ORIGINAL RECIPE

Bobservations Column
by Pastor Bob Lawrenz

    Family picnics are regular events for my wife’s family. Everybody brings a dish to pass, two cans of frozen lemonade, and a dessert of some kind for the afternoon meal. There is always a staggering amount of food. Favorite recipes are shared, and anyone who brings a new recipe is hunted down and interrogated for the ingredients. And you just know that when Cousin Agatha makes it for the next picnic, it will  never be the same. 

    In the Old Testament, there were Believers, and there were the heathen: Jews and Gentiles. It was clearly a world-view of “them” and “us” where separation was a dictate of God. That was the recipe for living in God’s belief system. But as the Jews went in to take the  Promised Land, they often did that which was right in their own eyes. They changed the recipe, and intermingled with the pagan Gentiles. Those that worshiped the one true God learned of other gods, and the flavor of worship changed; it was no longer the same one they had when they first began. “Less of this,” and “more of that” altered the whole society. Families were changed, and bloodlines were defiled. But God’s promise of a Redeemer still held, and the Covenants of God also stood without change for them.

    The New Testament and the life of Jesus Christ, reveals that the Jews are the chosen people through whom Messiah would come. Beyond that, Messiah’s Salvation was meant for all, Jew and Gentile alike. Many among the Jews disliked the new “flavor of faith” and they rejected the One who brought it.

    Think of Kentucky Fried Chicken for a moment. Their Original Recipe is terrific. Extra Crispy is good too. But now, there is a new variety… It’s the new boneless recipe.

    There’s a new recipe for the church, too. It’s politically correct. It’s all-inclusive. Its flavor has changed, it’s spineless, and unable to discern truth from false teachings. Secular marketing techniques are used and sin is exalted to give the congregants what they want, instead of what their spiritual diet requires. The Church is destined to be on a salt-free diet because as everyone knows, salt isn’t good for human consumption. Yet salt is an essential part of the recipe for the Church.

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, 
wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men.”   Matthew 5:13

 The Church will never be the Original Recipe,
it’s OK to be a little  different, but don’t delete the salt!