Whether we strive to keep our head above water or allow ourselves to be dragged to the bottom of the deep is a choice. Yes, treading water is tedious and tiresome, but the alternative is permanent and final. I’ve known terminal people who fought to their last to see another sunrise, to take another breath, who held on until they couldn’t hold on a second longer, and, unfortunately, I’ve known a handful of people who gave up, packed it in, and sought escape from this world not because they were suffering, or they had some incurable disease that caused them too much pain to think straight, but because they got bored, or thought working a full-time job was just too much to live with.
When we do not see life as the gift that it is, when we do
not acknowledge that God Himself breathed life into man that he may live and be
animate, we undervalue its worth and squander it vainly. I’m sorry to be the
bearer of ill tidings to those who have surrendered to the notion of religious
stews, wherein they’ll take a bit of this and a little of that and make up
their own belief system, but there is no reincarnation, no coming back as a
dung beetle or a bull elk to try and right the wrongs you may have committed in
a previous life. Once is all we get, a limited, finite amount of time that we
have on this earth, which, depending upon how we’ve redeemed it, will determine
where we spend eternity.
It is this ever-present reality that the enemy does his
utmost to keep us from pondering, heaping distraction upon distraction, hoping
that we will ignore the implacable truth that all flesh withers, all flesh
dies, then eternity.
If he can keep men focused on the here and now, on their
flesh, on their pride, on their aspirations and futile dreams, then they will
not contend with what matters most. You can have all the treasures of the world
laid at your feet, but to what end? You can have prominence and fame, influence
and reach, but if our focus is on this life only and we neglect the life to
come, we are no more than pitiable creatures who have squandered a most
precious gift.
Job 9:32-35, “For He is not a man, as I am, that I may answer
Him, and that we should go to court together. Nor is there any mediator between
us, who may lay his hand on us both. Let Him take His rod away from me, and do
not let dread of Him terrify me. Then I would speak and not fear Him, but it is
not so with me.”
Simple truths are always the most impacting ones. Some men
philosophize others into a stupor, trying to seem intellectual for the sake of
their own pride, but in the handful of words Job directed to Bildad, simple though
they appear, Job plumbed the depths of wisdom itself.
Job acknowledged that God was not a man as he was a man. There
is a clear difference between creator and creation, between God and man, and
whenever men try to diminish God that they might rise in prominence, they infer
that they do not understand the God they purport to serve.
God will never be on my level. His ways will never be His
ways, and my thoughts will never be His thoughts, but because I acknowledge His
supremacy in all things, I defer to Him and obey whatever He commands. I am in
no position to question God, just as Job understood he wasn’t, nor am I
justified in telling God He was wrong in some matter or situation. He wasn’t;
you just thought he was, and in the aggregate, personal opinion matters, not a
tittle.
When men do not fear God, they take liberties with Him,
insisting that they are somehow equal in stature, power, or authority, which is
as laughable as the mighty ant castigating an elephant. It’s not even close to
a comparable metaphor since the disproportion of grandeur and power between God
and man is far greater than the elephant and the ant, but you get the idea.
We allow our egos to fuel our delusions and our pride to fuel
our feeling of supremacy when there is no basis for it, earthly or otherwise,
and once the flesh gets going and thinks itself a giant among men, it begins to
question the authority and supremacy of God Himself.
Neither men nor beasts, principalities nor powers, gods nor
idols can be compared to the God of the universe. He is unique in His power, His
authority, His might, and His supremacy. All of creation bows before Him, and
there is none like Him, nor will there ever be. He is the Alpha and Omega, without
beginning or end, yet here we are, thinking of ourselves on equal footing and entitled
to question, demand, and dismiss as antiquated and behind the times.
Job may have been a blameless and upright man, but he was not
a perfect man. He had his doubts, his pain, his hurt, and his moments of utter
teeth-gnashing desperation, but through it all, he understood his place and
position regarding God and His authority.
Job also understood that there was, as yet, no mediator
between man and God. The Christ had not been born, nor had He lived, and it
would be millennia until He would. Once Jesus came, so did our mediator, the
One who gave Himself as ransom for all that we may be reconciled to the Father.
Yet another layer of blessing and grace that we are afforded
to which those who came before us did not have access is the presence of Jesus
as our mediator. This profound privilege allows us to approach God confidently,
a privilege that was not available to Job or many others in the past. Not only
that, but we also have the Spirit Himself, which makes intercession for us with
groanings that cannot be uttered. Yet here we sit indifferent and apathetic,
balking at any mention of repentance, righteousness, uprightness, or holiness
unto God.
Obedience and faithfulness? Self-denial and a pursuit of righteousness? Lord, you ask too much. I appreciate the input, but just give me my mansion, pay my bills, and let me do as I will. That is the attitude of much of today’s church, and the idea that such a lukewarm and faithless generation will withstand persecution, privation, and the loss of all things for the sake of Christ stretches credulity beyond its breaking point.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Posted on 21 February 2025 | 10:06 am
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