Some have called eggs the perfect food with their own perfect container.  I recently heard a TV cook say they are “hermetically sealed.”  Eggshells themselves are stronger than their reputation says.  After all, birds sit on them for days, and it takes a good deal of effort for a baby bird to peck its way out of one.
            However, it doesn’t take more than one instance of carelessness to discover just how easily they will break.  Mine usually make it home from the grocery store in one piece, in spite of being placed in a cooler with a couple of bags of groceries and an ice block, and then traveling thirty miles, the last half mile over a bumpy lime rock lane.  Only once in nearly 30 years have I opened my cooler to find eggs that have tumbled out and cracked all over the other groceries.
            You must also be careful where you put them on the counter.  Most recipes require ingredients at room temperature, so I take the butter and eggs out a half hour or more before I plan to use them.  I quickly learned to put them in a small bowl so they couldn’t possibly roll off the countertop onto the floor, even if I did think I had them safely corralled by other ingredients.  Somehow they only roll when you turn your back.  As I recall, that recipe required a lot of eggs, and suddenly I was short a couple.
            Because of their relative fragility, we have developed the idiom “walking on eggshells.”  When the situation is tricky, when someone is already on a short fuse, we tread carefully with our words, as if we were walking carefully, trying not to break the eggshells under our feet.  Sometimes that is a good thing.  No one wants to hurt a person who has just experienced a tragedy.  No one wants to carelessly bring up a topic that might hinder the growth of a babe in Christ.  Certainly no one wants to put out a spark of interest in the gospel.          
            But sometimes the need to walk on eggshells is a shame, especially when the wrong people have to walk on them.
            I suppose every congregation has one of those members who gives everyone pause; one who has hot buttons you do your best not to push;  one who seems to take offense at the most innocuous statements or actions.  The shame of it is this:  in nearly every case I can remember, that person is over 50, and most over 60.  “You know old brother so-and-so,” everyone will tell newcomers.  “You have to be careful what you say around him.”  Why is it that younger Christians must negotiate minefields around an older Christian who should have grown in wisdom and forbearance?
            Do you think God has nothing to say about people like this? 
            The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult. Pro 12:16
            Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. Pro 10:12
            Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. Pro 19:11
            Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Cor 13:7
            Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet 4:8.
            Now let’s put that all together.  A person who is quick to take offense, who is easily set off when a certain topic arises, who seems to make a career out of hurt feelings is a fool, imprudent, full of hate instead of love, divisive, and lacking good sense.  That’s what God says about the matter.  He didn’t walk on eggshells.
            On the other hand, the person who overlooks insults, who doesn’t take everything the worst possible way, who makes allowances for others’ foibles, especially verbal ones, and who doesn’t tell everyone how hurt or insulted he is, is wise, prudent, sensible, and full of love.  Shouldn’t that describe any older Christian, especially one who has been at if for thirty or forty years?
            So, let’s take a good look at ourselves.  Do people avoid me?  Am I defensive, and quick to assume bad motives?   Do I find myself insulted or hurt several times a week?  Do I keep thinking that everyone is out to get me in every arena of life?  Maybe I need to realize that I am not the one that everyone always has in mind when they speak or act.  I am not, after all, the center of the universe.  Maybe it’s time I acted the spiritual age I claim to be.
            Maybe I need to sweep up a few eggshells.
 
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Col 3:12-14.
 
