What’s in Your Pot?
Good Morning Friends,
In today’s scripture selection we see that God created us in a divine image…we see that the Sabbath was made for us so we can regularly respond to God and be filled with His Spirit to overflowing. We see that the creative act of God has a rhythm of daily bread and weekly rest. We see that the recipe for living needs Jesus to heal us of the poisons of a sinful life. Friends, God has made us as pots of clay to be filled with the joys of life. But there are also cultural pots, the melting pots of our culture that can have so much spice of life they can downright destroy us. Only the Word made flesh…our daily bread cooked in the fire of the Holy Spirit makes this stew of a life we share palatable. So if we are hungry we need to look to our daily bread but also our time of worship to make sure we are being filled with things that are not harmful to our soul…It is here God asks each of us… What’s in Your Pot?
Scripture: Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
Exodus 20:9-10 (NRSV)
When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. As the company of prophets was sitting before him, he said to his servant, “Put the large pot on, and make some stew for the company of prophets.” One of them went out into the field to gather herbs; he found a wild vine and gathered from it a lapful of wild gourds, and came and cut them up into the pot of stew, not knowing what they were. They served some for the men to eat. But while they were eating the stew, they cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” They could not eat it. He said, “Then bring some flour.” He threw it into the pot, and said, “Serve the people and let them eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.
2 Kings 4:38-41 (NRSV)
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
Genesis 1:26-28 (NRSV)
Message: God provides richly for our enjoyment especially when we balance leisure with the blessings and business of work….balance service for the Kingdom with worship in the Body of believers. That is a recipe for creative cooks worth of passing down through the generations. There are reasons and rewards for having some leisure time. There are reasons and rewards for worship. In both we are called to honor God in a process of becoming more holy. We need to make both part of our rhythm of living to glorify God. The problem and challenge though is our environment. We really cannot do this alone but sometimes others make it more difficult. Earthly things may look good and feel good and even taste and sound good and still kill you. We need to watch what we put in our pot. We need to watch what others put in our collective pot. In today’s scripture Elisha was in a battle for the minds and beliefs of men just as we are today. In essence, it was a spiritual battle for the culture of Christ. And then as now if people are not listening to the Word of God on a regular basis and obeying its truth, then, they will automatically take in the viewpoint, values, and belief systems of the world. This counterfeit concoction of culture can be caustic. When societies go this route they become like a pot of death, filled with a bitter poisonous stew. Only Jesus Christ can give life and remove the spiritual poison of the world and feed us in the midst of famine. We must nourish ourselves with scripture and fellowship as well as work and rest. We need to eat food but also partake of Christ. The point is that the world has cooked up some pretty foul stuff and only Jesus Christ is the antidote to a death in the cultural melting pot that has subverted culture to make poison look holy. So whenever you can, add some flour to people’s stew pots, add as you can a dash of the Living Word of God, a Cup of the Bread from heaven, a helping of the Word made flesh. Take and eat. Taste and see that God’s stew is good.
Pray we are part of a culinary culture that feeds on Christ’s grace. Pray we are nourished in worship and reenergized for service in a community of faith. Pray that we find rest in the Lord and a work that honors Him. Pray that we find a balance in the worship and service of our lives. Pray that we dethrone work from ruling our lives….pray that we submit to God’s recipe for success. Pray we rest in the Lord. Pray we realize that whatever we put in our pot will eventually be poured out. Pray we realize that God will provide what we need when we need it. Pray the pain in our pot, the bitterness on our broiler, the hurt on our hearth be served up only after God has removed the poison. Pray we realize that following the wrong chef can be a recipe for disaster.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 