrite and the blameless.

The first question Job asks regarding the hypocrite is whether God will hear his cry when trouble comes upon him. This question and the way Job phrases it reveal the deep and abiding faith Job had not only in God but also in that when he cried out, God heard him, even though He had not answered or acted upon his pleas.

Trouble had surely come upon him. He had surely cried out to God, yet God had remained silent. This did not sway Job’s deeply rooted faith that, though He had not responded, God had nevertheless heard him.

Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

While the passage in Hebrews defines faith, Job exemplified it, put it into practice, and acted upon it with conviction and assurity. There was no doubt in his mind or heart that God had not heard his cry when trouble came upon him. He understood that God has a purpose in all things, even in His silence, and the one thing Job wrestled with is not understanding that purpose himself.

I will trust God, I will trust that He hears my cry, even if He remains silent, even if the situation I’m pleading with Him for remains unchanged, because I know my God, I know whom I serve, and there is nothing that can sway me from this certainty. Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him!

Job’s second question was as revealing as his first, worded in such a way as to make his friends consider all that he’d said since they first came to comfort him, hoping that they would be able to see beyond their hastily drawn conclusions to the reality that stood before them.

While still referencing the hypocrite, Job asks, “Will he delight himself in the Almighty?”

A hypocrite by his very nature will attempt to use God to obtain what his heart truly desires. There is no delighting himself in Him, there is no yearning to spend time in His presence, there is no inclination toward faithful obedience, or worship. Everything is feigned, performative, well-calculated, and forced rather than sincere because the hypocrite is attempting to affect the perception of those in close proximity as to his own spirituality rather than serve God in spirit and in truth.

Do we find our delight in the Almighty or in the things the Almighty provides? If it’s the latter rather than the former, then when those things go away, when they are taken, stolen, lost, or burned in the fire, our hearts will grow bitter, and our instinct will be to shake our fist at the heavens and insist that God is unjust, unfair, or callous rather than loving, forgiving, and gracious. Herein lies the danger of finding delight in anything other than Him.

God is not interchangeable with anything or anyone. He must have singular prominence in our hearts, and our delight must be in Him. Yes, we thank Him for our daily bread, the roof over our heads, healthy children, and the ability to work, but the things He gives cannot replace Him, nor can we place equal value on them as we do on our relationship with Him.

To some, Job may seem cold or callous in that he did not react in a manner they would have given all the things he lost, but such individuals have never known intimacy with God on the level Job did. In his entire existence, there was only one thing he could not do without, and that was the presence of the God he’d served for countless years. It’s not that he didn’t feel loss or didn’t mourn, but for one such as Job, the presence of God was an existential need. He could not see himself continuing on; he could not see himself numbered among the living without God’s abiding presence.

The next question about the hypocrite is emblematic of the human condition, as Job asks, “Will he always call on God?” The adage that there are no atheists in a foxhole has proven true often enough. There comes a time in most men’s lives when they will call on God, when they have no other means of escape or recourse, as will the hypocrite for all the good it will do him.

Later on, as the New Testament was being divinely inspired, those who love God were instructed to pray always and pray without ceasing. We do not commune with God or open up the lines of communication only when we find ourselves buffeted, see no escape, or need Him to come through and save us from the mess we’ve gotten ourselves in. Being in fellowship with God is not a chore, a burden, or something we drag our feet in doing, but the single most important event on our calendar, every day of the year without fail.

Job knew how much time he spent in God’s presence. He knew how much time he spent calling on God, and his question was not intended to puff himself up or highlight his consistency in calling out to God, but to contrast what a hypocrite would do with what his friends knew him to have done.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXII

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:35:00 +0000

“Till I die I will not put away my integrity from me. My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go; my heart shall not reproach me as long as I live.”

There was no wiggle room in Job’s statement. There was no shadow of turning or doubt. He wasn’t saying he would hold to his integrity only when it was easy, comfortable, or cost him nothing, but until he died, he would not put his integrity away.

When we are established in the will, grace, peace, and Word of God, there is no pressure that can be brought to bear that would compel us to abandon our integrity or relinquish righteousness. Whatever men might say, whatever crashing waves of hardships, trials, and adversities may crash upon us, threatening to drag us under, we cling to the hope we have in Him, and dare not let go.

Job had already committed to his way; he had already established in his heart that, though God slew him, he would still trust Him. These were not mere words but a declaration of intent, a promise of faithfulness, and a sure-footed commitment to keep pressing on no matter how rocky the road or how steep the climb.

Our calling is to be no less committed than Job in our journey toward eternity, even if we might never be called to suffer to the extent that Job did. If we cannot remain loyal, faithful, and true in our seasons of peace, comfort, and plenty, how will we determine to be these things in the face of hardship, privation, and suffering?

From the instant one begins a journey, they commit to completing it. If I promised my daughters we would be driving to Florida, and somewhere past the Indiana border, I turned the car around, not only would I be breaking my promise to them, but I would have wasted the time it took us to drive the few hours only to come back to where we’d started.

Chronic false starts are not conducive to spiritual growth, maturity, or sanctification. By that, I mean the noticeable pattern where people reach out for Jesus only when they’ve dug themselves so deep that they need a miner’s lamp, and once by His mercy, they are pulled from the mire, they start digging another hole next to the one they’ve just been pulled out of. You can’t use Jesus as a life preserver every time you get tired of treading water, then discard Him when your strength is up to par.

Another term for this is chronic backsliding. If Jesus sets you free, washes you clean, and the next moment you cannonball into the mud pit He saved you from, that is not true repentance, no matter who insists otherwise.

