My family loves gravy.  I would never think of serving bare rice or naked mashed potatoes.  There must always be gravy. 
            On the other hand, sometimes you cannot have gravy.  When you grill a steak, there is no gravy.  When you smoke a chicken quarter, there is no gravy, and if somehow you did catch the drippings, you wouldn’t want them.  Believe me, I tried it once.  Smoked drippings simply taste bitter.  Oh, you can always fake it with butter, flour, and canned broth, but any gravy connoisseur will know the difference.  You only get really good gravy with fresh meat drippings, flour sizzled in the pan, and some kind of liquid.
            Yet, if your life depended upon it, you would choose the meat over the gravy any time.  You would know that the only real nutritional value, the only real protein, is in the meat and not the gravy.  If you tried to live on nothing but gravy alone, you would soon starve.  You might be round as a beach ball, but you would still starve.
            Too many times we give up the meat for the gravy.  We give up marriages and families for the sake of career and money.  We give up a spiritual family that will help us no matter what for fair weather friends who won’t.  We even give up our souls for the sake of good times, status, and convenience.
            Then there are the times when it seems like life makes no gravy.  So we give up God because he dared to allow something less than ease, comfort, and fun into our lives.  Can’t have the gravy too?  Then I don’t want you, Lord.  You’re going to give up a grilled rib eye because it doesn’t come with gravy?  Really?
            I doubt we realize exactly what we are doing.  The problem is that we have things reversed.  We think this life is the meat, and the next is just the gravy.  That is what we are saying when we give up on God because things didn’t turn out so well here.  Justin Martyr, a philosopher who was converted to Christianity in the early half of the second century wrote, “Since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men put us to death.  Death is a debt we must all pay anyway” First Apology, chapter 11. 
            Can we say that, or are we too addicted to our pleasure loving, wealthy culture?  The first Christians converted with the knowledge that they would probably lose everything they owned and die within a matter of weeks, if not days.  And us?  We are out there looking for the gravy and blaming God for his scanty menu.
            The fact is we do have some gravy promised in this life.  We just look for it in the wrong places.  Then Peter said in reply, "See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" Jesus said to them …everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. Matt 19:27,29.  Are you still looking to the world for your gravy?  Jesus plainly says the place to look is in your spiritual family.  When it works as he intended--even if it only comes close—it is far better than anything the world will ever offer you.
            So remember where to find your spiritual sustenance.  Remember where to go when times are rough and you need a hand.  And even those things are not the meat.  The meat is eternal life with a Creator who loved you enough to die in your place.
            Everything else is just gravy.
 
…train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come, 1 Tim 4:7,8.
 
Dene Ward

Cooking is a funny thing.  Sometimes you can mess around with it and sometimes you can’t.  My recipe for minestrone is not something a purist would recognize as minestrone, and it’s never the same.  Some of it depends upon what’s in the refrigerator, and some of it comes from our likes and dislikes.  You can change it around, but as long as it winds up as a brothy soup with a bunch of vegetables in it, some kind of pasta, and some Mediterranean herbs, you can call it minestrone.  You really can’t mess it up unless you do something just plain weird with it, like pouring in a bottle of molasses.
            Baking is another matter.  You must think long and hard before you change anything in a recipe for baked goods.  If you don’t, it can fall, or not rise, or be too dry to choke down, or so “short” that it turns into crumbs when you touch it.  If you use baking soda, you must have an acid like buttermilk or sour cream.  If you get any fat in your egg whites they won’t whip.  If you don’t heat the liquid, your yeast won’t rise, but if you heat it too much you kill it. Baking is chemistry and it does make a difference.
            A lot of people don’t want to follow any sort of recipe in their religion.  They think it is about good hearts, sincere love, and feeling good, none of which is quantifiable, and therefore none of which can be legislated.  They will proclaim that the early church did things differently depending upon the location and the culture, and in some cases they are correct.  Just like cooking minestrone can be varied according to the ingredients on hand and the palates of the eaters.  But sometimes it is like baking—it does make a difference if you don’t want your cake to fall.
            The word may not be used in the New Testament, but the concept of an appropriate orthodoxy is there in black and white.
            And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Acts 14:23.
            That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church. 1 Cor 4:17.
            Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. 1 Cor 7:17.
            For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, I Cor 14:33.
            Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. 1 Cor 16:1.
            There are certain things the apostles expected to be done everywhere.  The methods were not always specified, and that’s where we get to choose our ingredients, but the other things are religious “baking”—things that must be done for our service to God to be acceptable.  If we think we can change the chemistry we are wrong.  Put egg whites in a greasy bowl and they will not turn into a beautiful meringue no matter how sincerely you beat them.
            As you can plainly see from the passages quoted above, God expects some control over our service to him.  Some folks chafe at the idea that we cannot change anything and everything about our religious service at our own whims.  Israel had the same problem and wound up in Babylonian captivity.  Don’t make the mistakes they did.
 