Dene Ward

There are probably as many recipes for meat loaf as there are families who eat it.  Up until a few years ago, I thought the only excuse for making meat loaf was the sandwiches you made with the leftovers.  In fact, I was happy to forego eating it at all the first night, and use it only for sandwiches the next day. 
            Then I found a recipe for Southwestern Meat Loaf.  It’s still meat loaf—ground meat, finely chopped vegetables, filler, binder of eggs and dairy, seasonings, and a tomato product on top. 
            Instead of white or yellow onions you use scallions.  Instead of bell pepper, open a can of chopped green chiles.  Instead of bread crumbs or oatmeal, grind up corn tortillas in the food processor.  Instead of milk, sour cream fills the dairy bill with the usual eggs.  Along with the usual salt and pepper, sprinkle in chili powder, cumin, and chopped fresh cilantro.  Instead of ketchup, mix 3 tablespoons of brown sugar in a cup of salsa.  Pour a quarter cup of that over the top; save the rest for heating and passing with the finished loaf.  Fifteen minutes before it’s done, sprinkle it with Monterey Jack cheese instead of cheddar.  Voila! (Or whatever the Mexican word for that is.)
            You know what?  It still looks like meat loaf, smells like meat loaf, and tastes like meat loaf, just with a different accent, one we happen to prefer.  But if someone else came up with a recipe using chunks of beef, broth, potatoes, onions, and carrots we would all think he was nuts to call it meat loaf.  It bears no resemblance to the meat loaf pattern—it’s beef stew.
            For some reason, that made me think about God’s plan for the church.  We can find verse after verse where the apostles, particularly Paul, tell us that God expects us to follow a pattern in each congregation—1 Corinthians 4:17; 7:17; 16:1 and 2:Tim 1:13,  just to name a few.  But sometimes we mistake an expedient for a flaw in the pattern, and try to legislate where God did not.
            Take the Lord’s Supper for instance:  grape juice and unleavened bread on the first day of the week.  What kind of grapes must the juice come from?  What sort of flour must the bread be made of?  Most of the time here in America, we use juice made from Concord grapes.  They did not have Concord grapes in first century Jerusalem.  The grapes they had in Corinth were probably different, too.  Today we use wheat flour, usually bleached, all-purpose, white flour.  Most likely the early Christians in Palestine used barley flour, and I bet there was nothing white about it—pure, whole grain was all most of them could afford.  (Funny how that is the expensive kind today!)  In Rome the Christians might have used semolina flour.  But there is one thing for certain—everywhere in the world, grapes of some sort are available, and everywhere in the world people eat bread.  All they have to do is press the grapes and remove the leavening from the bread recipe.
            Following a pattern does not mean we make rules God did not.  Two women can each make a dress from the same pattern.  One uses satin and trims it in lace; the other can only afford gingham and trims it with rickrack.  Did they both follow the pattern?  Are the sleeves the same length in the same place?  Is the neckline the same?  Do they both have a gathered skirt, or is one A-line?  Oops.  That one changed the pattern.  It’s really not that hard to tell, is it?
            And that is how we tell if a church is following the pattern.  Sometimes we try to force every church into satin and lace, when they are really more suited to gingham and rickrack.  But the essentials are there.  It is not my job to go around making judgments about details (cultural expedients) as long as the basic pattern is sound. 
            But that pattern does matter.  It has always mattered with God.  Read about Nadab and Abihu, Uzzah, or King Uzziah.  Then let’s make sure we have found a group of people who do their best to follow God’s pattern, and who do not add their own rules to God’s.  After all, meat loaf is meat loaf is meat loaf.  But beef stew isn’t!
 
…even as Moses is warned of God when he is about to make the tabernacle, See, said he, that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you in the mount,  Heb 8:5.