So what’s so dangerous about these chronic false starts? They can quickly become a form of self-deception, wherein, although the individual is making no substantive progress but treads the same ground month after month, they convince themselves that it is well with their soul.

There is also Christ’s warning about a return to one’s former sins and vices that we must take to heart, because if anyone knew what he was talking about regarding the spiritual realm and how unclean spirits operate, it was Jesus. He wasn’t guessing at what may occur; He was outlining how unclean spirits operate.

Matthew 12:43-45, “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.”

For the evil spirit to be barred from access to the now empty, swept, and put-in-order house, the new owner must be present, moved in, and settled therein. If Jesus is present, the devil can’t get in. He might try to look through the windows, assess the situation, and see if there’s any way for him to slink back in to his former residence, but if the light of Jesus is present, if the once darkened heart is filled with His truth, the enemy knows it’s a fight he can’t win, and a heart he cannot conquer anew.

If a heart is not filled with the presence of Christ, not only will the squatter return but he will bring seven friends along, more wicked than himself, not because he has love for his fellow spirits but because he knows there is strength in numbers and there is less of a chance that he will be cast out again, or in the least that it will be more difficult to do so.

It is also worth noting that the last state of the man will be worse than the first if, after having his heart emptied, swept, and put in order, he assumes there is no need for surrender, obedience, and faithfulness to Jesus.

Not to be divisive, but Christ’s very words also put into question the once saved always saved, do as you will after you wave your hand at a crusade philosophy running rampant amid today’s generation. Jesus isn’t renting an Airbnb for the week; He is not signing a twelve-month lease, nor is He interested in renting your heart. The only way for the house to remain clean and put in order is for Him to take ownership of it, reside in it permanently, and do as He wills with it.

The former owner can’t come by for a visit and tell the new owner he doesn’t like all the changes he’s made to the property. It no longer belongs to him, and he has no say in the matter. You were bought at a price, and the new owner is not interested in roommates or in cohabitating with the previous tenants.

Job knew who the Lord of his heart was. He knew that God had ownership, was living and active in him, and so was able to declare, “My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go.” How many of us can say the same? We should be able to if He is Lord of all in our lives, not just in word but in deed.

Yes, when my righteousness is compared and contrasted with His, it is like a filthy rag, but that does not mean righteousness should not be pursued or that it cannot be attained. When God says “be holy,” it’s a command, not a suggestion, and if He commanded it of us, then it is not something unattainable.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXXI

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 11:48:00 +0000

Job 27:1-6, “Moreover Job continued his discourse, and said: ‘As God lives, who has taken away my justice, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter, as long as my breath is in me, and the breath of God is in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. Far be it from me that I should say you are right; Till I die I will not put away my integrity from me. My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go; my heart shall not reproach me as long as I live.”

Integrity is not situational. If you can claim integrity and denounce it depending on the situation, like putting on and taking off a coat or a pair of socks, then you have no integrity. If integrity is absent in one’s life, then nothing is permanent, nothing is consistent, nothing is stable, and everything becomes fluid, negotiable, and flexible to the point that if God doesn’t give me what I want when I want it, I’ll find someone who will. Your love, loyalty, and affection are not hostages to be used as leverage against God to get what you want, nor are any of us in a position to demand ransom from Him in exchange for our fealty, fidelity, or devotion.

When we begin to place conditions on our obedience and faithfulness, when we begin demanding things in return for our service, we are proven to be nothing more than hirelings and mercenaries, selling our loyalty to the highest bidder for as long as the checks clear. If we are motivated by anything other than love and a sincere desire to serve God, whether money, fame, or the acceptance of the godless, the question isn’t if but rather when the offer to compromise and betray the truth will be made.

Men don’t unwittingly begin to teach another gospel. They choose to dismiss what the gospel says while attempting to rationalize their betrayal of truth. If I keep insisting on sanctification, righteousness, holiness, prayer, fasting, study of the Word, and intimacy with God, I will never grow my church or my ministry. Nowadays, people want something new, fresh, and instant. They’re unwilling to take the time to press in, to grow, or build up their most holy faith. They need something immediate, instantly gratifying, something that moves at the speed of their busy lives.

If I keep calling sin what it is and not attempt to soften the blow of what it means to be in rebellion toward God, the handful of people who have expressed displeasure at being convicted will end up leaving, then what will I have?

Either trust God or don’t. Either cling to your integrity and stand on the truth of Scripture or do as so many others have and take liberties where the Word offers none, and twist the gospel to suit men’s lukewarm state rather than admonishing them to awaken from their slumber and pursue God purposefully and with pure intentions. Just make sure you understand one thing: when God gives someone over to uncleanness, when men exchange the truth of God for the lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, it is no less than the manifest wrath of God upon them.

That’s what Paul tells the Romans within the first chapter of his epistle. The suppression of truth in unrighteousness isn’t liberty, or a new way of solving an old problem; it is the wrath of God being revealed against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men. Judgment begins in the house of God for a reason. If you haven’t noticed, the house of God has been under His judgment for some time now.

In the physical Job had every reason to be angry, bitter, and disillusioned. It’s not as though he’d forgotten the man he’d been, the children he’d buried, or the fortune that had disappeared overnight. Even so, he declared with all the force he could muster that his lips would not speak wickedness, nor his tongue utter deceit. When we commit our ways to the Lord, what is happening around us, or even to us, cannot sway or affect our commitment to Him. The devil can’t make us be disloyal to God, nor can he make us speak wickedness or utter deceit. He facilitates the environment for us to make that choice, putting his finger on the scale as heavily as he is allowed to, but ultimately, the choice is still ours as individuals.