He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury, Rom 2:6-8.
 
Dene Ward

You would probably be as surprised as I was to learn that vichyssoise, a cold potato leek soup, is an American invention.  Chef Louis Diat of the Ritz Carlton in New York City, was reminiscing one day about a potato soup he and his brother had enjoyed in their childhood.  As boys, they would cool it off during the hot summer by adding milk.  So the chef decided to give his customers a similar experience the summer of 1917, except that what began as potatoes, onions, chicken broth, and milk for peasants became potatoes, onions, leeks, chicken stock and cream, much more suited to a wealthier clientele.  Something similar happened to bouillabaisse.  What began as a stew made by sailors with fish scraps now goes for as much as $75 a bowl in French restaurants.  Talk about an expensive bowl of soup.  Yet most soup is exactly the opposite.
            We eat a lot of soup.  It’s cheap, filling, and healthy.  Even one as high as 400 calories a bowlful is a good meal, and most are far less fattening, coming in at about 200 per serving.  You won’t get tired of it because of the nearly infinite variety. 
            We have had ham and bean soup, navy bean soup, and white bean and rosemary soup.  We’ve had cream of potato soup, baked potato soup, and loaded baked potato soup.  I’ve made bouillabaisse, chicken tortilla, pasta Fagioli, and egg drop soups.  For more special occasions I have prepared shrimp bisque, French onion, and vichyssoise.  We’ve warmed our bones with gumbo, mulligatawny, and clam chowder.  I’ve made practically every vegetable soup there is including broccoli cheese soup, roasted tomato soup, and lentil soup.  And if you want just plain soup, I have even made chicken noodle.  You can have soup every week for a year and not eat the same one twice.
            Not only is it cheap to make, it’s usually cheap to buy.  Often the lowest priced item on a menu is a cup of soup.  I can remember it less than a dollar in my lifetime.  Even now it’s seldom over $3.50.  So why in the world would I ever exchange a bowl of soup for something valuable?
            By now your mind should have flashed back to Jacob and Esau.  Jacob must have been some cook.  I have seen the soup he made that day described as everything from lentils to kidney beans to meat stew.  It doesn’t really matter.  It was a simple homespun dish, not even a gourmet concoction of some kind.
            Usually people focus on Jacob, tsk-tsk-ing about his conniving and manipulation, but think about Esau today.  Yes, he was tired and hungry after a day’s hunt.  But was he really about to starve?  I’ve had my men come in from a day of chopping wood and say, “I could eat a horse,” but not only did I not feed them one, they would not have eaten it if I had.  “I’m starving,” is seldom literal.
            The Bible makes Esau’s attitude plain.  After selling his birthright—his double inheritance—for a bowl of soup, Moses writes, Thus Esau despised his birthright, Gen 25:34.  If that inheritance had the proper meaning to him, it would have taken far more than any sort of meal to get it away from him.  As it was, that was one expensive bowl of soup!
            The Hebrew writer uses another word for Esau—profane--a profane person such as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright, Heb 12:16.  That word means “unholy.”  It means things pertaining to fleshly existence as opposed to spiritual, things relevant to men rather than God.  It is the exact opposite of “sacred” and “sanctified.”  Jacob understood the value of the birthright, and he also understood his brother’s carnal nature.  He had him pegged.  So did God.
            What important things are we selling for a mess of pottage?  Have you sold your family for the sake of a career?  Have you sold your integrity for the sake of wealth?  Have you sold your marriage for the sake of a few “I told you so’s?”  Have you sold your place in the body of Christ for a few opinions?  Have you sold your soul for the pleasure you can have here and now?
            Examine your life today, the things you have settled for instead of working for, the things you have given up and the things you gave them up for.  Have you made some really bad deals?  Can you even recognize the true value of what you have lost?  Don’t despise the blessings God has given you.  Don’t sell your family, or your character, or your soul for a bowl of soup.
 
