Today I was searching the web for recipes. I always marvel at how many different variations of the same cake, casserole or desert there are. Every recipe has a list of ingredients and a method. If you use the correct measurements of each ingredient and follow the method meticulously you are guaranteed a success. Most of the time. I’m really not very good at following recipes to the letter and I like putting my own stamp on a recipe. I’ve been cooking and baking for years and I know the rules of proportions. And my recipes work…most of the time. Following rules is easy when the rules suit you. When the rules don’t suit you it’s a lot harder. Sometimes people make up and keep changing their own rules to life as they go along. That is a pretty sure way of not being successful.
Christians have a recipe book that they are supposed to be reading and memorizing and gaining wisdom from. By studying it they have the added bonus of getting to know the innate nature of the author. The one who inspired every word written in the recipe book. This recipe book is called the Bible or Basic Instruction Before Leaning Earth. There are a many, many recipes in this book. Many ingredients in the right proportions with precise directions of how to use them.
Deuteronomy 28 tells of the blessings on obedience but also the curses on disobedience. Deuteronomy 278:1-2, ‘now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations on earth. And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.” It carries on to list a long list of blessings. Then read verse 15, “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.” And the list of curses is way longer than the list of blessings!
Deuteronomy 30:19 says “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.”
Exodus 20:12 – “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”
Another recipe with a method. Malachi 3:10-11, “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me in this,” says the Lord of hosts. “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such a blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field.” Says the Lord of hosts.
Matthew 7:24 – 27, “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was it’s fall.”
In Matthew 25 Jesus tells the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. These ten young ladies were waiting for the bridegroom to come. Five of them hadn’t brought extra oil for their lamps and the other five had. When there was a cry that the bridegroom was on his way the five who hadn’t brought extra oil wanted to borrow from those who had but they told them to go and buy oil. They consequently came too late for the wedding feast and weren’t let in. Matthew 25:13 – Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”
We have to be ready when Jesus comes again, or before we leave earth. We can’t make a plan quickly or try to borrow someone else’s salvation. Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. 2 Timothy 4:1- ,”I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and his kingdom. Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and the will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
I may be good at changing recipes when it comes to food but I am not going to mess with the recipes contained in the Word of God. That would just be looking for trouble. The best thing to do is to take the Bible literally and not to over complicate but to keep things simple. Let us be sincere in our faith so that Revelations 8:4 can be part of who we are. “And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand.
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