Adversity tests integrity. Seeing the dreams, plans, and aspirations you’ve worked toward your entire life implode within the blink of an eye isn’t easy; it’s not something one receives with a smile on their lips and gladness in their eyes, but it’s those moments that define us, mature us, and grow us in ways nothing else can.

More often than not, integrity comes at a price. There is a cost attached to it, whether that cost is losing friends, being shunned by family, or being seen in a negative light by those around you. It’s far easier to capitulate, to give in, to go with the flow, and be just another face in the crowd than it is to stand firm in your convictions and refuse to be swayed.

Job knew full well he could put an end to this entire drama by acquiescing and telling his friends they were right, or at least that they’d made some valid points. He could have been the peacemaker, but doing so would have come at the cost of his integrity, and admitting to something he knew himself to be innocent of, and that was something he was unwilling to do, and rightly so.

The sad reality is that the squeaky wheel often gets the grease. It’s those who are loud, brash, and hyperbolic who often get their way because they’re willing to talk over anyone trying to make a valid point or insist upon facts and evidence rather than feelings or emotions. Yes, we should always strive to reason together, but for that to occur, both parties must be reasonable and willing to consider the possibility that they are wrong. Job’s friends would not. They would rather believe that their friend was a man of such wickedness as to deserve worse than he was experiencing than allow for the possibility that they’d erred in their judgment.

Job’s integrity was built upon the foundation of having had a protracted relationship with God. Our integrity, likewise, must be rooted in God’s Word, and what it says, rather than our own machinations or vain imaginings. It is the only sort of integrity that will weather the storms, that will remain steadfast and unmoved, because it is tethered in the truth of He who abides.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXX

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:48:27 +0000

Yes, we should be in awe of the God we serve. Yes, we should be humbled by the beauty that surrounds us, a beauty that He spoke into existence, a beauty that makes the greatest works of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Monet, DaVinci, and Vermeer seem like nothing more than a toddler’s finger-paint art in comparison. Yes, there should be wonder and a humbling delight in the knowledge that we were fearfully and wonderfully made by His hand.

If one were so inclined, they could spend a lifetime plumbing the depths of this one chapter in the book of Job. Every God-inspired revelation regarding His nature, character, and all-encompassing power is so layered in profundity and wide-reaching in its implications that one could readily be stunned into silence as to how a man who lived four thousand years ago could grasp wisdom on this level. The icing on the cake, however, comes toward the latter part of the chapter, wherein, after numerous mind-expanding and reality-shattering revelations, Job says, “these are the mere edges of His ways.”

We haven’t even scratched the surface, never mind plumb the depths. These are the peripheral attributes, the mere edges of His ways. Stunning. Humbling. For a man to so poetically and beautifully encapsulate the attributes, nature, and sovereignty of God, then acknowledge that this was far from a complete rendering of His might, power, and wonder, can do nothing less than humble us into the dust and show us how little we truly know.

Tell me again about the pet dinosaurs and body part rooms in heaven, or perhaps about the bottomless ice cream sundaes. God forgive us!

When taking into account the historical context of Job’s timing, his insights into everything are deeper still. Men used to believe that the earth was supported by four elephants standing on the back of a turtle, yet here comes this man who says that God hung the earth on nothing. Revolutionary statement for its time, to be sure, but much of what Job said about the universe God created has been proven out by science in our modern era. Such things could not have been conceived by the mind of man, but by a God-breathed revelation into the inner workings of the world, the seen and unseen realms alike.

How could Job know that God drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary of light and darkness unless God revealed it to him? It’s not as though he could pick up a telephone and call the other side of the world to determine that while it was light where he stood, darkness was all-encompassing beyond what his eyes could see.

When we view the things Job said through the prism of modern invention and understanding, perhaps his statements aren’t quite that impressive. When we acknowledge that he spoke these things four thousand odd years ago, it takes on a whole new level of astonishment.

Some of the things he spoke of remain a mystery to us to this day. Did you know heaven had pillars, and they tremble and are astonished at God’s rebuke? Science can neither prove nor disprove this, but we know it is true not only because the Word of God says it is, but because many of the other statements Job made have been proven factually true in our modern era.

God has both power and authority over all of creation. Can we even fathom what sort of power is required to stir up the sea, or to break up the storm by will alone? Can we even begin to guess at what it implies that God’s hand pierced the fleeing serpent?

All these things, the fathomless, wondrous, glorious things, and yet these are the mere edges of His ways, and how small a whisper we hear of Him.

But sure, let’s bicker endlessly about whether wearing a necktie is a sure sign that you’re headed for hell because it’s pointing down, or if wearing a wedding band is evidence that you have not purged your heart of the desire for silver and gold. Let’s beat each other over the head and denounce each other over tertiary issues that hold no salvific weight, while ignoring the majesty of the God we serve, which is on full display every single day.

Depending on how one views Job’s statement, we either know and understand so little of God as to perceive the mere edges of His ways, or man’s capacity and ability to understand Him are so small and stunted as to make a greater understanding of Him impossible to the human mind. Either way serves to deflate our bloated sense of self, wisdom, and understanding, but one thing is certain: if you seek God, you will find Him. If you knock, He will open. If you desire to know more of Him, He will reveal Himself to you on a deeper and more profound level.

If a man whom God deemed blameless and upright can conclude that what he knows of God are the mere edges of His ways, then no man living or dead can claim that they know God fully, completely, in all His fathomless glory. It may sound good to the ears of the easily impressed when men boast of being all-knowing, but they are empty, baseless boasts that have no anchor to reality.

