Psalm 27:14 Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

The first active step in the recipe says to let 3 cups of water come to a rolling boil. All the prep work is done, every ingredient has been cleaned and chopped and seasoned and now we have to wait patiently for the water to come to a rolling boil.

Have you ever watched the water waiting for the first signs of the coming boil? All sense of time seems to stand still and impatience grows. There is nothing left to do but wait patiently.

This is like one of Jesus’ parables and as such it has a point so let us talk about that. Since it is my parable then here is the focal point.

Which recipe are you using?

Is the goal to be satisfied or to be healthy or the fad of the day?

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

God’s recipe is for our present wellbeing, meaning safety. His recipe avoids the guilt that comes from seeking personal satisfaction. His recipe sustains life, a future. His recipe gives us hope, it satisfies our spirit.

So where are these recipes? In His Holy Scriptures.

We have free will and get to choose which recipe is right for us.

“I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!”

Psalm 34 is a tasty recipe, enjoy.

John 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Looking into the meaning of the word world only confused me. There is so much involved. So I thought to view the world in different terms.

John 1:3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

By simple substitution John 3:17 would read like this. “For God did not send his Son into His creation to condemn His creation, but in order that His creation might be saved through him.”

There is no point in saving people from their sins if afterwards they have no place to live. In the beginning when God created Adam He gave Adam the responsibility for tending the garden and everything in it. When sin entered the world changed from a place of peace and perfection to what it is today. “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Mankind’s responsibility to the land did not change even though the world changed. Here is where the differences between those two versions of John 3:17 become apparent. The world is His creation and belongs to Him. People in the world have a tendency to see the land as their land. They will possess it and care for it with self-interest, to do as they please.

Man moved from caretaker to a master of his own domain. The nature of sinful man it to become consumer, conqueror, user and abuser. But within that sinful nature of man is another group of people.

Romans 1:25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Suddenly mankind guilts one another for not being the caretaker and blaming others for not loving the creation as if it belongs to them.They do not acknowledge this is God’s World and that we are all strangers here. As much as we would all like to get back to the garden, we ruined it and it changed forever. Forever is an eternal term and we do not live in the eternal.

At least not yet. O impatient man, what are you waiting for?