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Phil 3:17-20.
 
Dene Ward
 

We finished dinner and for probably the 50,000th time, I laid my folded napkin to the side of my plate.  You could hardly tell it had been used.  I looked across the table.  Keith's napkin lay in a crumpled up wad a good foot to the side of his plate.  We won't even go into the stains, but please tell me how a dinner of pot roast so tender it fell to pieces, mashed potatoes, carrots, and green beans from the garden could result in that!
            And you now know why I do not use paper napkins.  Keith would use half a dozen at every meal.  That simply does not fit into my grocery budget.  At least cloth napkins are washable and therefore reusable, and you don't have to worry about picking up the greasy white shreds that have snowed all over the floor after a meal of ribs or fried chicken.
            From the very start of our marriage we have used cloth napkins, not just for company or formal occasions—all the time.  Over the years I have amassed a stack of four or five dozen I suppose, maybe more.  And it did not take long to learn one important thing about napkins, and here it is.
            After eating with us a few times, a kind lady I knew wanted to help me out.  So she bought a remnant of permanent press cloth, a pretty floral print with a beige background.  It was actually a perfect match for my china.  She carefully cut out 12 inch squares and hemmed them on all four sides.  "You won't have to iron these," she said as she handed me a dozen beautiful cloth napkins.
            I used those napkins for years just because they were a gift, but now that sweet lady is gone and so are those napkins.  Unlike cotton, permanent press, at least in those days, did not soak up anything.  If you had a small spill, they merely pushed the liquid around.  If you had a smear of grease on your hands or face, it was still there after you wiped.  They were beautiful to look at and no, I never did have to iron them, but useless when you needed them to do what napkins are supposed to do—absorb messes.
             After forty years of standing in front of Bible classes and even larger groups of women, I can say that some women are cotton napkins and some are permanent press.  I imagine any man who has taught Bible classes, or any preacher, can say the same thing.  You can tell when someone is interested—they soak it up.  Sometimes it's the note-taking; they can't seem to do it fast enough.  Other times it's the look in the eyes, the posture, or even facial expressions.  When you are planning a speech, you expect a laugh here, a gasp there, a groan or even the feminine variety of "Amen."  You expect some sort of reaction if you have crafted your words carefully enough and chosen the scriptures that will suddenly slam the door on an attitude or behavior that needs changing.  When you get none of that, either you don't know what you are doing after all, or you have an audience full of permanent press napkins.
             Every time you attend one of these functions, every time you hear a sermon or sit in a Bible class, and every time you open your Bible for some real Bible study, it should change you.  At first the changes will be big.  You are new to this Christian business so you have a ways to go and the alterations should be noticeable to those who know you best.  Then as you mature spiritually, the changes will become smaller—maybe an attitude adjustment, maybe just a change in private behavior that few people will see, but a change nevertheless.  If that does not happen, you have become a permanent press napkin.  You might look good on the outside.  You might even match the "china" around you on Sunday mornings.  But instead of soaking up the Word, the water of life, you will just be pushing it aside out of your way.
            Even one permanent press napkin in the audience is too many.  Check your label today and see what you are made of.
 