We hear a small whisper of Him, and some wrongly assume that’s all there is to know of Him. Job insists that there is much beyond the small whisper, all the way to the thunder of His power, and concludes his soliloquy with a rhetorical question: But the thunder of His power, who can understand?

We can understand His love because it was personified in Jesus, we can understand His grace because He plucked us from the darkness and brought us into the light, we can understand His mercy because, as faithless as we are, He still contends with us, but the thunder of His power, who can understand?

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXIX

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 11:34:27 +0000

All of creation, and every created thing, tremble before the Almighty, whether seen or unseen, whether known by the minds of men or kept a mystery to them, because they know the fathomless power of the Alpha and Omega, the One who was, and is, and is to come. All are fully aware of His all-encompassing authority, that by His Word He spoke the universe into existence, that to this day He speaks and it is done, commands and it stands fast, except for mankind; dull-witted, self-important, prideful, arrogant, disobedient, rebellious, mankind.

We think nothing of dismissing His omnipotence, being flippant about His glory, elevating ourselves while diminishing His attributes to the point of thinking we are on equal footing, ignoring all that He has done, and mocking His lovingkindness, because all we’ve ever been taught of the God we purport to serve is that He is love, and love alone.

We have stripped Him of His majesty, His power, His glory, His might, and His supremacy, because we’ve convinced ourselves into believing that the smaller we make Him, the less likely it is that He has the power to judge the living and the dead. If it is so, then it’s less likely He will hold us to account for our willful disobedience, less likely that He sees, hears, and knows all, and we convince ourselves that we can get away with being duplicitous, half-hearted, and faithless servants.

The dead, the living, the very pillars of heaven tremble, but not us. Is it because we do not have a right understanding of who the God of the universe is, or because we refuse to acknowledge His power in all things?

God sits upon His throne, not a rocking chair! He is supreme, Most High, and sovereign, not some age-spotted, sickly figure bowed by the passage of time, so desperate for a game of checkers that once in a while He plucks random individuals out of porta-potties and translates them to the halls of heaven to alleviate His loneliness.

All one needs to do to see how thoroughly we’ve abandoned the fear of the Lord is juxtapose Job’s description of God with any one of a dozen descriptions gleefully regurgitated by modern-day fable tellers.

Job 26:10-14, “He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters, and the boundary of light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at His rebuke. He stirs up the sea with His power, and by His understanding He breaks up the storm. By His Spirit He adorned the heavens; His hands pierced the fleeing serpent. Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways, and how small a whisper we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?”

One can’t help but notice that Job paints a very different picture of God from the one we hear described today. Omniscient, omnipotent, sovereign, and supreme sounds nothing like what some insist God is like in our modern era.

Well, you see, God misplaced His beard comb, so I got to sit on His lap and braid His beard, and I did such a good job that He thought I should have a crack at running the universe while He went fishing! Right. Got it. Thanks for playing, and here’s your parting gift. If you don’t like white, the strait jacket also comes in black and fuchsia.

What’s troubling isn’t that people have the gall to say such things, take such liberties, and be so presumptuous in their self-aggrandizing; it’s that others believe them, take them at their word, and don’t bother to search the Scriptures and see how true men and women of God reacted to getting a glimpse of God’s glory.

When was the last time you trembled before God? When was the last time you were overcome with His presence? These are questions we would do well to ask ourselves, because if all creation trembles at His presence, yet we do not, can we honestly say we have a true understanding of the God we serve?

There are those who claim to come in the name of the Lord, and then those who come in the name of the Lord. You can tell the real from the fake because those who come in the name of the Lord and don’t simply claim to, walk in the fear of Him. A king is still a king even if he is familial with you. You don’t stop showing deference, reverence, respect, allegiance, or loyalty because He has drawn you close, or has tasked you with a particular duty. Serving at the King’s pleasure does not make us de facto kings.

If you come in the name of the King, you deliver His edicts, His commands, and His messages. They originate from Him, and are not to be interpreted, redacted, countermanded, or dismissed.

Imagine if a messenger were sent with a message from the king, and, rather than deliver it, they stood before their audience and declared, “The King has sent me to inform you that I am now your new king.” At some point, someone would inquire of the true King whether He had indeed abdicated His throne and chosen this individual as His successor. They wouldn’t just take the messenger’s word for it because the message would be incongruent with what they knew of the King they served.

Galatians 1:8-9, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.”

We serve a God of wonder, power, majesty, and glory. It is a truth revealed to us throughout Scripture each and every time without fail. That any man or woman would take it upon themselves to diminish the wondrous majesty of God, insisting He is anything less than the Word tells us He is, isn’t just telling a fanciful tale, but preaching another gospel.

Beware of those who claim to come in the name of the Lord while doing everything they can to elevate themselves to positions of equal authority with Him. Beware of those who claim to be preachers of the Word, but the word they preach is starkly different than the Word of God. The times are perilous, and the devil is on the prowl.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXVIII

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 11:40:28 +0000

What do you know of God? He judges the wicked! That was what Bildad, as well as his other two friends, kept circling back to. There were variations on the theme, but the theme itself remained immovably consistent. God sees the wicked, He judges the wicked, He punishes the wicked, and if you’re being sifted, you too must be wicked. They were so focused on one facet of God’s nature that they failed to see or acknowledge anything else about Him beyond that.

After attempting to exhort his friend to look inward and see whose spirit had come from him, Job gives a masterclass on the multi-faceted nature of God, which, given his condition and the time he lived in, is nothing short of inspired, God-breathed, and beyond the scope of human understanding.

