Daily writing prompt

What’s your favorite thing to cook?

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My favorite thing to cook is my own creation that I call a veggie-packed pizza. I dice up various vegetables and stack them on a plate. Then I cook them several minutes in the microwave. When they are soft, I mix in cheese (or veggie cheese) and continue to heat them until the cheese melts into a gooey mess.

Then I spread the veggie-goo on a frozen thin-crust cheese pizza and stack it about a quarter of an inch high. Finally, I bake it at the recommended temperature until the crust is nice and crispy and then enjoy.

Another thing I greatly enjoy is new wine. Not the liquid kind, but the spiritual kind. Jesus said that the new wine (a symbol of the Holy Spirit) needs new wineskins. I’ve often thought of the new wineskins as being new ways of doing church, however, a different perspective recently came to me.

The new wineskins are part of the kingdom of God, the invisible government of a human heart by God (that Jesus told us to make our first priority). Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you and that it comes without observation. Therefore, it’s invisible so it can’t be a religious organization or a church format.

I sense that the new wineskins are open, heart-to-heart, Spirit-led relationships and interactions that people have with the risen Jesus and with other Christ-followers. I continually experience that those kinds of relationships flourish and abound with the exciting and powerful new wine of God’s Spirit. If we will listen to and obey the still small voice of the Holy Spirit (“Christ in you, the hope of glory,”), He will continually lead us to such beautiful relationships and encounters.

If we try to bring the new wine of the Holy Spirit into the old wine of religious organizations and programmed services, it irritates the people who have put their hope in systematized Christianity and disrupts their comfort zone. Then their resistance makes people who are trying to embrace the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit feel like they are out of order. Many people who want to be Spirit-led eventually give up, quench the Spirit, and conform to the pressure of the religious system. Thus, the new wine is spilled from their heart, and they settle for the old routine.

As humans we are loved with a love that infinitely surpasses self-love and a forgiveness that is vastly more effective than self-forgiveness. The risen Jesus, the Creator in human flesh, has revealed God’s love and offered His forgiveness to whosoever will humbly and freely receive it. Let God’s Spirit align your heart to continually perceive and surrender to “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Truly receiving God’s love keeps us so enthralled with His glorious presence that we forget about ourselves and keep our focus on Him.

It takes great courage to make room in your heart and in your life for the risen Jesus to do whatever He wants to. Be courageous! When God’s timing meets our patience and humility spiritual awakening springs forth. Wake up to awareness of the risen Jesus — to constant connection with the living Christ.