I know, you can't really even call it food. But...I do love it.
I think my favorite part about it is that I can yell my order out at a speaker and then they tell me to pull forward and BOOM, there is my fake food.
Like, I didn't even have to unbuckle 1 kid. Everyone is still strapped down and now we are going to move forward and lunch shows up in my car.
Happy mama, happy kids, and if I time it right and get rid of the evidence afterwards, nobody outside of my car even has to know that I frequent the fast food joints. HA!!
I think in our culture we also want our lives in Christ to work like the fast food joints.
We want to give God our order, and have Him say move forward and BOOM, there's our order. We didn't have to change our direction or position at all. We think of God like that giant speaker, and we don't even have to speak out loud, we just think our order, and we expect an answer once we move forward.
I know that our God does NOT work like this even though we try so many times. He is after our heart and a relationship, not just moving forward and giving us something that resembles food.
Jesus is the bread of life; we can pray for all kinds of stuff, but what we really need is HIM and He knows it.
I have recently been thinking about forgiveness. I have messed up, (and so has every other human on the planet)
* continually*
and I need forgiveness from my Lord and Savior, so that I may be right with a holy God.
What we think we want and would be so convenient, would be if we could just shout out our order of forgiveness, or think it in our head, and move forward.
We are missing a piece when we stop there, and just move forward, throw our forgiveness in and speed away, and if we time it right, and get rid of the evidence nobody has to know.
Jesus talks about repentance, which I think is our part of the forgiveness equation. We shout out our order for forgiveness and we just pull forward and we get forgiven because God is faithful and has done His part on the cross and made forgiveness available, but if we don't repent we will end up in the same fast forgiveness line and nothing will ever really change.
Repentance is like realizing you have been living on fake food and you then CHANGE DIRECTION. Repenting is dealing with the sin and then TURNING, not just pulling forward to repeat the same order the next time. We will continue in the same cycle of going thru the same stuff if we don't CHANGE OUR DIRECTION. Without repentance nothing will change, we will continue to order, pull forward, and order for the same thing over and over.
Repentance is asking for forgiveness and realizing the cycle that keeps getting us into the same line of thinking....repentance CHANGES us and our pattern of life and moves us to a sit down dinner at a steak house.
Jesus, John, and Peter all had the same message when their ministry first began:
Mark 1:4 (ESV)
4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Matthew 4:17 (ESV)
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Acts 2:38
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
REPENTANCE is something that increases as our walk with the Lord gets closer, rather than something that lessens. We know there is steak houses and we don't want to settle for the fast food anymore.
PS. I don't plan on quitting my fast food habit until all kids can walk in and sit at the table without assistance getting in or out of the car...BUT, I do plan on making a habit of REPENTING. What if I repented as often as I went to fast food.....and NOT just repenting about going to fast food. HA!
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