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THE BLESSED RECIPE

Being purposeful about our priorities

“The voice you believe will determine the future you experience” Steven Furtick

My wife is a phenomenal cook!  Serving others is a love language of hers, and it brings such a joy to her soul when her food sparks joy in the stomachs of others.  My wife really started cooking when we got married.  She had zero practice before then because her mother or grandmother had always prepared meals.  Since day one, my wife has never disappointed, but she did have one recipe that disappointed her.  It was Sour Cream & Onion Chip Chicken.

This was the first time that we were hosting her parents as a newlywed couple.  She was inspired to try something unique for this special occasion.  She followed the recipe “perfectly”, but the meal didn’t come out perfect.  It’s not that it tasted bad.  It’s just that something was off.  Maybe it was her nerves, but for some reason she thought the recipe said, “Sour Cream, Onion, Chips, & Chicken”.  She didn’t have any onions, so she seasoned the chicken breast, scooped dollops of sour cream on each piece, and sprinkled crushed chips on top.  She was excited as she slid the tray in the oven.  When the timer went off, her excitement disappeared as she saw four very smooth and pale chicken breasts, peaking out above a bright white sea of sour cream that had liquified in the heat.  As we were eating, Alisha realized she was supposed to batter chicken breasts in Sour Cream and Onion chips, not bury the chicken in sour cream and onions.  Everyone, including my wife, all had a good laugh.  Since then, she redeemed that meal and has a great reputation for her cooking.

I bring this story up for a reason.  Cooking has recipes because for a simple fact that there is an order of things in order to get specific results.  Life works the same way.  There is a “blessed” recipe to life that God has given us, and if we don’t follow it, we can at worst mess up our lives or at best miss out on knowing God in an even more personal and powerful way.

When the blessed recipe is followed accurately, we will see Christians who are growing in the way they…

• Worship God
• Love Others
• Use stuff to do all the above.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying the gifts and resources that God has given us, as long as we don’t fail to leverage our stuff to bring joy to others.  This is not our default setting though.  Since sin entered the world, the recipe has been messed up.  Naturally we all tend to re-order this recipe without realizing it.  Many people love stuff, use people, and worship themselves instead of God.  This kind of life leads to disappointment because we were not made to be filled up with stuff.  So, if we want to see a different result, we need a different recipe.  Christians must model their lives based on the cues that Christ has taught to re-order our live, which are these: hear God, believe God, and obey God.

³¹ So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, ³² and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”… ³⁶ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed… ⁴⁷ Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”… ⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” John 8:31-32, 36, 47, 58 (ESV)

This discussion that Jesus is having is so intriguing to me because He isn’t rebuking or correcting the corrupt power players of the time, or the religious scribe and leader who often caught the blunt of Jesus’ words.  He finds Himself caught in a disagreement with His own disciples who apparently believed in Him.  At the end of this dialogue we see where some of the disciples had fallen short.  They liked the truth that He was preaching and believed that He a was messenger sent by God, but nothing more.  By using the phrase, “I AM” to describe Himself, Jesus was boldly declaring to be God Himself.  “I AM” is a name that God identified with and revealed Himself by throughout the Old Testament.

This was the truth that Jesus was declaring would set them free.  To know the Truth of God is not due to a transfer of information, rather it is experiencing a transformation that turns us from enemies of God to sons and daughters of God!  Jesus was pointing out to some of His disciples that they hadn’t experienced this because their nature was still slaves to sin.  God wasn’t first in their hearts.  They were.  They belonged to their father the devil because they refused to hear, believe, and obey the same voice of God that Abraham responded in faith to.

The Truth of who Jesus is truth is something we are to abide in, which means to hold on to or continue to believe and experience.  Truth is a person, not an opinion.  Truth has a name.  The more we abide in the Truth, which is the Christ Himself as Lord and Savior, the more He sets us free and releases us from the chains of ignorance, wickedness, and sin!  This experience is both a one-time and for all-time encounter.  The further we go in this Truth, the more we grow, and the freer we’ll be.  But we must heed Jesus’ warning.  We cannot hear God if we are not of God or refuse to believe what God says about Himself and everything else.

³ And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. ⁴ Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, ⁵ but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: ⁶ whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.  1 John 2:3-6 (ESV)

This letter which the Apostle John sent to early Christians in the 1^st century shows us that John was taking notes all those years ago.  John heard the truth that Jesus was both Lord and Savior just like the other believers did that day.  The difference was that he believed it and decided to follow Christ and obey His Word.  He had personally experienced knowing this Truth and being set free by Him.  The more he abided in the Truth, the more He saw the loving hand of God perfect him.  As you can see, John even used two different words we are to “abide in” compared to what Jesus used.  He isn’t correcting Jesus.  He’s helping to clarify what He first said.  Where Jesus said we are to abide in the Truth, John twice encouraged his listeners to abide in Christ and in His love! See, Truth is a person, not an opinion.

Like Jesus’ lesson, John’s also came with a warning.  We are to guard our ears from hearing the lies of the devil that take us the complete opposite way of the Truth of God.  As true believers, our relationship with God cannot be broken by any demon, but it can be disrupted if we fall under their influence which will lead us to stop hearing God, believing in Him, and obeying Him.  If you see yourself loving stuff, using people, and worshiping yourself then something went wrong.  But the more we grow in abiding in the Truth by hearing, believing, and obeying God, the more we will live a life that worships God, loves people, and uses our stuff to bless others of His purposes.

Jesus’ words and John testimony shows us that being a disciple of Jesus is demonstrated by life service, not lip service.  We will worship God, love others, and use stuff the better we hear God, believe God, and obey God.  When God’s love captures our affections, our actions will follow.  Information transfer can’t do that.  Believing, enjoying and abiding in the love of Christ is what will cause that transformation.  So, as you go, know that the goal is not to be a Christian as much as it is becoming like Christ.  One implies a finish line.  The other implies an unfinished product.  A baby bird who can’t fly is no less of a bird than its mother who can.  Keep abiding, hearing, believing, and obeying Jesus and watch the breath of life and the wind His Holy Spirit cause you to soar higher than before.  If you want Him to re-order your heart, then you must surrender it and place Him first because you believe that He is greater and better than anything or anyone else. When you don’t mess up this blessed recipe, the Lord will correct your mess and bless you to be a blessing.