It’s riveting, awe-inspiring, epic in its scope, transcendent in its blending of the seen and unseen, and so layered with profundity as to make one wonder why God had not singled out Job’s wisdom along with his blamelessness and uprightness.

Long before telescopes, microscopes, understanding of cumulus, stratus, and cirrus clouds, or even a rough outline of the spiritual realm, Sheol, or the deep, Job laid out the majesty of God and His all-encompassing sovereignty with such brilliance as to make Rhode’s scholars blush with shame and seethe with envy.

It proves that Job did not possess simply a rhetorical understanding of who God was, but had spent his life in awe of the Lord of his heart, knowing Him more and more with each passing day as He revealed Himself. You don’t come to understand God the way Job did, tangentially, or through infrequent contemplation of Him.

You can tell when someone has been in the presence of God, walked with Him, and grown in Him, and when they’re regurgitating things they’ve heard or appropriating experiences others have had in hopes of impressing strangers. Job was not boasting about his understanding of God, nor pointing to it as a means of validating his righteousness. He just laid out the thesis of who the God he served was, and how far His powers stretched. He didn’t make it about himself, nor draw attention to himself. In his mind, he was simply stating a fact.

Job 26:5-9, “The dead tremble, those under the waters and those inhabiting them. Sheol is naked before Him, and Destruction has no covering. He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the water in His thick clouds, yet the clouds are not broken under it. He covers the face of His throne, and spreads His cloud over it.”

It is a dangerous thing to attempt to place limitations on God or to dictate what He can and cannot do. It is likewise folly to insist that God must do a certain thing in the manner we see fit, at the time of our choosing, for the purposes we define, and within the parameters of what we determine as acceptable.

Men taking liberties with imposing their will on the omnipotent God of all that is isn’t something new. Many have tried throughout the ages, and all have failed in spectacular fashion because God does as He wills, not as man demands.

What Job had started to describe regarding the God he served was not a rough outline. It was not one facet of a multifaceted God, but a deep and profound rendering of the One at whom the dead tremble, as well as those under the waters and those inhabiting them.

Job lived in the desert. He was well versed in sand, sandstorms, blistering heat, and ever-present water shortages. The things he begins to enumerate regarding the omnipotence of God are so far removed from his lived experience that they could only have been divinely inspired; a revelation rather than a retelling of what he’d seen or witnessed.

The presence of God is transformative. The knowledge of Him stretches us beyond our mental or intellectual capacities to perceive the divine, because the things Job spoke of God were beyond man’s ability to reason or understand. How exactly could Job intuit that Sheol is naked before God, and Destruction has no covering, or that He hangs the earth on nothing all on his own? The short answer is he couldn’t have. None of the things he describes in his opening salvo could have been gleaned organically.

When Jesus asked His disciples who men said that He was, the answers varied from John the Baptist, to Elijah, to Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He then focused in on the group of men before Him, and asked, “Who do you say that I am?”

That’s when Simon Peter took up the charge and answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Rather than praise his intuitiveness or ability to logically conclude who He was, Jesus answered Peter and said, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”

Some things can only be perceived by divine revelation. Even after all the teaching they’d heard from the lips of Christ, and after having witnessed numerous miracles at His hands, it was God who revealed the reality of who Jesus was to Peter.

Job could not have known the things he was speaking save by divine revelation. This was God’s curriculum vitae, and He used Job as a means of delivering it at a time when most of what he mentioned could not have been revealed by flesh and blood.

Even broken and bleeding, bereft and stripped of all his earthly possessions, God chose Job as the vessel by which He described Himself because He found him worthy of this great honor.

On a broader theme, and one that is relatable to each of us, it doesn’t matter who others think or say Jesus is; what matters is who you believe Him to be. If it has been revealed to you, and you believe, that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, then your life must reflect that reality in the good fruit that you bear. One cannot come to the knowledge of the truth of who Jesus is and remain unchanged, indifferent, or aloof. A good tree bears good fruit; a bad tree deflects and accuses others of the selfsame wickedness it’s rooted in that prohibits it from producing good fruit.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXVII

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 12:17:00 +0000

Proverbs 29:20, “Do you see a man hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.”

That was the synopsis given by Solomon, a king whom God deemed the wisest of his generation, excelling all the men of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt. Solomon prayed to God for wisdom and an understanding mind, and by God’s own assessment, he got it in spades. When weighing a pronouncement, it’s always wise to determine the source, who said it, and where it’s coming from. Yes, even a fool can say something profound once in a while, but it’s more likely that wise words will come from the lips of a wise man rather than a fool.

Fools try hard to sound wise and fail miserably. One blessed with wisdom speaks words of wisdom without looking as though they’d been harried, composing word salads that have nothing to do with the topic at hand. A former Vice President who recently ran for the presidency comes to mind.

Once in a while, I enjoy watching debates. Not political ones, mind you, since I find them trite and obnoxious on the best of days, but ones between Christian scholars and atheists. There is a man by the name of John Lennox who, among other things, is a lay theologian. The ease with which he dismantles his opponents and pokes holes in their theories is a joy to behold. You can tell he’s not trying to be brilliant; he simply is, and he doesn’t have to use big words to prove big ideas. He is a calm, thoughtful, grandfatherly type who doesn’t react in the heat of the moment, but even when his opponents grow belligerent and aggressive, he keeps his cool and thinks before he speaks.

We all know that one individual in our sphere who tends to fly off the handle. It’s inevitable that we know such a person, someone whose words spill from their mouth without ever taking a pause to consider what they’re saying, or even if it makes sense, and if we can’t think of anyone, it’s probably us.

