Let's check our measurements. What are we dishing out?

Posted on Aug 08, 2012 by Amy

   Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. - Luke 6:38

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="My two "angels" helping me bake cookies."][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption=""... a good measure...""][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption=""... pressed down...""][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption=""...shaken together...""][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption=""...running over...""][/caption]

Storytime: When I was little, my mom would often bake goodies like cookies, homemade bread, and cakes for our family. Like any young child, I wanted to be just like my Mom. I also always wanted MORE of whatever she was baking. In my young mind the way to accomplish both meant taking the ingredients (my parents paid for) and using them (without a recipe) to create the same dish on my own. The problem was: 1. I didn't follow a recipe 2. By using the ingredients I thought were appropriate, (often this included EVERYTHING sweet in the pantry- sugar, chocolate, honey, peanut butter...you get the picture) I wasted every good ingredients AND failed to make anything worth eating.  I also didn't comprehend that in order to bake these yummy treats most of them had to go through fire (oven) and bake. I didn't like the oven, nor did I fully understand it's purpose. So I would slide MY creations in the 9x13 pan under the dining room china cabinet. It seemed to me to serve the same purpose as the oven. I thought maybe as they sat there they would eventually become the same yummy product I so often watched my Mom create. To my dismay, they never did. Does any of this sound familiar? Since childhood I have learned a few lessons about baking and how it correlates with my own life.

Always check your measurements! Are you living according the instructions God gives us in his Bible? Scripture is our "recipe". If we only give a teaspoon where God calls for a full cup, we will mess up the entire batch. 

• As a child I failed to follow the recipe and essentially misused the ingredients that were paid for by my parent. In what parts of your life are you failing to "follow the recipe"? Are you misusing the ingredients God has given (life, breath, grace, blessings, forgiveness...etc)? Only by following his recipe- with exact measurements- can we create the sweet savory good he intends for us.

The fire is necessary to bake anything good. God gives us sweet ingredients but will still call for us to go through the fire in order to create something sweeter- beyond what we can imagine.

• Thank God for the fires in your life. Submit to what he might be "baking" up. He ultimately wants to serve something that will richly satisfy -no nasty baked good knock-off.

What are you dishing out? As a child I tried mixing in everything sweet. My logic didn't work but instead ruined the batch.

• Where are you relying on your own logic? Also, if you are dishing out more bitterness, resentfulness, unforgivingness, selfishness and being stingy with your measurements of the sweet stuff- how will that affect your final batch? Do you like the taste of what you are dishing out? If not, reconsider what it is you are dishing out.

If we choose to follow Christ than being generous givers is not optional. Verses like this one clarify that. Read scripture and pray to make sure that you are giving a "good measure". Like any good measure, sometimes it has to be "pushed down", "shaken together", or "run over" in order to become the perfect measurement of what the recipe calls for. We are called to give like this and when we do we open up more room for Christ give more to us. We are given the "recipe" in scripture and we are called to follow it- not adapt it to our own purposes. Double check your measurements.

- For more from this author visit her blog    Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. - Luke 6:38