I am not Almighty God, and I could never become even close to His Perfection. I am not a theologian, nor a seminary student. I am not a Pastor, nor a Minister, nor a Priest.
I am pure and simply an ordinary, simple, humble, God loving, God sharing lae-person, with a hunger for God and His Word, seeking the opportunity to share with others, that which I learn, and that which God’s Holy Spirit requests me to share.
Every Sunday morning, I get up at 7:00 a.m. get my coffee switch on my TV and then sit for the next hour watching the person I consider the very best Evangelist I have ever had the priviledge to watch. Dr. Charles Stanley on In Touch Ministries. He is the Pastor at The First Baptist Church in Atlana Georgia, for those who might want to see him in action.
He does not preach at you, he preaches to you, and his points are crystal clear, it is almost like God’s Holy Spirit is speaking through him. Here is a plain down to earth simple orator and preacher.
The one thing I love to do, is to take something that is difficult to grasp or understand, and try to simplify it, so that even a ten year old child can understand it.
That is why I am approaching this article in this manner. The simpler, the better.
As His creations, as His children, God wants us to be the very best that we can be, but to become that creation, first God has some work to do to prepare us, but when he is finished we will be His very best.
I realize that what I am about to suggest is very rudimental, elemantary, and simplified but it puts things into perspective for many. Especially for our wives, daughters, mothers, aunts, who are the best pie makers in our lives here on earth.
Let pretend that God is the very best Pastry Chef in the whole world. Not a big stretch, since first of all, He’s God, and secondly, God is the very best at anything He chooses, and lastly, as God He is the author, the inventor of everything, including pastry.
So we have God in a kitchen classroom, with a dozen would-be Pastry chefs, and He’s going to give them a class demonstration on how to bake the very best Apple Pie.
First God needs to create a holder, a pie shell ( our human body and our minds ) for the pie, to hold all of the special tasty ingredients he plans to use.
God takes the very finest milled pastry flour and sifts it not once but twice, into a large blending bowl, to create as much space as he will require when it is time to fill the pie shell.
Then he adds the salt (for we are the "Salt of the earth") and then little by little, he ads in the purest of spring waters maybe the water from the rock struck by Moses, or maybe the "Living Water" of Jesus Himself, to start to form the dough.
Next he cuts in his lard which gives cohesion to the mixture as well as tenderness. God blends all of this together to produce a perfect crust.
He then splits the dough in half and rolls out the first half to become the shell the base for his creation, and once it is exactly right in thickness he lays it into his pie pan. He then rolls out the second half and cuts it into 3/4 inch perfect latice slats, and puts it aside for a little later.
Now it is time for God to prepare the filling for his pie.
The apples he uses are firm and bitter-sweet, (they equal you and me, and the knowledge he will give us as well as the wisdom of how to best use it in our lives.)
The lemon equals our patience, humility, forgiveness, understanding, compassion.
The brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flower, is our understanding, experience, perserverance, and a dose of common sense.
As God is peeling the apples he is preparing us to receive our feelings, our emotions, our skills, such skills as those needed to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, and such gifts as musical talent, writing, evangelizing, as well as Gifts of The Spirit.
Every piece of the core, every little pip, removed, is some un-needed undesired little thing within us God need to get rid of to make us into the person he desires us to be.
As God cores the apples he prepares us by removing all of our imperfections, such as false pride, ego, willfulness, stubbornness, lustfulness, sloth, anger, any thing that will hinder us being ready to receive Him and His gifts.
Once God has removed all of the badness within us, it is time to slice the apples into thin slices, so that God can fill the pie to overflowing with all of his goodness. He adds the spices flour and pads of butter to bring out the richness and empties the filling into the pie shell. We are now ready to receive all of God’s goodness filling us to the brim,packed down and topped off to over-flowing.
God’s last step towards making this the very best pie, is to take the latice strips of pastry dough and form His special pattern over the top. The pattern represents, Our Baptism into a new life, with a healthy dosage of God’s Grace, forgiveness, love, hope and faith.
Faith to know and believe that through Jesus Death and his resurrection and our confession of Jesus as our saviour, through our repentance we are forgiven, purified spirtually saved by His love and total forgiveness.
Bake for 45 minutes, Humbly serve as servant and repentant child throughout your life and you are the perfect Apple Pie made by God. A newly baptized Christian ready to serve their God and Their Father with willingness and love.