And have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Col 3:10
 
Dene Ward

You would think after all these years that I would know better.  You should never take a brand new recipe to a potluck or try it out on guests.  There is a reason cooks talk about "tried and true" recipes.  But I saw this gorgeous "Chocolate Glazed Peanut Butter Filled Torte" in a magazine, one that is usually trustworthy, and wanted to make it.  Keith and I do not need rich desserts around the house for just us two, so taking one somewhere else means we seldom have more than a piece or two to splurge on when we bring the remains back home—which may sadden my heart, but not my waistline.  It looked good, the ingredients sounded good, and I had them all which was an added bonus.  So here we go…
            This was one of those uber-rich cakes with scarcely enough flour to hold it together.  When I read that I was to cut this two inch thick layer in half, fill it, and then put the top back, I should have known there would be trouble with so little flour.  And there was.  First, it sank about halfway in the middle.  That meant when I took my long serrated knife and tried to cut it in "half" there was nothing in the middle to cut.  What I cut off looked like a tire.  Calm down, I told myself as my pulse and respiration increased, the filling will show through there and it will look like it's supposed to be that way. 
            But then I tried to remove that top.  It came away in sections.  You would have thought a Lamaze class was going on I was panting so hard by then, but I carefully put the pieces on another plate and kept them all where they were supposed to go.  "There is a chocolate ganache glaze," I kept chanting.  "Ganache fixes anything!"
            I got the peanut butter filling on and learned immediately to be careful spreading it, otherwise the cake sticks to it and rolls right up over the knife.  More panting and chanting.  Finally I got the filling spread on the bottom layer.
            Now it was time to reassemble the jigsaw puzzle of a top.  Except the cake was so moist that a thin layer of it stuck to the plate the top was sitting on.  And the large sections broke into small chunks.  Gradually, I got all the pieces put back on top of the cake.  With the peanut butter filling, the torte was now nearly 3 inches high, in spite of losing a good eighth of an inch on that other plate, but it looked like a chocolate mosaic.
            No one has been happier to make ganache than I was that day.  This will cover all sins, I told myself.  It will be shiny and beautiful.
            Oh, it was nice and shiny all right, but underneath that glistening surface you could see every lump and bump, every nook and cranny, every place where anything underneath was not absolutely perfect.  Kind of reminded me of the last time I tried on a dress a size too small.
            So now what?  Do I take this monstrosity to our potluck?  Well, it was a tiny little potluck made up of one of my classes and their families and they always count on me for an entrée and a dessert.  I had no time left to make another after having spent not only two hours on this ugly thing, but another one on the entrée and another couple studying.  And besides that, this thing was expensive.  I sure couldn't afford to throw it away.
            So the next afternoon I took my so-called torte and apologized for bringing the ugliest thing on God's creation to our lunch.  For some reason, it didn't stop them from eating it, and one even asked for the recipe.  "Sorry," I told her, "I threw it away."
            Well, guess what?  Every one of us is an ugly cake.  God took beautiful ingredients and made us "in His own image," but for some reason we all eventually turned out just plain ugly.
            We have all sunk into the morass of sin and crumbled beneath its weight.  Even when we proclaim our commitment we often manage to stick to things we should have let go of.  We fall to pieces in trials and temptations instead of standing strong.  It took Him a few thousand years of piecing things together, fixing the things we made even more messes of, and spending the most awful cost to do it, but He made us into a cake that tastes pretty good when we follow His directions.  Oh, the lumps and bumps may still show through occasionally.  Our imperfections may leave scars that simply cannot be hidden, but He is ultimately satisfied when we forget about trying to fix things ourselves and just do it His way, not worrying what others might think about how we look.  He won't give up and throw us away, but will take us to the Feast he has prepared, and will not be ashamed of what an ugly cake we were to begin with.  After all, ganache—in this case, grace—can fix anything.
 