Dene Ward
 

I have a pretty amazing recipe for peanut butter cookies.  Here it is:  peanut butter, sugar, and an egg.  Period.  You do add a mere teaspoon of vanilla, but no flour at all, no salt, no soda or other chemical leavenings—that's why they are "unbelievable."  They are nearly pure peanut butter, but somehow they hold together.  Do you suppose that is why they taste so good?  Nothing else to dull the flavor.  If you are a peanut butter fanatic, you will love these cookies, just like my little Judah does.
            When I first saw the recipe, I said, "No way.  They forgot the flour, at least."  But then I read the recipe itself and right there in the text was the statement, "No.  I did not forget the flour."  Then, and only then, did I try them.  They remain to this day, the only peanut butter cookie I make.  I have a few other cookie recipes where peanut butter is an ingredient, but none other where the peanut butter is the star.  And I am here to tell you:  it works!
            A lot of folks seemed to think that God got the recipe wrong too.  Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. (1Cor 1:22-24)
            God becoming man was unthinkable.  The Creator dying on a cross at the hand of his creation was ridiculous to even contemplate.  A kingdom "not of this world" became, and still seems to be, a bone of contention for the religious world.  The kingdom must be a physical kingdom here on this earth, the same problem the Jews had, and even the apostles at the beginning.  The pure and simple gospel of a risen Savior and a spiritual kingdom just can't work, the world continues to say. 
            And the pure and simple kingdom, the church, is no longer relevant in a complicated world, they maintain.  So they add things God never seemed to think of, believing they are improving things.  They change the structure and even the mission of the Lord's body because they know better—better than God does, evidently.
            And yet I have continued to see God's way work just fine my whole life.  I grew up in the arms of parents who carried me to an assembly of the Lord's people every time the doors were opened, who taught me the way at home, and who showed me with their lives what it meant to be a part of that kingdom—a pure and simple kingdom run the same way it did when it began two thousand years ago.  I know it works, firsthand.  The people I worship with today know it works.  We see it all around us.  And as we grow and make new disciples, we see their amazement at the simplicity of the gospel, and watch while they learn what should be obvious to everyone who even claims to be a believer:  God knows what He is doing.  He doesn't need our new-fangled notions and the arrogance that thinks it is wiser than the Creator of us all.
            The simple purity of a life and worship ordained by the authority of the Word of God and the approved example of first century believers instead of the think-sos of men will thrill your soul.  It may be unbelievable at first, but if you stick with the recipe, it will all hold together and you will finally believe.
 
For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And the discernment of the discerning will I bring to nought. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1Cor 1:18,19,25)
 
Dene Ward

I accidentally made some healthy cookies a few weeks ago.  I had not taken the time to pick up my glasses and the magnifying glass.  I had just concentrated hard and was sure the recipe said, “1 ½ sticks of butter.”  After the cookies came out of the oven, I was disappointed in their dry, cakey texture, when I had expected something chewy and rich.  So I picked up my glasses and looked again—“1 ½ cups of butter.”  That is three whole sticks.  What I had done was cut the butter in half.  Low fat cookies were not what I had in mind, but it did help to say to myself, “For low fat, they’re not that bad.”
            As Christians we often focus so often on what we cannot do—all those “thou shalt nots”—that it is amazing we can endure.  Our faith becomes negative instead of positive.  It is all about what we do not do, not what we do.  That may explain why so many of us are bitter and why we never manage to spread the good news—to us it isn’t such good news.
            It also explains why we lose so many of our children.  Your home should be a place of safety, a place of contentment, a place of love and laughter.  It should be a haven for your children and their friends.  Do you want to know where they are, what they are doing, and with whom?  Make your home a pleasant place to be, not a prison they hope to break out of someday, and you will know where they are, because home is where they are, and where they want to be.
            Christians should be known for what they do, not for what they don’t do, for who they are, not who they aren’t.  If your friends were asked to describe Christians based on their knowledge of you, what would they say?  “Christians are people who don’t drink, who don’t gamble, who don’t go to clubs, who don’t curse, who don’t engage in non-marital sex, who don’t smoke or take drugs, who don’t watch certain movies and TV shows,” and on and on.  Or would they say, “Christians are happy, generous people who help others whenever a need arises, who are always having people in their homes—you can hear the laughter going on all evening.  They are honest and forgiving.  You know you can trust them because you never hear them gossip.  They are pleasant to be around and seem to be able to handle anything life throws at them, and handle it well.  They are the best people on earth.  I wish I was more like them.”
            God has always promised his people “fat” lives.  He told the Israelites they would have a land flowing with milk and honey, Ex 3:8.  When Nehemiah brought them back from captivity, he reminded them that they had taken fortified cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns hewn out, vineyards, and oliveyards, and fruit-trees in abundance: so they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in [God’s] great goodness, 9:25.  But they focused only on the restraints of righteous living instead of the blessings, finally fell away to the heathens whose lives they envied, and God sent them away to punishment. 
            Yet still, He had Ezekiel tell them of another good land, a Messianic kingdom that would bring joy and peace.   And I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them upon the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture; and upon the mountains of the height of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie down in a good fold; and on fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel, 34:13,14.  That is exactly where we find ourselves today, in that “fat” Messianic kingdom, so why do we so often insist that the life of a Christian is a miserable one?
            God has never required “fat-free living;” in fact, He has promised just the opposite.  Concentrate today on the peace that living as a child of God brings to your life.  Focus on the joy of salvation and the fellowship of a spiritual family.  Contemplate the good in your life. The rest of the world deals with addictions, legal problems, disrupted families, purposeless lives, and finally, illness and death without hope and comfort.  Talk about a negative life. 
            Go out and enjoy the fat in your life today.
 
