For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
– 1 Peter 5-8
We all have to eat. We all like to eat. We all like to eat good and tasty food. Many of us enjoy cooking that good and tasty food. Recipes are great. They take the guesswork out of recreating something we crave and want to share with others. They list out all the ingredients, tell us exactly what we need dish and utensil wise, take us through a step by step process of what to add and list out any heating instructions as well as the time to recreate a dish or dessert.
Recipes are also something we share with others. They become a reciprocal way to add to the recipe box we so often rely on. They actually become a common bonding point as they are traded or passed down from generation to generation, creating memories and traditions.
But have you ever noticed that two different people can use the exact same recipe and the dish can turn out very differently? A recipe is nothing more than ingredients and simple directions written down on a piece of paper or from a cooking website. That is similar to the difference between a picture of a person and the actual person.
Another reason recipes can taste or look different is because the way the final product turns out is not just based on the ingredients or steps. The quality of those ingredients matter. Likewise, the end result depends on the care in their preparation and use. Time and effort make the difference between something spectacular and something just ho-hum.
One way we can look at the Bible is in that it is a book of instructions or recipes. However, it is not simply a process to go through where you simply check off the steps. Even more so than cooking, we must invest ourselves into God’s process. We must take care to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us through the process, learning and applying the Lord’s teaching and guidance every step of the way.
The quality of the product, in this case our faith is much more than going through the motions. It is usually allowing the Master Chef to take more out of us so He can mix more of Himself in. A major mistake many Christians make is that they treat the lessons of the Bible as something they follow on their own. But it is the Holy Spirit that facilitates, teaches and encourages what we read in the Scriptures to actually become appropriate and usable.
1 Peter 5-8 reads like a recipe. It tells us what we are responsible for and those things we are to be adding or supplementing to our faith. They are all good, quality ingredients, however, if our heart is not surrendered and yielded to the Lord, these ingredients cannot truly take hold and change us. It is only within this change that we become effective and fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
As the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding, meaning you can only judge the true quality or value of something by trying it or seeing its results. The Father intends us to be Jesus to those around us. How we look and sound is determined by how the recipe is being followed, the quality of the ingredients and by the one who is preparing us. It is easier to portray a Christian life than to actually live the life as a faithful follower of Christ. The world is watching to see if the goods are as wonderful as the recipe sounds. The first step is allowing the Holy Spirit to convict us, change us and equip us to be the salt and light Christ intends us to be. Will you allow yourself to be sifted and stirred?