Job’s answer to Bildad could have been far harsher than it was, but in his quest to open the eyes of his friends to the possibility that they were wrong in their assessment of him, Job, once again, attempted to compel his friends to think, to ponder, to take the time and think the situation through rather than hastily say the first thing that came to their mind.

We’ve all had those moments when, in hindsight, we would have said something different than we did had we taken the time to consider it more thoroughly. Whether with friends, family, brothers, sisters, wives, or children, there are bound to be those moments when rather than being logical, reasonable, even keeled, and not reacting out of emotion or frustration, we say something we wish we could take back, something we know we shouldn’t have said, and the reason this occurs is because we speak in haste.

If ever this becomes a pattern, it’s time to consider Solomon’s words, and rather than continue down the path of speaking before we think, learn the gift of bridling our tongues, and weigh every word that pours from our lips, ensuring that they are spoken with grace and seasoned with salt.

That should be the aim, always, and without fail. Some try to season their words with honey, likely because they have an ulterior motive for doing so; others with vinegar, because they have heart issues that compel them to be bitter, but the aim should always be salt. Speak the truth, but speak it in love. Even when the need arises that we must speak rebuke or correction, it must be with grace.

Modern convenience being what it is, we’ve forgotten the value of salt, something those who came before us were keenly aware of. In the days before electricity, refrigeration, and the ever-present Piggly Wiggly, salt was valuable enough that it could be used as money, a value of exchange, and something highly prized.

A few weeks back, I was at the grocery store picking up some things for the house, and while walking the aisles, my wife texted that we needed salt. Trying to be a bit cheeky, as is my inclination, I texted back: “What kind of salt? There’s pink, black, coarse, flaky, kosher, sea salt, Himalayan, smoked, seasoned, and pickling; you need to be more specific.”

Evidently, she wasn’t in the mood for my elevated sense of humor because all she texted back was, just salt!

Thankfully, there was a generic box on the shelf that just said SALT, and since I aim to please, I bought it. It didn’t hurt that it was also the cheapest salt product in the store.

Although I pleaded ignorance in jest, knowing full well what type of salt my wife wanted, there are those who plead ignorance in earnest regarding what it is to speak our words with grace and seasoned with salt, not because they don’t know what this means, but because they prefer to speak hastily.

You can tell the difference in the exchange between Bildad and Job. While Bildad was focused on accusing Job of wickedness, Job was focused on compelling Bildad to some much-needed self-reflection, not attacking him personally but pleading with him to look inward and determine where he was in his walk with God.

Perhaps the most poignant question of the six that Job asked Bildad was the last, because it goes beyond the words that were spoken to something deeper: Whose spirit came from you?

Whenever we open our mouths to speak, before we utter a word, it would be wise indeed to determine whose spirit is animating us and insisting that we speak the words that are on the tip of our tongue. It can only be one of two sources: God’s spirit or the spirit of the god of this age. Only one of the two is proper, seasoned with salt, and should be verbalized. It is our duty as sons and daughters of God to hold every thought captive, to bridle our tongue, and to speak only the things He would have us speak with His spirit as the source. My feelings don’t count, my powers of deduction are irrelevant, and precedent is inconsequential.

Is what I am saying coming from God, or my flesh? Is what I am speaking in harmony with God’s Word or with the musings and machinations of the spirit of the god of this age? Is the prism through which I filter my thoughts before they get past my lips godliness, grace, wisdom, temperance, and Christ's likeness, or does the filter short-circuit altogether if we get overheated or our pride is bruised?

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXVI

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:22:27 +0000

Job 26:1-4, “But Job answered and said: ‘How have you helped him who is without power? How have you saved the arm that has no strength? How have you counseled one who has no wisdom? And how have you declared sound advice to many? To whom have you uttered words? And whose spirit came from you?’”

You can push a man farther than you thought you could, but eventually, if you keep pushing, you will push a man too far. Everyone’s got their limits; everyone has a point beyond which they can no longer remain silent, unperturbed, or calm.

If ever there was an apt analogy, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back when it came to Job’s patience, and rather than answer Bildad, he turned the microscope on him and gave him a taste of his own medicine.

Although it seems Zophar had already given up trying to persuade Job and convince him of the wickedness he knew himself to be innocent of, this was Bildad’s third attempt at bat, and not only had he swung and missed, but he’d gotten enough of a rise out of Job where he was no longer on the defense, but went on the offense.

It’s a lot easier to lob unsubstantiated accusations, draw conclusions based on no evidence, and stand rigidly upon the self-righteous soapbox we all carry around in the hope that we can put it to good use than it is to be the object of the selfsame scrutiny we gleefully foist upon others.

Contrary to his three friends, Job did not level ad hominem attacks against Bildad, or accuse him of wickedness, but asked him a series of poignant questions that demanded answers, answers which could not be honestly given unless some soul searching and introspection took place.

Let’s set aside the unfounded accusations of wickedness, let’s overlook your digs at my integrity, let’s gloss over your unwillingness to take me at my word, and pretend as though you never called me a liar to my face. What have you done, exactly? How have you helped him who is without power? How have you saved the arm that has no strength? How have you counseled one who has no wisdom?

These are questions we would do well to ask ourselves any time we have the inclination to demand that others do more.

I’ve been in ministry for thirty-nine years. I started at age 12 and am now eligible to join AARP. No, I’m not of retirement age, not quite yet, but the AARP is dedicated to persons over the age of fifty, and I qualify.

