THE BIBLE AND ITS RECIPES
If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him… the people who give you their food give you their heart. — Cesar Chavez
I love food. I know you may think YOU love food, but seriously, I’m obsessed. So obsessed, my wife usually receives a text in the morning about what we are eating for dinner. And, to be fair, my wife loves food as much as I do, but probably even more than me. So yah, food is on the brain all day.
I’m going to get to the whole Bible and recipe thing in a minute, but first, let me share some other tid bits. In the morning, my wife and I text about dinner. Most of the time it’s simple recipes at the beginning of the week. The later part of the week and into the weekend is when we get into more recipes as we have more time to work them out. But usually, in the morning, the text is something like, “hey lover, what we thinking for dinner tonight?” My bride will respond with an answer and or what other ingredients we may need.
Before I get into the recipe bit, I need to share a quick crash course story on being married and cooking. When we first were married, cooking was challenging. Chantelle is a great cook but the way we cooked was totally different. Chantelle would read each item from a recipe, go buy it all and then cook it. The problem was our budget couldn’t afford buying every item in the recipe’s. Ha! This was a point of contention many times as I would tell Chantelle to use something else, substitute it or just leave it out. She would argue that the recipe wouldn’t be the same. I argued — the recipe would be fantastic, don’t worry.
This type of argument is exactly what happens in the Bible. Let’s take for instance the verse, “by the stripes of Jesus you are healed.” That’s a great recipe. I want me some of that. In fact, we say this verse all the time in our house, however, what does the recipe actually look like?
What happens for many people is they read it, they speak it, they claim it, they want it and then, that’s it. They keep saying it until they receive it. They want to follow the recipe EXACTLY as it says in the Bible.
I don’t argue with anyone being healed simply by speaking a verse or laying on of hands. I grew up with that, I’ve personally seen it work and it’s amazing. What I’m suggesting is changing some of the ingredients so we can have the same result.
Here’s how this verse worked out with our two year old, Lior. She was potty training during quarantine. She was doing great, until we moved out to Phoenix to get some space. We thought it was the change of house that was making it tough for her. She just kept messing up — like every day.
One of the things we’ve noticed with Lior was how prone she was to constipation. Ever since she was born, she dealt with it. So, while she was potty training, we noticed it was happening.
We prayed for her. We claimed “by the stripes of Jesus she is healed.” We did it all, but nothing was working. This was when we remembered the past history of our older two kids. When both of our older kids were younger, they dealt with skin issues. These issues were so bad we were forced to change their diets completely. They weren’t allowed any sugar, processed foods, packaged foods, gluten or anything relating to this.
Instantly, their skin cleared up. So, we decided to try this method with Lior. We took all the garbage food away and replaced it with whole foods. Instantly, she the constipation was gone. Once she didn’t feel constipated, she had the confidence to potty train.
So, did the “stripes” of Jesus heal her? I would say, absolutely. However, it was altering the recipe a little, using wisdom, to get the result we needed. Thank God for wisdom. Thank God for giving us recipes for living.
The Bible is full of recipes. Some of those recipes may be tough to understand or seem to not be working. Before you give up on the recipe, don’t be afraid to work around the recipe. Change ingredients if you need to, experiment or do whatever it takes.
Before I go, I started to think about the different ways that Jesus healed people. I see this as different recipes of the same recipe. It’s like making pasta. There’s so many variations to pasta but it’s still pasta and it’s still going to be amazing. So what about how Jesus healed?
Jesus turned water into wine.
Jesus told Lazarus to “rise up” after he was dead for three days.
Jesus healed ten who were bling. One returned to say thanks and received his sight in full.
Jesus broke bread and fed 5,000 people.
Jesus cast devils out of a man named legion.
Jesus spit on dirt and healed a blind man.
If you read all the different ways Jesus performed miracles, their is so many varaiation. The similarity was healing or a miracle. The way each one happened was so unique.
Use this understanding in your own life. The recipe is there but I believe Jesus wants us to creatively bend the recipe. He even said, “greater works will you do.”
I wonder if we are being creative enough with the recipes we’ve been given?
