Bake that Cake

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to

knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness

brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.For if these things are yours and abound, you

will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:5-8

Imagine with me: we’re going to have a baking competition. Don’t worry about the other people involved,

you just focus on what you need to do. I want to you to bake a cake, and I’m going to give you the

ingredients. You just need to put your apron on and get to the kitchen. Now, what I want from you is a

very fancy chocolate cake. I want something exquisite, like you’re making it for a king: let’s say the King of

Kings, Jesus. You’re going to make the best chocolate cake ever for Jesus, and I’m going to give you the

ingredients and the recipe, and you’re going to churn it out.

Here's the rub: you show up to the kitchen and find that I’ve only given you one egg and two cups of flour.

You laugh at first, but then you realize this whole ordeal is actually serious, and then your laugh turns into

shouts of anger and whimpers of despair. He’s coming in an hour and you’ve got an egg and two cups of

flour and you’re being tasked with baking the best chocolate cake ever. Is it absurd? Yes it is.

Welcome back to reality! Jesus has given you instructions on how to live and He has given you the grace

and means to do so. You know, in all my years in the church, I think I’ve heard excuses more than

anything for the most part as to why people don’t do this or that. We’re supposed to grow into mature

believers but somehow many of us think we can pull it off by reading our Bibles for five minutes every

three months while attending church for maybe an hour a week, if we do that, and turn out as mature

Christians. The more the excuses and justifications mount, the more we have to begin wondering who is

who, and what team we’re really playing for.

Peter challenged the believers he wrote to that they give all diligence and to their faith (trust) add virtue

(excellence of character), to this add knowledge (pursuing and grasping biblical truth), to this self-control

(restraint and submission of one’s desires), to this perseverance (enduring difficulty), to this godliness (an

awesome respect and living awareness of God), to this brotherly love (love for other believers which is

how the world identifies us), and to this love (warm regard and interest in others). You look at that list and

it’s no wonder strong believers are few and far between. We have a bunch of people trying to fake the

image that can only come with sweat, discipline, tenacity, and loyalty to the Lord and there are no short-

cuts, no cheating to become this person. I have seen men in ministry try to cheat their way into pastoral

positions and sometimes they worked the system to clear a space only to be completely unfit for the part.

Stop trying to bake a cake for Jesus without the ingredients that He’s provided and claimed are

necessary. He knows how to bake the cake. Stop ignoring His instructions as though you can make it any

other way than He’s declared. What pride on our parts when we ignore the recipe or ingredients for

successful Christian living when they are available. You need God, you need your Bible, you need to pray,

you need to fight your sin, you need to not justify sinful choices, you need to confess and repent, you

need church, you need Jesus. Too many people want Heaven while caring very little whether God

actually is even there. The definition of a good life is not written by man, but by God. The definition of

maturity is not an image, but a lifestyle. None of us has hit anywhere near the ideal sense of biblical

maturity, but we are only hurting ourselves if we ignore that call, disregard the means of grace, or lower

the standards to console our broken selves. Want to be brave? Get serious. Whether your peers do or

not, you must get serious about the words on the pages of the Bible if you’re going to follow Christ.

Sam Stringer

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by

permission. All rights reserved.