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Rev 3:20)
 
Dene Ward

Over forty years ago Time-Life put out cookbooks containing authentic recipes from all over the world.  I picked up some of them at a used book store in the 70s and several recipes have found a permanent place in my repertoire.  From the Chinese book I cook Pepper Steak, Sweet and Sour Pork, and Egg Rolls that are as good as any Chinese restaurant’s I have ever had.  From the Italian one I use the Pasta Fagioli, the pizza dough and the marinara most often.
            That marinara may, in fact, be the recipe I use more than any other.  From it I make pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, and the sauces for eggplant parmagiana, chicken parmagiana, and anything else you can parmagiana.  I use it with meatballs, ground beef, and Italian sausage on pasta, and as a dipping sauce for calzones.  You can change it up with various herbs and extra vegetables like mushrooms and peppers.             
            Whenever I serve it, I get remarks like, “Wow!  This tastes so—Italian!”  Indeed, and why shouldn’t it when it is made the way Italians like it—olive oil, onions, garlic, tomatoes, basil, salt and pepper, and a little tomato paste if your tomatoes are extra juicy.  It is simple.  I can put it together in ten minutes and let it simmer for 30-40 with only a stir here and there.  It has thoroughly spoiled my family. 
            Once, because it was on sale and we were in a hurry, I picked up a canned sauce, one of the better ones as I recall, not simply Ragu.  After the first bite, Keith looked at me and said, “What is this?  Tomato syrup?”  You see, Americans have become so addicted to sugar that nearly all the processed sauces are full of it. 
            I watched a blind taste test on a television show once, a homemade tomato sauce made by a trained chef, an authentic Italian sauce a whole lot like mine, against a national brand in a jar.  The majority preferred the jarred one.  They said the homemade one wasn’t sweet enough.  Why doesn’t that make people sit up and take notice?  Pasta and sugar?  Yuk.  It even sounds awful.  But that’s what Americans want it seems; not the true, authentic sauce, but the syrupy one they have grown accustomed to.
            I think the same thing has happened with religion.  It doesn’t matter to us how the first century church did things.  What matters is the hoopla, the spectacle, and the histrionics we have grown accustomed to.  If it excites us and makes us feel good, that’s what we want.  If I can compartmentalize the corporate part of it into a once-every-week-or-so pep rally, and then live as I prefer with no one bothering me about it, then religion has served its purpose.
            That religion--mainstream denominational religion--has totally changed its focus.  It is nothing but a religion of self.  Authentic religion is about God.   It wants only what God wants.  It lives only for Him and his purpose.  It understands that whether I am happy or comfortable or excited has nothing to do with faithfulness.  In fact, faithfulness is often shown best when those things are lacking. 
            Authenticity in religion does matter if you mean to be worshipping someone besides yourself.  I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land, Psalm 143:5,6.  When David was in trouble, when it mattered how God received him—he thought back to the old days.  The prophets often told the people to repent and go back to the old ways, the times when they worshipped God truly, instead of pleasing themselves in hedonistic idolatry.
            If you find yourself dissatisfied with your religious life, if you see differences in how your group attempts to worship God and how the original Christians did, maybe it’s time for you to go on the hunt for some authenticity.  Do it before you become addicted to the noise and excitement.  It is possible to worship in simplicity and truth.  It is possible to be encouraged by like minded brothers and sisters who want to please God instead of themselves.  In the end, they come far closer to the selfless ideal of their Savior than those who are determined to have what they want “because that’s how I like it,” instead of caring anything at all about how God might like it.
 
Thus says the LORD: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it.' I set watchmen over you, saying, 'Pay attention to the sound of the trumpet!' But they said, 'We will not pay attention.' Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it, Jer 6:16-19.

