Sheep and Goat (Recipe: Chocolate coated strawberries)

I’m sure that I’ve touched upon this subject earlier as well, but recently the Lord lead me to Matthew 25, when I was in a particularly unpleasant mood. After reading the portion where the sheep and goat are separated, I felt more disturbed and even complained saying I needed some cheering up, reading this portion is depressing me more! But the Lord prompted me to read it again and so I did. I will post the gist of it here:

Mat 25: 33-36: He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

Of course, we all know what he said to the goats….not very pleasant….When I first read this portion I was wrought with guilt…thinking this makes things worse, not only am I struggling with sin, I am also not doing any of this, I am not feeding the hungry of the world, I did not dress beggars or visit people in hospitals…definitely not prison…And that’s when I was asking the Lord for a more encouraging portion to read, he asked me to read it again and revealed to me a most liberating message in this portion. Although we see in

Matt: 25:40: And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'

This clearly implies that the poorest or smallest of people are the most qualified for this help. However, the Lord told me that it does not rule out everyone else. Every deed that you do, every considerate and caring action that you do shows God’s love through you, and it does not necessarily have to be to complete strangers or random people. For example, if you have a friend who is sick, and you cook a meal for them, go visit them and help with their house work, that is still an act of love that God talks about in the portion. If you know that someone returning from work will be hungry, a neighbour or a relative, and you know that they have no one at home to prepare something for them, an act of love would be you making something for them. If someone you just met told you that they were new to the country or place, that they don’t have many friends and they are alone, if you invite them to your house and share a meal with them…that is an act of love. What God asked us to do in Matthew 25 is not just help the poor, who of course are the most deserving of our help, but He asks that we show His love, senseless, selfless love, that makes us go out of our way to make others happy or help them, even the poor, because true children of God cannot be comfortable when they see the need of others…that is not the nature of God. We see this in

Romans 8: 14: For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

So if we are the children of God that we claim to be, we would be led by the Spirit of God, which would never allow us to be complacent to the needs and wants of others! If we are….then we are clearly not allowing ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit.

The good news here is that we don’t have to necessarily seek out poor people or complete strangers to show acts of love and share God’s love, we can do it with people we come across in our every day lives…neighbours, friends, new acquaintances, colleagues….so there are plenty of opportunities for us to make sure we act like sheep….and not end up as the goat being banished with the devil!!!

Let us pray to the Lord that He would bless us with this heart of love and the eagerness to share God’s love with everyone we can.

Today’s recipe is terribly simple and is excellent for people who suffer from a sweet tooth (like me), but are trying to get healthy!!

Chocolate Coated Strawberries

Ingredients:

Strawberries – 1 Punnet / box (250gms)
Dark Cooking Chocolate – 200gms
Skewer or stick – 1

Instructions:

1.Place chopped cooking chocolate in a bowl and melt in the microwave for approximately 1minute and 30 seconds. (Some cooking chocolate comes with specific melting instructions).

2.Pluck out the leaves, was and dry the strawberries.

3.Wrap aluminum foil around a plate or tray.

4.Prick the skewer into the wide end of the strawberry and dip into the melted chocolate to coat well.

5.Carefully remove the coated strawberry onto the foiled tray. Repeat this process till all the strawberries are coated and refrigerate the tray.

6.Can be snacked on when faced with sugar cravings :) !

7.The dark cooking chocolate can be replaced with less healthier options of regular cooking chocolate or white cooking chocolate.

Eating with Jesus (Recipe: Sausage Quiche)

It’s been a very long break for me, with health issues, relocation/dislocation …but am hoping that by God’s grace, I would be able to keep this steady from now on…

Today I would like to talk about the references to food and eating in God’s word. Recently when I heard a very commonly used verse, the Lord revealed to me a significance that I had never seen before.

Revelations 3: 20: Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

So when the Lord says, I will come in and eat with you and you with me, what does this mean? I mean we all pretty much focus on the first part of the verse, Jesus is knocking at the door of our lives, and he can only come in if we open the door….but how often have we paused to think about the dining part? To understand the meaning of this dinner invitation, we need to see what Jesus refers to as food.

Matthew 4: 4: Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”.

The word of God is also referred to as food here, not just bread but every word that proceeds from God’s mouth. So when Jesus talks about coming into our lives and eating with us, He appears to promising us the ability to better digest God’s word, that when He comes into our lives, we are able to sit with him and eat with him, or be nourished by the word of God. Here we see the significance of spending time with Jesus, it is not enough to invite him into your life, you also need to make the time to sit and eat with him! How subtly does God say this in Revelation, that he not only wants to come in, but he also wants to eat with us!

Another important factor we need to understand is that Jesus talks about eating here, not drinking. You see, a mature adult, eats his food, but a baby drinks his milk. Let’s take a look at

1 Peter 2:2: Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation

Wow! So there is a time when we are newborn babies in the spirit, where we must crave spiritual milk, that is when our understanding of God’s word is limited to the obvious messages. However, we are required to grow in our salvation, even as Jesus mentions, we must be able to eat from the word of God at some point. Most of the time after we come to salvation, we read the Bible and take the obvious messages from it, like the beatitudes, or two main commandments, or the morals from Jesus’ parables….but once we have gained the basic understanding of these portions, we stop, assuming that this was all we had to receive from the word. We need to grow, mature in our spiritual walk, stop drinking milk, but start eating, gain a deeper understanding of the things of God. God’s word has a different message almost every time you read, if we are ready to hunger for that deeper message. When that hunger is manifested, it shows that we are no longer babies, but growing into adults, ready for heavier food, ready for the deeper things, ready to eat with Jesus….

Let us pray to the Lord that he may help us grow from babies into mature adults, who don’t just drink the obvious truths from God’s word, but those that are ready to eat the solid food of God’s word.


Recipe for Sausage Quiche

Ingredients

Medium size Beef sausages – 4
Eggs – 6
Chopped Tomato – 2
Diced Onion – 1 Medium size
Sliced Mushroom – 1 cup
Shredded cheese – 1 cup
Chopped Coriander leaves – ½ cup
Diced Green chilly – 2 (optional)
Diced Garlic – 4 pods
Oil – 2 Tablespoons
Frozen Puff pastry – 1 sheet
Salt & Pepper – as required

Equipment

A quiche tray would be ideal, otherwise a slightly shallow, round baking dish would suffice.

Instructions:

1.Defrost Frozen Pastry Sheet. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

2.Spray oil into the baking pan, then place the pastry sheet into the pan, stretching it out from the center to fully cover the base of the pan as well as the edges, tearing off any excess corners. Be careful not to tear holes in the pastry.

3.Shallow fry or grill sausages and slice them up.

4.In a frying pan, heat a little oil, sauté garlic till light brow, add onions and fry till golden brown, to this add mushrooms and sauté well till they begin to brown as well. Add green chilly, followed by the cooked sausages, turn off flame.

5.In a bowl, lightly beat the eggs, add salt and pepper according to taste.

6.Take the baking pan lined with pastry, spread the sausage mix onto the pastry. Then pour in the beaten eggs, followed by the grated cheese. Finally finish off with chopped coriander leaves and bake for 35-40 minutes.

7.Allow it to cool for 10 minutes before slicing up and serving warm.