God’s Recipe Book…

2Peter 1 “God’s Recipe Book”

Are you a Christmas Baker; Gingerbread houses  and cookies galore? Or, perhaps you have a favorite recipe that you make each year. As a baker, you can have all of the ingredients before you to make the perfect recipe but until each ingredient is properly chosen and weighed or measured, they remain just a set of ingredients, nothing more.

God has provided all we need to be his perfect creation but it is up to us to add each ingredient to complete a life worthy of our calling. We can begin with the first ingredient of faith which is invisible to the naked eye and the last is love. We need to follow His recipe which includes the ingredients of (moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love). Isn’t it marvelous to know that God is not selfish but shares his recipes with us that we may not be conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of our minds?  In addition, God’s recipes are labeled with His precious and magnificent promises which are needed in order to make us his perfect creation of godliness. With each ingredient added we are being renewed in our mind until we are perfected in holiness.

Take a moment and open God’s recipe book. His recipes filled with magnificent and precious promises/ingredients that are needed to fulfill his kingdom and his church.

 

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“God’s Recipe for Fudge”

Have you ever read a verse of scripture, closed the Book and walked away and said, what did I just read or what does all of this mean to me practically? To illustrate, think of making fudge. You cook it and wait for it to “fudge” but it just remains gooey and seems to be more liquid than fudge. But then all of a sudden it turns into that delicious fudge and you walk away thinking, that is how fudge should be. I see now the patience in waiting for it to ‘fudge.’ That is how reading scripture seems at times. You read it, ponder and meditate upon it; but if you let it sit awhile it turns into “fudge” that you can eat and devour with abandon.

Psalm 39/40 are like that fudge in many ways. Where does one start? What is the lesson we are to glean? More importantly, what is the practical application that one can put into usage right now?

Here’s some ingredients for our ‘fudge’ from Psalm 39/40.

• a cup of understanding the mortality and brevity of life
• a cup of seeing life from an eternal perspective
• a measure of total dependency upon God
• an overabundance of God’s mercy

Mix together and then you have your fudge: “a reason to sing a new song, praising our God; courage to tell about His justice, His reliability and deliverance before the assembly”

 Is this your recipe for successful Christian living or are you like the psalmist who has to admit that one ingredient causes your ‘fudge’ to not ‘fudge’ “My sins overtake me …my strength fails me.” Just as a wrong ingredient may cause a recipe to fail, so sin causes us to fail to have that new song and the new message of His redemptive work. Peter saw his sin and his strength failed at a critical moment, but when he was restored he had a new song, and courage before the religious leaders.

So how’s your fudge coming along? Have you all the right ingredients? Take time today to ponder these thoughts.

 

 

“Are You a Forward Thinker?”

 A precious friend has recently left us for eternity. One of his family members wrote: “I know that Sonny, already has a project and is busy at work in the kingdom.” Another friend [Bob] passed away many years ago but his memory is always before me. He was known for this verse: I would rather stand at the entrance to the temple of my God than live in the tents of the wicked. [Ps 84:10] It is easy to picture both busy in the work in heaven for their work here on earth was a mirror of their heavenly mindset; always looking to serve in whatever capacity to whomever God brought across their path. They were what I call, “forward thinkers” for they would often reference heaven as their destination. It made up their mindset. Is this our focus too?  

Have you ever met someone you would call a “forward thinker”? Their mind is always on the eternal perspective not the temporal. As we saw in Matt 24, the disciples were as of yet not “forward thinkers.” Their minds were on the here and now as was evidenced by the fact they were enamored by the beauty of Herod’s temple. To enable them to change their mindset, Jesus takes the opportunity to once again disciple through two parables about faithfulness and stewardship. The third story explains or ties up the Olivet Discourse and is about end time judgment. Hampton Keathley IV wrote: “These parables are designed to teach the imminent return of Christ. It could be real soon, or it could be a long time away. But either way, we need to go ahead and live our lives but stay prepared. We need to live and work like the master is going to be back any minute. Because we are going to be rewarded for how hard we worked while he was gone.”

In addition, Jesus is preparing his disciples to recognize there will be an accounting; a reckoning of that which the Lord has entrusted to us, be it oil, talents or ministry to the least of these. Also, there are two groups: the faithful vs the unfaithful. To the faithful is given eternal life, blessing and admittance and to the unfaithful there are the words accursed along with weeping and gnashing of teeth and exclusion. Jesus’ repetition of a truth using different words helps us to see and to understand. Think of it this way. Just as a recipe has many ingredients so the stories have ingredients to teach a basic truth or truths. A recipe can call for baking powder or leavening, it matters not what you label it, it serves the same purpose: it is key to make bread rise. The “ingredients” (oil, talents, ministry) in these stories are part and parcel of the whole; they are explaining how faithfulness and stewardship are God’s gifts to be a part of his whole recipe/plan for men. Each parable gives a different view of how each ingredient brings the recipe to its full completion. By using illustrations of day to day life in the familiarity of his audience, and in this case the disciples, they began to see through the illustrations about weddings, talents and the “least of these.” But how did all of that work to bring about God’s plan? This is the “aha” moment! As they listened, and later pondered, they began to see what James said later: So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead being by itself. The key is “by itself.” Just as if you misunderstood the use of baking powder/leavening as key ingredients, so in life if you misunderstand how faith and works cooperate to achieve the whole you will miss God’s plan, His recipe. Without the baking powder/leavening your recipe is flawed and so without both faith and works we cannot be true stewards of God’s gifts to us.  We cannot separate faith from works…they are part and parcel of the whole recipe.

Jesus calls us to be salt and light to the world, be wise and discerning, use the time you have been given, use the talents that were entrusted to you. We are not to just be “waiters but also watchers.”  We want to enter eternity and hear, “Welcome, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave! You have been faithful in a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.’  Jesus said the fields are ripe for harvest. Each of us has been entrusted with oil/talents/ministry. How are you using yours?

This is a key question for all of us and the Word has the answer. We all need to realize that accounting will truly happen. Are we ready? Are we prepared? Do we have the answer?