Dene Ward
 

If you are from north of the Mason-Dixon line, please don’t turn the page!  I have converted not only several children, but several Northerners to this Southern delicacy.  It’s all about taking the problems and turning them to your advantage--and being patient.
            The problem with okra, if you’ll pardon the expression, is the slime.  One reason it was used in gumbos was its thickening power, which is a nicer way of referring to that viscous property.  My family just calls it what it is.  It doesn’t bother them because they know what I can do with that--stuff.
            Follow these directions closely.  Use a colander, not a bowl, when you slice it.  You will still get the goo on your knife and a little on your hands—my method won’t fix that—but it will disappear when you cook it.
            Slice it about a half inch thick, discarding the stem end and the tails.  If it has been in the fridge a few days, it might need a little coaxing to release some of its “juices.”  If so, put that colander in the sink and scatter a few drops of water here and there from a wet hand.  Don’t deluge it.  If it’s already good and gooey, don’t bother.  Sprinkle it with salt, then with flour, not corn meal.  (My mother taught me that and we are both GRITS—Girls Raised in the South.)  Stir it to coat.  Now walk away.  In five minutes come back.  If it’s dry, do the water trick again, just a sprinkle.  Add more salt and more flour and stir it again.  Walk away again.  You may need to do this several times, allowing the excess flour to fall through the holes in the colander into the sink where you can wash it away—loose flour will burn in the bottom of a skillet. 
            After about fifteen minutes and maybe as many as five applications of flour and salt, the flour will have adhered to the “slime” and, magically, the okra will have made its own batter.  It will stick together in clumps like caramel corn, which is exactly what you want.
            Heat a half inch of vegetable oil in a skillet.  Put in one piece of okra and wait till it starts bubbling and sizzling.  Slowly add only as much okra as there is room in the pan.  Since it tends to stick together, you will need to mash it out to spread it around.  Now walk away and leave it again.  No fiddling with it, no turning it, no stirring it. 
            In about ten minutes you will begin to see browning around the edges.  When that happens you can start turning it.  The second side will brown faster, as will the entire second batch.  Watch your oil; you may need to turn it down if the browning begins to happen too quickly.  Drain it on paper towels. 
            You will now have the crunchiest okra you ever ate.  No slime, no weird flavor, nothing but crunch.  You cannot eat this with a fork—it rolls off, or if you try to stab it, it shatters.  This is Southern finger food, a delicacy we eat at least twice every summer before we start pickling it or giving it away.  Too much fried food is not healthy they tell us, but everyone needs a lube job once in awhile.
            The trick to that okra is patiently using the problem itself to overcome it—given enough time, that slime makes a batter that is better than anything you could whip up on your own with half a dozen ingredients.
            Patience is a virtue for Christians too, not just cooks.  How do you make it through suffering?  You patiently endure it (2 Cor 1:6), and you remember its purpose and use it for that purpose.  Patiently enduring suffering will make you a joint-heir with Christ (Rom 8:17,18).  It will make you worthy of the kingdom (2 Thes 1:4,5).  If we suffer with him, we will reign with him (2 Tim 2:12).  Only those who share in his suffering will share in his comfort (2 Cor 1:7). 
            But none if this works if you don’t patiently endure the suffering.  If you give up, you lose.  If you turn against God, he will turn against you.  If you refuse the fellowship of Christ’s suffering, he will refuse you.  We must use that suffering to make ourselves stronger and worthy to be his disciple. Just like I am happy to have a particularly “slimy” bowl of okra to work with, knowing it will produce the crunch I want, the early Christians “rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer,” Acts 5:41.  They knew it would make them better disciples of their Lord.  We can understand these things when it comes to something as mundane as fried okra.  Why can’t we recognize it in far more important matters?  We even have a trite axiom about this—when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  When life gives you trials, make yourself a stronger person.
            After suffering, Peter promises that God will restore, confirm, strengthen and establish us (1 Pet 5:10).  He is talking to those who endure, who use the suffering to their advantage and become better people.  Remind yourself of the promises God gives to those who suffer.  Remind yourself of the rewards.  Remind yourself every day that it’s worth it.  The New Testament writers did, so it is no shame if you do it too.
 
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Rom 8:16-18.
 