The thief comes not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly, John 10:10.
 
Dene Ward

A national day for zucchini bread?  You bet, but first a little history.
            Zucchini is not a European native, at least it wasn't at first.  It is a Western Hemisphere plant the seeds of which have been found in Mexican archaeological digs dating back as far as 9000 BC.  All of those Italian and Spanish explorers who sailed around and hiked all over the New World took back the first ones when they went home, Columbus among them.  Even then they thought it was a melon!  The Native Americans used a word for it that meant "to be eaten raw," which may be the worst way to eat a zucchini.  Maybe that is why it was some time in the 1800s before zucchini became a popular vegetable in Italy where it was called zucca, which means "squash."  "Zucchini," is the diminutive form and is plural because an Italian word ending in "i" usually is.  (You ate one panino at lunch, not one panini, no matter what the menu says.)  On what date did all this happen?  I have no idea, and neither did anyone I consulted.  April 25 seems an odd day to choose, since they aren't producing yet, not even here in North Florida gardens, but so be it. 
            Zucchini's popularity can be explained primarily by both its ease in growing and its bountifulness.  It may not be that one zucchini plant will yield 100 of the things, but it sure seems that way, and that is how the recipe for zucchini bread was born—a gardener going out day after day hoping for something else but finding nothing but zucchini, and you have to do something with them!  Your neighbors learn to run when they see you coming with a sackful, or they cower inside pretending not to be at home when you knock.
If you are a gardener (or know one), you have probably made your fair share of zucchini bread.  We quit growing zucchini a long time ago.  We prefer yellow summer squash instead.  At least it has a little flavor.  But it also works for zucchini bread, and I have found a way to make that little loaf that is actually worth baking, no matter which you use.
            Most zucchini (or squash) bread is compact and dense, and just about flavorless.  Try this instead.  Take your usual recipe.  Cut the amount of oil almost in half.  Use brown sugar instead of white granulated, and at least double the cinnamon.  If you use nuts, toast them first.  Then here is the big trick—put all that grated zucchini in a dish towel and squeeze as hard as you can over a sink.  You will get anywhere from ½ to 1 cup of water out of that squash.  No wonder the loaf was flavorless. It was literally washed out.
            Now you will have a lighter loaf that is still plenty moist and actually has some flavor instead of that compact brick that hardly rises above the top of the pan.  In fact, you won’t mind serving this one to guests, and they won’t run away and hide when you mention it either.
            Modern organized religion has suffered the same fate as that old zucchini bread recipe.  It is literally washed out from all the additions men have made.  Just as schools are now expected to teach the things that parents should teach at home, churches are expected to right the social injustices in this world and support every worthy cause in manpower and money.  You can read the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation and never find half the things found in a modern denomination.  But then these are the same people who, like the Jews of Jesus’ day, expect a physical kingdom on this earth.  They’ve stopped hoping for Heaven and settled for a poor imitation on this earth.
            My kingdom is not of this world, Jesus said, John 18:36.  Jeremiah prophesied that no one from the lineage of Jeconiah (the kingly line of Judah through David) would ever sit on the throne reigning in Jerusalem, despite the beliefs of thousands of dispensationalists, Jer 22:31.  The work of the church is not about feeding the hungry—it’s about feeding the soul.  It’s not about making sure everyone has a fair shake in this life—it’s about enduring that injustice and preparing ourselves to be fit for the next life.  Check this out yourself:  churches that are sold on the social gospel no longer preach much about heaven.  To them this life is what matters and that’s why they are so hung up on it.  That’s why their religion is so waterlogged with extraneous rituals and activities.  That’s why so many of the “un-churched” are turned off by the dense brick of bread they are handed instead of the bread of life.
            Get out your Bibles and examine your church against the one in the New Testament.  Look through Acts and see how they converted sinners.  Here’s a hint:  it wasn’t with soup kitchens and Wednesday night potlucks.  Now look through the epistles and see the work they did.  It had nothing to do with gymnasiums and playgrounds.  See what they did when they met together for a formal group worship.  It wasn’t about entertainment.  Now maybe you can see the difference between an oily sodden brick of bread and a light flavorful loaf that actually appeals to the appetite.
            But then maybe it’s your appetite that is the problem in the first place. 
 
Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, You seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled.  Work not for the food which perishes, but for the food which abides unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him the Father, even God, hath sealed, John 6:26-27.
 
Dene Ward
 

We went for our annual visit to see Lucas in the panhandle and one morning he drove me across Pensacola Bay to a world famous fresh seafood market—Joe Patti's.  He had taken me one year before, after I had already bought the food we needed for our stay, but I was entranced with pile after pile of fish that had come from both the Bay and the Gulf in a boat only steps from the front door of that shop that very morning.  So I told him that the next time I would buy and cook something special for him.
            My plan was for crab stuffed red snapper, a recipe I had cobbled together after doing some research online and in the various cookbooks lining my shelves.  That snapper was beautiful, and I picked out a pound and a half fillet for the three of us, which was treated like gold as the young lady carefully wrapped it, then placed it on ice next to a cashier.  But I still needed the crabmeat.  I am used to 8 ounce containers of fresh crab where I live, but all of these were a full pound, and that made me a little chintzy.  Instead of jumbo lump, I picked up claw meat, and then promptly forgot the problem with that—I neglected to pick through it and pull out any extraneous shell.  That is, until my first bite gave me a solid crunch where there should not have been any.  I am happy to say that it was actually fairly clean for claw meat and I got most of the shell, so Lucas still had the enjoyment of an excellent seafood dinner with some of the best fish he ever ate.
            But I wonder if most of us aren't claw meat.  We have been entirely too careless in cleaning up our lives and have let a few things slip that we shouldn't have.  Especially if we have "grown up in the church" as we are prone to say, and have never committed any of the heinous sins we look down on the rest of the world for, it's easy to think we are nice jumbo lump crabmeat and the Lord ought to be happy he has us.  Do you think I am exaggerating?  I have seen too many people look down on people "straight off the street," just as Simon the Pharisee looked down on the brave woman who made her way into his party and anointed Jesus.  "She loves me more than you do, Simon," Jesus as much as said, and made it plain whom he preferred as his disciple.
            The thing about crabmeat is that even jumbo lump crabmeat needs to be picked through and it's a whole lot easier to find the shell!  Sin always finds its way in the door no matter who we are, how long we have been sitting on a pew, nor how well we think we are doing.  Let's be careful about judging others when we need a good pick-through ourselves.
 
Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand (Rom 14:4).
 