Throughout these almost four decades, I’ve seen a lot. Some things I remember fondly, others I wish I could forget, but the one thing that broke my heart every time was seeing decent, well-meaning men and women burn out not because of something God demanded of them, but because they gave in to the voices and the pressure within their respective circles to do more.

By all means, walk in the calling to which you have been called. Do what God commands you to do, but don’t take it upon yourself to try and speed up the process, accelerate growth, expand, diversify, or any of the other buzzwords being bandied about in ministerial circles nowadays.

It’s not your place to have a five-year plan, target demographics, increase your visibility, market share, or digital footprint. Walk in obedience to God, and He will grow you at the pace He decides, in the manner He decides, and by the means He decides.

If God called you to preach the Word, then preach the Word. It shouldn’t matter if it’s to five people or five thousand. You’re doing the thing God called you to do.

When we give in to the pressure of trying to please people rather than pleasing God, it never ends well. From broken marriages to wayward children to once prominent leaders walking away from the faith, this was never God’s plan or purpose.

It was men who decided to draw outside the lines, to stretch beyond their calling, to get ahead of God, and they paid dearly for it.

Every couple of weeks, I get an email from someone that, although varying in tonality, has the same underlying premise: if I were you, I’d be traveling and preaching nonstop! If I were you, I’d release all the dreams and visions for public consumption. If I were you, I’d focus on deliverance, prophecy, preaching, teaching, impartation, and a handful of other things that to the individuals in question seem more pertinent and important than what I am currently doing.

Rarely is there someone who says just do what the Lord told you to do, because that’s just the nature of modern discourse.

We are all called to serve, follow, and obey Jesus. That’s the baseline for every individual calling themselves a son or daughter of God. What He calls us to do beyond that, in whatever capacity, for whatever length of time, is intimate and personal, between the individual and God, and no man has the right to impose his will on that individual's calling.

I get that most people are well-meaning, but there are a handful who would rather judge another’s garden than tend to their own because it requires less effort to do so. Rather than focus on what someone is or isn’t doing, or insist that they should be doing more of what they already are, perhaps our time would be better spent asking ourselves the questions that Job asked Bildad: How have I helped? How have I counseled? How have I declared sound advice to many?

We all will stand before God one day, and we will not be judged by men or the opinions of men, but by the sovereign, omniscient Creator of all that is, and in His righteous judgment He will determine whether we were faithful servants, doing what He commanded, or faithless, double tongued, rebellious goats who exploited the people of God and supposed that godliness was a means of gain.

Just remember, it’s binary: left or right, sheep or goat, beloved or cast out, obedient or faithless; there is no in-between.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXV

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 11:27:36 +0000

It takes humility to acknowledge how little we know, and for Bildad, humility was in short supply. Only God can rightfully claim the title of omniscient. All others may claim full knowledge of their particular field, or a topic they’ve studied and researched ad nauseam, but as far as omniscience goes, it’s defined as all knowing, or knowing everything about everything. It’s not guessing, assuming, gauging probabilities, or calculating the odds; it’s full and complete knowledge of all things, whether hidden, secret, or out in the open.

Bildad and his friends were big on assumptions, correlations, and by all accounts worshiped at the altar of causality with such rigidity as to make a monk seem flighty and erratic. To them, the simplest explanation was always the right one, but what made it worse was that no other reason for Job’s suffering would be entertained or considered.

The sad reality is that Bildad was not the exception to the rule. We, each, in our own way, adopt this mindset whether frequently or infrequently, and conclude that if something hasn’t happened to us personally, if we’ve not experienced something ourselves, then it can’t be true for anyone else, no matter how different our circumstances or situations.

Whether the issue is prophecy, dreams, visions, or the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they are dismissed by a large swath of the contemporary church for the simple fact that they’ve never experienced them themselves. It’s like saying that just because I never jumped out of an airplane, anyone who insists they have must be lying.

When you insist that they, too, can have the same experience, that it’s not secret or hidden, and a drive to their closest small airport will likely give them all the proof they need, they will deflect, citing time constraints, a busy life, or some other arbitrary reason for not getting to the truth of the matter for themselves.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer acquirable!

Have you asked God? Have you gone before Him and sincerely desired the spiritual gifts of which Paul speaks?

No, why should I? They aren’t available, so why should I waste my time?

But who said they’re no longer among us?

My denomination, of course, and our doctrine of covenants are sacrosanct.

That’s usually the way the conversation goes, and it’s no less myopic than Bildad’s stance that righteousness cannot be attained by anyone born of a woman, even though God Himself may have declared him as such.

Make sure the hill you’re willing to die on is a hill worth dying on. Make sure the person, institution, or doctrine you’re defending is one worth defending. Men and women throughout history have gone to their deaths with praise on their lips, not for some arbitrary, tertiary issue concerning some vague interpretation of a verse conveniently taken out of context, but for the sake of Christ Jesus their Lord.

It’s not only off-putting but downright suspect when anyone chooses to defend a theological position with more fervor, passion, and determination than they would the lordship of Christ.

What about Jesus? We’ll get to Jesus eventually, but first, you have to agree with me on this one issue, whether that issue happens to be the timing of the Lord’s return or that a particular denomination is superior to another.

We get so wrapped up in the minutiae that have nothing to do with salvation, regeneration, sanctification, or rebirth that, at some point, it becomes our de facto identity. We are no longer bondservants of Christ or followers of the Way, but Baptists, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Methodists, pre-tribbers, and post-tribbers. We insulate ourselves to the point of existing in an echo chamber, where everyone we come in contact with agrees with us on that one issue, never once concerning ourselves with whether or not they are serving and following Christ. They must be pure of heart and righteous beyond measure; they agree with me on my pet doctrine after all.

