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A Recipe for Life by Tina Brown Take a quick look at the recipe listed below. 1 egg ?? ½ Banana ½ teaspoon vanilla extract ?? ½ teaspoon cinnamon ¼ cup cottage cheese 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk Just looking at the recipe, can you guess what it’s for? Did you notice that some of the ingredients are missing? What do you think might happen if you put all these ingredients together without any instructions or without the missing ingredients? Chances are, the recipe will turn out to be a disaster. As it stands now, this recipe is incomplete. No matter what ratio you mix these ingredients, they will never produce what the original recipe intended. The same concept applies to our lives. Unless we include Jesus in our personal recipe of life, our lives will be incomplete, no matter how hard we try to find fulfillment. Sure, we can shuffle through life, trying different ingredients to complete us. We can work hard, seek relationships, travel the world, achieve great success, or obtain a costly education. We can even partake in the pleasures of the world. But no matter how much we experience or obtain, nothing will give us the fullness that we experience when we add Jesus to our lives. He alone is the missing ingredient that we need. He alone fills every void. Nothing else will ever truly, fully satisfy. I like to think of Jesus as the secret ingredient that helps us live a victorious life. And the best part is, Jesus is no secret! He is not hidden. He is freely available to anyone who believes in Him and desires a relationship with Him. You don’t have to be an executive chef, famous athlete, political leader, or a highly educated person to gain the missing ingredient. You don’t have to have lived a perfect, mistake-free life—there’s no such thing. Why? Because Jesus is available to everyone! To me, the Bible is the best “life recipe” book. We don’t have to fumble around, trying different ingredients to make our lives better. No! We have Jesus and His Word, and they have the power to make every life complete. Second Peter 1:3–11 gives us a great life recipe. In fact, according to verses 10 and 11, if we follow these instructions, we will never stumble and we will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now that’s a great promise. So what are the ingredients that keep us standing victoriously in life? The first ingredient is our faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Him provides forgiveness of sin and breaks the power of sin over our lives. It also brings us into a relationship with God and makes us His children. There is so much I could say, but for the sake of time, let’s get to the other ingredients. They’re found in verses 5 through 7. To our faith, we add goodness. To goodness, we add knowledge. To knowledge, we add selfcontrol. To self-control, we add perseverance. To perseverance, we add godliness. To godliness, we add mutual affection. And finally, to mutual affection, we add love. Verse 8 tells us if we follow the recipe, we will live productive and useful lives for Christ, happy in our knowledge of Him. And don’t forget those promises at the end of the passage! But this is just one of thousands of great recipes found in the Word of God. Take the time today to discover others. Speaking of tasty things, would you like to know the missing ingredients of the recipe above? They are ½ cup of oats and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Blended together in a mixer, these ingredients form a healthy pancake batter. Remember, anyone can give you the ingredients to make a recipe complete, but only Jesus Christ can give you the ingredient you need to make your life complete, and only His Word can give you the right recipes for life. There are no substitutions. �� His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life.... He has given us his very great and precious promises.... Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.... If you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:3, 5–11 NIV kojministries.org Issue 2 2017 31


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