Dene Ward

I am reading a new magazine these days, at least new to me.  It's all about baking, as opposed to cooking in general, and when I received the first issue I devoured it immediately, figuratively speaking of course.  Since then, we have been devouring several of the recipes in it.  But I have had to "learn" this new periodical in the sense of what I can and cannot trust.  I have another magazine I have learned to trust implicitly.  90% of the recipes that I have tried not only worked, but became a part of my regular rotation.  This one maybe not.
            One article was all about Red Velvet.  The writer had taken several ordinary recipes and turned them into a "red velvet" recipe:  Red Velvet Cinnamon Rolls, Red Velvet Cheesecake Swirl Brownies, Red Velvet Eggnog Cake, and Cream Cheese Stuffed Red Velvet Cookies.  That cake is a sight to behold with top and bottom layers of beautiful red velvet cake and a middle layer of eggnog cheesecake, plus an Eggnog Buttercream Frosting.  Just writing that down makes my stomach swoon—way too rich and far too much trouble.  However, I have tried a couple of the other recipes.  Both of them gave me trouble, either because of scanty directions or simply wrong ones.
            The Cream Cheese Stuffed Red Velvet Cookies (which are also drizzled with melted white chocolate) were probably our favorites, but the recipe was definitely the most inaccurate.  First I made the dough which had to then be refrigerated for a half hour.  Then I made the filling which had to be frozen for 15 minutes.  Then I carefully portioned the dough into 60 balls, flattened them into disks, put a heaping teaspoon of filling on every other disk, then put an empty disk of dough over the one with the filling, pinched the edges together and flattened them on the cookie sheet, thirty times.  Then into the oven, 8-10 minutes the recipe said.  The first batch made me wonder, "Is this done?" as I put the second one in.  Usually a soft cookie will firm up as it cools on the cookie sheet.  These did not, so when the ten minutes was up on the second batch, I added two more, then two more, then another.  For the third batch I just put them in for 15 minutes—they were perfect.  I crossed my fingers and put that first batch back in the oven for another 8 minutes, reasoning that it would take at least three minutes for them to heat up, then they needed another 5 minutes of cooking.  Finally, they all turned out right.
            So I am not sure about this new magazine and whether I can trust it or not.  Especially when you consider that I made thirty cookies, measuring the dough exactly as told, when the recipe said it would only make 24, they should have taken less time to cook, not more.  I guess we will see.  I still have a couple more recipes I want to try out of this issue so it's a good thing it only comes every other month. 
            And that's just trusting your recipe sources.  We need to be able to trust our sources on things that are far more important than that.  Usually I can salvage a bad recipe and make it edible, but what about other things?  What about your salvation, for instance?
            I know some folks who completely trust their minister, or rabbi, or priest, or whoever.  They never open their Bibles and check out what it says for themselves.  Really?  You are going to trust someone else for your soul's destiny?  God has made it very easy for us to take care of those things ourselves.  You have a Book that has stood the test of Time for thousands of years.  The people who think they can find fault with it are again and again proven wrong.  There is no other book of such antiquity that has been shown to be so reliable, not even the works of Homer, Aristotle, Pliny, Herodotus, or any of several others.  You can know that what you read in your Bible is true and accurate.
            So what does your preacher tell you that you need to do?  "Pray the sinner's prayer," I often hear.  Guess what?  There is no such thing anywhere in the pages of the Bible.  I have read it through several times and it is just not there.  If that is what you are hearing, how can you believe any of the rest you have been told?  You will also not hear about baptism most of the time, but get out your Bible and read the book of Acts and guess what every conversion included?  Baptism!  So who is telling you it isn't important and why would they do such a thing?  Maybe you need to find yourself a new source—like the Book itself.  God will not lead you astray.  He does not "wish that any should perish" (2 Pet 3:9). 
            And after baptism, you still need to check things out.  Everyone can make a mistake including the most sincere and knowledgeable preacher out there.  Double-check what he tells you.  You know what Jesus said about blind leaders and followers.
            It's no big deal for me to give this baking magazine a few more chances, but your eternal destiny is a big deal.  Don't trust anyone else with it.
 
This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth (1Tim 2:3-4).
 
