I heard an amazing sermon this weekend while Jeremy and I were visiting a new church. The pastor told a humorous story that I would like to share.
It goes back to the days he began dating his wife. He was having her over for dinner, a dinner he was preparing by himself. He began to shuffle through the cabinets to find something to "throw together," when he came across a box of cake mix. "Where did that come from?," he wondered, since he rarely cooks and lives primarily off of ramen noodles. "Alright, I'll bake a cake," he thought. Reading the recipe on the back of the box, he began gathering ingredients-vegetable oil, water, and eggs. Eggs? Where did those come from? Oh well he thought as he pulled the carton out of the fridge. He put the cake mix, vegetable oil and water in a bowl. "Crack." He added the first egg. "Crack." He added the second egg. Wait! Nothing came out. Opps! "There it is," as something not so pleasant looking or smelling dripped into the bowl. Oh no. That's not good. So what do you do to fix this? How do you fix a cake mix with a bad egg? You just add more water, sugar, flour and vegetable oil!
Now obviously that isn't how things work. The cake batter is ruined. It needs to be thrown out. But that is exactly how some of us act in our own lives. Everyone has sinned. So how do we fix our sins? We try to do good things. Some people will donate to a good cause, volunteer in an organization, or hold he door open for the elderly. Others think that by attending church that they are out weighing their bad sin. That's not how it works though. No amount of good will out weigh our sins. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23
Christ, the son of God, gave his life for our sins. He took the punishment that wasn't His. He is the only way our sins can be removed. "Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6
Without Jesus, we are ruined cake batter.
"If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." Romans 10: 9-10
Very interesting and entertaining; you are off to a good start. I just started about 2 months ago. It is fascinating (and occasionally a little scary) to go through all these blogs and see what others are thinking about and how they put it into words. Keep up the good work and have fun!
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