Anyone who knows me knows that my favorite television cook is Ina Garten of “The Barefoot Contessa.”  I have saved very few recipes from the Food Channel, but of the few I have, the vast majority is hers. 
            One of my favorites is her “Ultimate Ginger Cookie.”  This is just about my favorite cookie ever, which is saying a lot for a cookie that doesn’t have chocolate in it.  It’s a chewy cookie, something else I like, and I have added my own little twist by rolling the balls of dough in sparkling sugar before baking them.  But what makes it “ultimate?”  Not only does it have powdered ginger in it, but also over half a cup of chopped crystallized ginger.  There is no question what kind of cookie this is—it’s a ginger cookie.
            I have several recipes with that word “ultimate” in the title.  My “Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie” is good too.  Not only does it have half again more chocolate chips than the usual recipe, but two kinds, bittersweet and milk chocolate.  My “Ultimate Fudge Brownie” is maximum chocolate with minimal flour.  My “Ultimate Peanut Butter Cookie” has no flour at all—just gobs of peanut butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla.  Do you get the picture?  “Ultimate” in a recipe means “a lot,” “more than usual,” and “well above average.”  “Ultimate” means there is no question what kind of cookie this is.
            I started thinking about the word “Christian” in that context.  Technically speaking, the word means “a disciple of Christ.”  That is not the way we use it today.  “Christian” gets tacked on to anything that is even remotely religious.  People can claim to be Christians just because they believe in a few of the Ten Commandments, which in itself is ironic when you understand the relationship of Christ to the Old Law.  In our culture’s vernacular, Christians do not even have to be members of a church.
            To keep that from rubbing off on us, maybe we should start thinking in terms of recipes.  We should be “Ultimate Christians.”  If we are really followers of Christ, we should be different from those who merely claim the name with a few allusions to prayer and God in their vocabulary.
            Real disciples of Christ, by the definition of the word “disciple,” are trying to be as much like their teacher as possible.  They talk like he does and behave like he does.  They know what commitment means—they serve as he did, sacrifice as he did, and fight the Devil like he did every day of his life.  In fact, they are not afraid to acknowledge the devil as a real and dangerous being (like He did), even when others laugh at them for doing so.  They condemn hypocrisy, especially among those who try to claim the same discipleship. They abhor sin, yet seek the vilest sinners in their own environment, knowing they are the ones who need their Master the most.  They have compassion on the ill, the hated, and the lost.  They will yield their lives to their Teacher by yielding their rights to others.  They live by the Word of God, take comfort in the Spirit of God, and glory in their fellowship with them.  In every decision, every event, and every aspect of their lives, they ask themselves how their Lord would have handled it.  They are completely consumed with the spiritual; nothing else matters.
            So, the question today is are we Christians in the modern vernacular, or are we real Christians, “Ultimate Christians?”  Maybe if more of us started showing the world what the word “Christian” really means, we could stop making distinctions. 
 
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked...A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher, 1 John 2:6; Luke 6:40.
 

The other day I was talking with a friend who loves to cook as much as I do.  We both spoke of how much more fun it is to cook for people who were not picky eaters.  When all that effort sits in the bowls and platters on the table with scarcely a dent made in them because this one prefers this and that one prefers that, it is hard not to be offended.  The very fact that I know so many more picky eaters these days than I did as a child emphasizes how wealthy this society has become.  Hungry people are not picky eaters.
            Real hunger is not a concept we understand.  We eat by the clock instead of by our stomachs, which may be the biggest reason so many of us are overweight.  If we only ate when we were truly hungry, would we eat too much on a regular basis?  A celebratory feast, which used to happen only once or twice or year, has become a weekly, if not daily, occurrence for many.
            And because we do not understand true physical hunger, we cannot understand Jesus’ blessing upon those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.  We think being willing to sit through one sermon a week makes us worthy, when that is probably the shallowest application of that beatitude.  We don’t want a spiritual feast.  We want something light, with fewer calories, requiring little effort to eat.  In fact, sometimes we want to be fed too.  Spiritual eating has become too much trouble.
            How many of us skip Bible classes?  How many daydream during the sermons, plan the afternoon ahead, even text message each other?  If more than one adult class is offered on Sunday mornings, how many choose the one that requires more study or deeper thinking?  When extra classes are offered during the week, what percentage of the church actually chooses to attend?  How many of us are actively pursuing our own studies at home, studies beyond that needed for the Sunday morning class?  If we won’t even eat the meals especially prepared for us by others, how in the world will be seek righteousness on our own and how will we ever progress past simple Bible study in satisfying our spiritual hunger?
            Picky eaters suddenly become omnivores when they really need to eat.  For some reason we think we can fast from spiritual food and still survive.  Amazing how we can deceive ourselves so easily. 
            So, what’s on your menu today, or have you even planned one?
 