Dene Ward

This time of year I usually try to make a batch of chocolate fudge.  I say “try” because I usually fail.  Peanut butter fudge I have down.  19 out of 20 times it will turn out right, but not the chocolate variety. I am talking about real fudge, not the newer recipes that add things like marshmallow crème, and wind up changing the texture just so it won’t flop on you.  If it shines, it isn’t fudge; if it’s soft, it isn’t fudge; if it’s grainy, it isn’t fudge; if it must be kept refrigerated, it isn’t fudge.  Real fudge is matte to the eye, firm to the touch, creamy in your mouth, and sits just fine on the countertop without changing consistency. 
            So a couple of years ago I found a recipe for foolproof fudge in a cooking magazine that I ordinarily trust implicitly.  I made their recipe, and indeed it did just fine, but it was shiny, it was soft, it had to be stored in the fridge.  It wasn’t fudge, and I was disappointed beyond measure.  However, in the article accompanying the recipe, the author stated that fudge is a tricky thing.  If the temperature and humidity are not just right, if your ingredients have sucked up too much moisture from the kitchen atmosphere any time recently, if your candy thermometer is just a degree or two off, your fudge will not “fudge.”  He went on to say that even seasoned professionals feel frustrated when trying to make this unreasonably difficult recipe.  While I am sorry those folks feel that way, it certainly made me feel a lot better.  It helped explain my 1 in 10 record of success over the years.
            Aren’t we glad salvation is not so difficult?  Just follow a few simple directions and suddenly you have a relationship that will help you in the trials of this life, and lead you to the joys of the next, the sweetest of treats anyone could possibly enjoy.  Why is it that some people feel so obligated to make it more difficult?
            My brother-in-law was nearly run out of a church on a rail once because, using the Philippian jailor of Acts 16 as an example, he dared to say that there really is not all that much we have to know before we submit to baptism.  Oh no, he was told, we must know all about the plan of God through the ages, about the true nature of the first century church, about the false teachings on salvation and how to combat them, about the “correct” definitions of faith, baptism, and grace, among other things.
            Just what was it Philip asked that Ethiopian proselyte when he wanted to be baptized?  If you believe with all your heart, you may, and he said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Acts 8:37.  Funny that Philip never gave him a list of things to memorize and recite before he was allowed in the water.  Isn’t it wonderful—and amazing!—that our Lord will accept our obedient faith the moment we realize our need for Him?
            Yes, there are many things we must all learn.  All these years after my baptism there are still many more.  That’s what the rest of your life is for; that’s why Peter said to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, 2 Pet 3:18.   We never finish that part.  Maybe the problem is, we make this arbitrary list and think once we know it, we are finished.  Just who made the list in the first place, if God didn’t?
            One of Satan’s most powerful tools is frustration and hopelessness.  Let’s not help him do his work by making salvation so difficult that people give up before they even get the chance to start.
 
And [the jailor] called for lights and sprang in, and trembling for fear, fell down before Paul and Silas and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?  And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved, you and your house; and they spoke the word of the Lord unto him with all that were in his house, and he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized, he and all his immediately, Acts 16:29-33.
 
Dene Ward   

Because of health circumstances, my teaching has been limited lately, but I remembered the other day a certain fifth grade Bible class—students who are now in college or out working in the world.  (My, how time flies!)  We studied a workbook that used that old standby phrase “the Christian graces,” describing the passage in 2 Peter 1:5,6. 
            Although this phrase is nowhere found in the Bible, when one grows up hearing things over and over, one tends to accept them without question.  Before teaching that lesson I decided to check a dictionary.  Imagine my surprise to discover that use of the word “grace” meant “an embellishment, adornment, enhancement, or garnish.”  In other words, graces are something not essential to the entity in question, but which make it more attractive.  Like that parsley next to your steak dinner at a restaurant—it just makes the plate pretty.  The steak is still a steak without it.  Are we still Christians without these characteristics?  Is that what we want these children to believe about Christianity?
            Even my fifth-graders were able to pick out these phrases in the context of the list:  they make you to be not idle or unfruitful, v 8; he who lacks these things is blind, v 9; if you do these…you shall never stumble, v 10; thus you shall be richly supplied…the entrance into the eternal kingdom, v 11.
            And the traits which do this?  Virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love.  Can one be a Christian without loving others?  Without controlling himself?  Without persevering to the end?
            Maybe some of us treat these things like parsley on our plates of Christianity, but my fifth-graders decided that we should call them “the requirements of being a Christian.”  I think they are right.  Truly, out of the mouths of babes…
 
Yes and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue, and in your virtue knowledge, and in your knowledge self-control, and in your self-control perseverance, and in your perseverance godliness, and in your godliness brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness love.  For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle or unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For he that lacks these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.  Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things, you shall never stumble, for these shall be richly supplied unto the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  2 Peter 1:5-11.
 
