Unlimited: Don’t Be Half-Baked!
Aug 30, 2019 2941
Ephraim compromises with the nations; he’s a half-baked cake (Hosea 7:8, ISV).
One of the reasons many people reject Jesus Christ is because there are too many half-baked Christians running around. And half-baked Christians can be the most dangerous sort of Christians.
In ancient times, flatbreads were baked by placing them in the fire. First on one side, and then the “cake” was turned to cook the other side. Some Christians are like these half-baked cakes, unbalanced in their religious experience.
You must let the grace of God touch every part of you. Some Christians, on one side of their lives, are judgmental and harsh toward others; that’s the side where they are overdone and burnt. On the other side of their lives, these people live as if they knew not the love and the grace of God at all; this is the side where they are underdone and uncooked. They’re half-baked.
Our surrender to Christ must be complete. You cannot have the appearance of holiness in one part of your live, while you let sin reign in another.
A cake is not cooked until it all cooked through. Sometimes it is good to let the burnt side of our religion cool a little while we learn about our own weakness and about the lack of the fire of God’s grace in other parts of our lives.
– Eliezer Gonzalez (Inspired by Charles Spurgeon)
Eli’s Reflection: Very often, half-baked Christians are those who, while professing great zeal for one aspect of the truth or another, are ungracious and unkind in their own homes, and toward others. If this is true of you, then your prayer should be, “O Lord, turn me in the fire of your love!”
Ursula
Aug 30, 2019
I like your expression of "o Lord, turn me in the fire of your love." It is important to help people understand that God's fire of love does not burn us. His intention is for us to first of all understand that He is not in the business of hurting us; He's in the business of healing us; when he helped me understand that he truly knows me best and loves me most, it enabled me to trust his fire of love. Thank you for sharing! Ursula