Oh how love I your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers; for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, because I have kept your precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might observe your word. I have not turned aside from your ordinances; for You have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste! sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. Psalm 119:97-104.

Dene Ward
 

The kitchen must be the favorite room in nearly every home.  It’s where the family meets to share their meals and their day, to gather important information—“Mom! Where are my good jeans?”—to pick up sustenance when the time between meals is long and the activities vigorous, and a place for sharing thoughts, dreams, and childhood troubles over chocolate chip cookies and ice cold milk.  When the kitchen is full of people and laughter, all is right with the world.
            That makes the kitchen floor a microcosm of how we all live.  All you have to do is drop something small, something that requires your face to be an inch above the floor trying to spy the odd shape or color, and suddenly you know everything anyone has eaten, spilled, or tracked in, even if you clean your floor regularly.  If I had every dustpan full of sweepings over my 38 years of marriage, it would make a ten foot high pile of sugar granules, flour, cornmeal, panko, cookie crumbs, Cheerios, oats, blueberries, chopped parsley, basil, and rosemary, the papery skins of onions and garlic cloves, freshly ground coffee beans, tiny, stray low dose aspirins, grains of driveway sand, clumps of garden soil, yellow clay, limerock, soot, and burnt wood, strands of hair from blonde to nearly black to gray and white, frayed threads, missing buttons, assorted screws, and loose snips from the edges of coupons.  If I had never cleaned the floor at all, it would be layered with coffee drips, dried splashes of dishwater, bacon grease and olive oil splatter, tea stains, grape juice, and sticky spots from honey and molasses spills while I was baking.  Put it all together and you would have a pretty good idea how we live our lives.
            Every soul has a kitchen floor, places where the accumulated spills of life gather.  We must regularly clean that floor, just as I am constantly sweeping and wiping and mopping, trying to stay ahead of the messes we make. As soon as I miss a day or a week, I have even more to clean up.  It would be ridiculous to think I could ignore that floor and no one would know about us, wouldn’t it? 
            Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” Matt 12:34.  You can deny it all you want, but what you speak shows who you really are.  I can say I never bake, but whoever sweeps my floor will know better.  I can pretend we don’t like Italian cuisine, but the evidence is right there.  I can tell everyone we live in the city instead of the country, but the soil on my floor will say otherwise.  It is getting harder for me to see those things now and to sweep them up perfectly, but my blindness to them will not keep others from knowing exactly what I do here all day long.
            That kitchen floor of a heart will tell on you too.  All you have to do is open your mouth.  If you don’t keep it cleaned up, if you don’t monitor the things you store in it, it could belie your protestations of a righteous life.  Sooner or later a word will slip out, a thought will take root and become a spoken idea.  I heard someone say once that you cannot imagine in others what is not already in your own heart. 
            Of course, what’s on your floor could prove your righteous life instead of denying it.  So take a moment today to examine your kitchen floor.  Let it remind you to examine your heart as well.  I had much rather people see sugar and cookie crumbs than Satan’s muddy footprints.
 
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer, Psa 19:14.          
 
Dene Ward