It Takes the Right Ingredients
by Shirley D. Tingle
Many times, I’ve been to church fellowships or get-togethers with friends where there was a lot of delicious foods. If something was particularly scrumptious, I’d ask for the recipe. Then I’d buy all the right ingredients listed on the recipe and attempt to follow the directions for making it. I’d be so sure that it was going to turn out like the dish I’d sampled, but when I would taste the finished product, it would be sorely lacking the “deliciousness” of the original. That’s when I usually would decide to never make it again! Because even though I was sure I had the right ingredients and I was just so sure I followed the instructions, it just wasn’t the same as when someone else made it. You know, some people are cooks, and some are not. Some people love to cook, and some do not. (Guess which category I fall into.) It takes a “master’s” hands to prepare delicious food consistently either from having a “gift,” or an aptitude for it, and/or a special love for cooking. In preparing a dish using a recipe, not only must you use the right ingredients, but you must make sure to follow the directions. Doing both of those things will ensure the best possible outcome.
Have you ever thought of reading God’s Word as sampling a delicious feast? God, in His infinite wisdom, selected about forty men whom He inspired and directed to “pen” His very thoughts. God had all the right ingredients and used them in making His perfect spiritual food for all of us. He chose men from a variety of backgrounds—priests, kings, musicians, fishermen, a tax collector, a physician, shepherds, prophets, scribes, and a cup bearer to the King of Persia. That’s quite a mixture and adds just the right “seasoning” and “flavor” to the written word.
We have the Old Testament for our learning, and we need it. It has the right ingredients to complete God’s “recipe.” Think of all the things we learn from the Old Testament: where man came from, how life began on earth, the beginning of time and the creation of all things. It explains how God dealt with the people who lived during the Patriarchal Dispensation (from creation to Moses’ time), when “God spoke to man through prophets, and worship was administered by the fathers, or patriarchs of each family.” After that age was the Mosaic Dispensation that “began at Sinai when God gave the law of Moses to the Hebrews.” He set them apart from all other nations so that, in time, through them He would send the Christ. [source for quotes: www.christiancourier.com, “What is the difference between the Bible dispensations?” and the doctrine of dispensationalism?” by Wayne Jackson, which I suggest you read.]
But more importantly for us today, living during the Christian Dispensation, there are “over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that relate to the coming of the Messiah, which were all fulfilled by Jesus Christ.” Please read “Reasons to Believe in Jesus,” by Eric Lyons, M. Min., and Kyle Butt, M. Div. at www.apologeticspress.com, which is the source for the quote in this paragraph.
The New Testament has all the right ingredients because we learn about how Christ came to earth and became the example of how we’re to live. He came to teach and preach the Gospel and to give Himself as the last perfect sacrifice for all of mankind’s sins. The New Testament tells us how He lived a perfect life, taught God’s message to everyone, (Jews and Gentiles), and ensured that the apostles would carry on His ministry after the crucifixion. When the church was established on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, Peter preached the first Gospel sermon. Peter’s sermon had all the right ingredients: the right place, the right time, the right preacher, the right message, the right scripture quotations (Old Testament scriptures that were fulfilled by Christ’s coming), the right commands, and the right conversions to the truth (souls being added to the church as Christians). The day the church was established had all the right ingredients, put together correctly, to make the finished product a success! The long-awaited church of Christ had arrived exactly how the scriptures had said it would.
When it comes to man’s salvation, God didn’t leave us wondering, puzzled, or confused about how to be saved, nor did He leave it up to us to make up our own methods for salvation, or to just pick and choose what we like or what is convenient, and leave the rest. God gave us all the right ingredients for our soul’s salvation. We must put them together correctly to make the finished product a success.
God’s Word tells us we must: HEAR: Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” BELIEVE: John 8:24 says, “I say therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if you believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” REPENT: Acts 17: 30 says, “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent.” CONFESS: Matthew 10:32 says, “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.” BE BAPTIZED FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS: I Peter 3:21 says, “The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Acts 2:38 says, “Then Peter said unto them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”’ BE FAITHFUL UNTIL DEATH: Revelation 2:10b says, “…be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”
If we put all the right ingredients together, then we have the recipe for salvation, and we can be saved. We can then look forward to a home in Heaven with our Father, God, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, and the saints of all the ages. But if we leave something out, or change the “recipe,” we’ll be missing out on God’s original pattern for our soul’s salvation.
Our souls will live on when our bodies are gone. It takes the right ingredients to make sure that our souls reach their Heavenly home on that great Day of Judgment.