Friday-Recipe

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.

2 Peter 1:5-7

One day Mary Ann said that I needed a hobby. And as the wisest person I know, she was right. So, when I looked at all the possible things that I could focus on, cooking quickly came to the top of the list. It just seemed the natural choice.

So, like everything else I do, I started cooking with all my energy and attention. I watched cooking shows. Read cooking magazines. When we went on vacation, a pile of cooking books went along. I’d sit on the beach and scan all sorts of recipes and techniques. I’d marked the ones that looked interesting so I could come back to them later and add them to my growing collection.

Funny thing about food and recipes. It’s almost always about adding. Measure this. Add that. Put this together. Mix these well. Put in a dash of this. Don’t put in too much or you’ll ruin it. It’s about adding the right ingredients, in the right amounts, in the right order. If you don’t do it correctly, funny things can happen.

One time I was making deviled eggs for a picnic. I hard boiled the eggs and peeled them without making them look like they were covered with leprosy. After cutting the eggs in half, I mashed the yokes and added mayonnaise, mustard, salt, and pepper. It tasted so bad that I had to spit it out. What could be wrong with this recipe with only four ingredients? Well, I wasn’t watching carefully and I added tablespoons of salt and pepper instead of teaspoons. There was no way to recover from this so I just threw it away.

Or there was the time that I was making biscotti[1] and forgot to add sugar at the right time. In the right sequence. I thought that I’d just add it later. What could go wrong? I even tasted the raw dough, and it was fine. But, when it came to cooking, the biscotti wouldn’t get hard. They were soft and chewy. We still ate them, but they didn’t turn out like they should.

Peter gives us the recipe for living in response to God’s love. Since Jesus died for our sins, we’re to respond to his lovingkindness by wanting to please the one who loves us so. This recipe has eight ingredients. Some of them might sound familiar but be careful.

• Faith. Not a fluffy faith, but rock-solid confidence in who God is, what he’s done, and what he has planned for us.

• Goodness. We can’t settle for an average life. This is pressing forward to excellence in all we do, believe, say, and think.

• Knowledge. There is much to learn once we give ourselves to God through Christ. This learning takes time, effort, and energy.

• Self-control. Instead of being pushed around, we are to be strong enough to turn away from temptation and false teachings.

• Perseverance. We’re to stay under God’s arms and truth, letting them protect us instead of running for cover on our own.

• Godliness. Our focus and loyalty are to stay attached to God alone. We’re to depend on him for everything in this life.

• Mutual affection. Everyone who calls on the name of Jesus is to be treated as if they are our brother and sister in the faith.

• Love. More than a feeling, we are to deeply desire nothing but the best for all the people in our lives.

All I can say is “Wow!” What a list. Just imagine how much better life would be if people were plugged into this list. If people lived this way. So many family fights would be solved. Political problems would be turned into respectful cooperation for the benefit of all.

The easy thing to do is to look at this list as something for everyone else to do. All the problems in our lives and the world if everyone else would just get their stuff together and follow these rules. But it doesn’t work that way.

It’s not about forcing people to do a list of things. No matter how good the list of the intentions of the people involved, all lists are doomed to failure. And why? Because they depend on people just like you and me. And we know exactly how week we are. How we can’t be depended on to follow the simplest lists.

Where did this all start? With the words “for this very reason.” All lists have a reason. Most lists are all about power and control. The people in charge want everyone else to follow the rules while they don’t have to. But this recipe has a very different reason. It’s not about rules and control, but about God volunteering to do the unthinkable for us. Jesus came not as a ruler but as a servant[2]. He laid down his life to pay the ransom that we owed God for turning away from him[3]. Jesus is the reason that we want to follow his recipe for life. Because he first loved us[4], we want to follow him. Living the live he wants for us. Following his loving recipe for life.

Noodling Questions

• What’s your favorite recipe? Why?

• List three things you want to have on your Christmas dinner table. Explain.

• How open are you to changing the recipe of your life to what God wants?

[1] Biscotti are twice-baked Italian cookies.

[2] Mark 10:45

[3] Matthew 20:28

[4] 1 John 4:19