It’s one of the reasons so many wolves stand behind pulpits victimizing the sheep today. We are more concerned with whether they graduated from the right seminary than we are with whether they are above reproach. We are more concerned with how they dress and how much gel they use in their hair than with whether the Spirit of God resides in them and the words they speak are spoken in power.

We focus on the superficial, the irrelevant, the tertiary and secondary issues, while ignoring the things that matter because were we to hold our leaders to a biblical standard, we too would be called upon to live up to the same.

Bildad could not allow for the possibility of a man being righteous before God, because if he did, it would mean it was attainable, and something he knew himself not to be.

God doesn’t do that anymore, not because He can’t, not because He’s changed, but because He’s not doing it through me, and if He’s not doing it through me, He can’t be doing it through anyone, anywhere, at any time.

That type of self-importance is galling, but it also goes a long way into revealing how such individuals view themselves compared to their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s never said outright, but always implied, that they are by far the most righteous people they know, and if they have not experienced the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, then what hope do the rest of us have? It’s in God’s best interest to pick the best, and if He hasn’t picked me, He likely hasn’t picked anyone.

Luke 18:10-14, “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Job CCLXIV

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Boldea Jr.) — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:35:11 +0000

There is no end to human ignorance, and as you look around, it’s sobering to realize that it’s not getting better, but worse. I think it has a lot to do with people equating their access to knowledge and possessing knowledge as one and the same, believing themselves to be wise in their own eyes simply because a device in their hand can tell them what Tutankhamun named his pet cat.

If anything, the constant availability and easy accessibility to knowledge and wisdom have created a generation of superficial illiterates who fancy themselves miniature Einsteins and Teslas because they can tell you the square root of pi, not because they know it offhand, but because they can ask Siri.

There no longer remains a sense of wonder or the willingness to dig deeper than surface level, because if something can’t be learned within the span of a TikTok reel, then it’s not worth learning. If you think there’s a deficit in attention spans now, give it ten years. It’ll make the youth of today look downright scholarly in hindsight.

We’ve already whittled down church services to forty minutes from start to finish, and even that seems too long for some. I’m waiting for some intrepid soul to either start a drive-thru church, where the congregants can hand the bishop their tithe and get a special blessing while sitting in their car, or someone to start advertising the condensed fifteen-minute service because time is precious, don’t you know.

True enough, time is precious, but isn’t the best use of one’s time being in God’s presence? Would my time or yours, for that matter, not be better served in fellowship and prayer rather than endlessly doom-scrolling and going down rabbit trails so far removed from truth that we start sounding like a less talented version of H.G. Wells? We say we want eternity with Him, but can bear to be in His presence for longer than it takes to microwave a burrito. How does that make any logical sense?

In a nutshell, this was Bildad’s problem. He thought he knew more than he actually did, and his words betrayed his ignorance. It’s evident that Bildad knew of God. It’s likewise evident that he did not know God on a personal, intimate level.

Take any prominent figure today, and you can likely know a lot about them if you are so inclined. From what school they went to, to their net worth, to what they prefer to eat for breakfast, to the type of cologne they use. No matter how much you can know about them, however, their sons or daughters will always have a deeper insight and know things about them that you could never be privy to.

That was the difference between Job and Bildad and how they viewed, perceived, and understood God. Bildad had amassed knowledge of God, rightly concluding that dominion and fear belong to Him, and that He made peace in the high places. Job had a relationship with God that went beyond itemizing His attributes, to knowing His presence, feeling His love, and walking in His way.

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

Awareness of God, belief in God, even fear of God, must be coupled with active obedience of His will, submission to His purpose, and walking in His way in order to get beyond the superficial knowledge of Him and into a relationship and fellowship with Him.

If you’re so smart, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? If you are the righteous man you claim to be, is there any number to His armies? Intimacy with God does not require answering trivia questions, nor do you need to pass man-made purity tests in order to have fellowship with Him.

The one thing God requires is your heart, not in part but in full. Whether you pray standing up, kneeling, or sitting down won’t make a bit of difference if your heart is not His to do as He wills, mold as He wills, prune as He wills, clean as He wills, and fill as He wills.

Even if Job had an answer to Bildad’s question, it would not have sufficed. Had he come up with some arbitrary number and said, “This is the number of His armies”, Bildad would have insisted that Job was just guessing.

The same can be said with the purity tests we like to put others to, wherein if they say they pray while kneeling, there’s always the follow up of how long, what name they use to address God, is it in the morning or evening, eyes closed or eyes open, and on and on until they find that thing that does not harmonize with their canned answers, and that’s all it takes. Nope, you’re not doing it right. It was a trick question. One eye must be open and the other closed; that’s the only way to pray, and anything less than checking every box and jumping through every hoop I’ve concocted means you’re not really a believer.

Job 2:13, “So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.”

While the rending of one’s garments can be performative, nothing deeper or more profound than emotive theater, the rending of one’s heart cannot be faked, and doing it is something seen by God rather than by men. Yes, there are times when the rending of one’s heart is obvious to those present, replete with tears of repentance, groaning, and heart cries to the Almighty, but when it occurs, it’s not for the sake or benefit of others, but a sincere outpouring of one’s repentant heart to God alone.

Job had experienced the rending of his heart on multiple occasions by now, but Bildad not once, and so he could not relate to Job. His pride refused to allow for the possibility that Job knew God on a deeper level than he did, and so, rather than approach his friend with humility, his arrogance is on full display.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.