Dene Ward

Twice now I have made peanut butter cookies with my younger grandson, Judah.  The first time he was quite young and the best he could do was add whatever I gave him to add.  This last time he was 8, and although he still had to stand on a stool, he was much more capable of "helping." 
            I already had the sugar in the bowl when he pulled up his stool.  I added the peanut butter to the new-fangled doodad that you use for semi-solid ingredients like shortening and peanut butter, that two part contraption where you pull the inside cylinder down, fill up the resulting measure, and then push out the peanut butter.  Judah managed to use the "plunger" quite easily, pushing out that two-cup blob of the main ingredient.  Then I took the tiny measuring glass, the one that measures two tablespoons.  I showed him how far to fill the vanilla, just "this much" under the 1 (tablespoon) mark, using my thumb and forefinger to indicate about an eighth inch.  He leaned over and very carefully filled the little glass a tiny bit then checking, then a bit more, then checking, until he got it just right, and then poured it in around the spinning beater that was busily creaming away the sugar and peanut butter.
            Then it was egg time.  I cracked the first egg just enough to get him started.  He took it and instead of gently pulling the two halves apart, he mashed with both thumbs against his fingers so hard they both flattened completely.  The egg splashed into the cookie dough.  Then he got down off his stool and, without being told to, took the shell to throw into the garbage.  I surreptitiously checked the batter for smithereens of eggshell.  Somehow, none had made it down into the bowl.  One more egg to go.  "Do you think you can crack it yourself?" I asked.  A very serious nod followed, so I handed him the egg and held my breath.  Let's just say, that boy does a number on eggs.  But once again, no shell pieces migrated to the batter, and the vast majority of the egg went into the mixer bowl, so we were okay.
            He really didn't want to handle the dough, making one-inch balls, so I did that myself, spacing them carefully on the parchment lined cookie sheet.  Then he got to work again, using a fork for the characteristic crisscross pattern of all peanut butter cookies which I had shown him how to make.  "It's a hashtag!" he cried, and was quite pleased with himself as he turned and mashed and turned and mashed two sheets worth of cookies.  Obviously it took a little longer to make cookies that day, but it was worth it.  He could hardly wait for them to cool enough to eat, and we had an experience we could share for our entire visit, every time one of us wanted a cookie.
            I think we in the church may have forgotten the patience a new convert takes.  Many of us are spoiled by having only the next generation of those "raised in the church" be baptized.  They are easy to deal with, already having been taught right from wrong at an early age, and sitting in Bible classes since before some of them could even say a word.  Of course most of them will know what to say, how to act, and how to tell true doctrine from the false.  But what about someone who is converted "off the street," so to speak?  I have heard of some churches that have a list of things they require a person to learn before they will baptize them.  Tell me, how much do you think the Philippian jailor knew before Paul baptized him "in the same hour of the night?"  If these "lists" are indeed necessary, God must have made the moon stand still.  No, Paul made sure that man knew enough to say, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."
            God expects us to be patient with the newcomers.  Look at this passage:  But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator (Col 3:8-10).  Did you catch that?  These were people who had already "put off the old self and put on the new self," in other words, Christians.  Yet they were still works in progress.  They may have been saints assembling every Sunday, but some of them were still working on anger, slander, lying, and any number of other things.  You know all those passages about being "longsuffering?"  We want to use that only when people have personality differences.  How about being longsuffering and patient as people learn to leave behind the culture of the world and become part of a brand new culture—the kingdom of God?  You don't become righteous overnight, turning it on and off like a light switch!
            So maybe those converts crack a few eggs to smithereens now and then.  After all, it takes a little finesse to crack eggs.  Instead of expecting chef-quality cooking from the get-go, how about just asking this question:  Are they still making cookies?  Are those cookies getting better and better with each try?  If they are, the finesse will come later.  Be patient, just like the Lord was, and probably still is, patient with you.
 
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love (Eph 4:1-2).

The recipe for those cookies can be found on the recipe page on the left sidebar.
 
Dene Ward