Real Life is Like a Baked Potato

[HKHaugan]

Real Life is Like a Baked Potato

 I like baked potatoes.  When I get one, I eat it skins and all.  I can make a meal out of one.  When you go to a restaurant and ask for a baked potato the waiter usually asks, ‘Do you want it loaded?’ meaning, with sour cream, cheese, butter, bacon bits, etc.  Usually I will reply ‘just butter, thank you.’  Well I came across a verse this morning from Romans, 12:3, that I would say was like a loaded baked potato.  It offered so many added thoughts. 

“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you (Rom.12:3).”

 The potato itself is the first two verses where he presents God’s mercy.  If you start there with God’s mercy, that’s the potato.  Then he tells us to dig in by offering our bodies as living sacrifices.  In other words, you’ve got to taste the potato you’ve been given.  We are called to be thankful and feed on the mercy of God.  In Christ He has given us something special we’ve never had before.  If we’re guilty of something we come before Him repentantly and He responds with forgiveness through His mercy.  Tell me that’s not tasty.  “Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God---this is your spiritual act of worship.”  Worship has an inner taste, the taste of intimacy with God and worship has an outer practice, sharing what you’ve tasted. 

 In vs.2 you taste the mercy of God as you stop conforming to the worldly life that is the pattern of a life without God.  You’ll be transformed like taking a bite of the potato and sensing how good it tastes.  You want more.  It’s God’s will to take the taste test and go for more.  It’s good, it’s pleasing and it’s perfect.  Mercy is to be thankful and enjoying it.  That’s when you find that being God’s person is moving your taste into a totally different direction.  You are looking for opportunities to taste real life, spiritual life, through His mercy.

 Now here’s the part that opens the door to the deeper taste available.  Vs. 3 “For by the grace given me…”  Here’s where Paul gives us something no religion, philosophy or culture offers.  What the Lord showed Paul was that grace is the personal touch of God’s love.  Grace is the way God recognizes your uniqueness and it becomes a personal touch, a personal insight, a specially designed-for-you-only taste.  No one else has the same touch.  You don’t have to be like Paul, getting on horse, riding to Damascus and having light and a voice from Heaven surround you.  That was for Paul alone.  He has special tastes for each one of us.  How we came to know Him was for each of us alone.

 Paul serves us with what he received, “For by the grace given me…”  What follows this is the taste of humility which allows us to open the door to whatever God wants, not what I think is best.  If we don’t think about ourselves first but what God thinks of first, then we are on the way to a gigantic feast of something new awaiting us all the time.  Pride is a killer.  Filling our minds with what the culture wants us to conform to is a killer.  ‘I did it my way’ is a killer.

 Conforming to the idea of putting the person of Jesus first is always bringing some new experience into our minds and hearts.  Watch what happens in the rest of vs.3.  “…but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”  There’s the golden ring.  It’s the measure of faith.  Each person is given their own measure of faith.  The measure is yours to work with.  You don’t have to look at anyone else around you.  You don’t copy them.  You and I are special to God and each has his own measure of faith.  Faith is what humanizes us, personalizes us and individualizes us. 

 The faith each of us has been given is held up next to that of Jesus’ faith.  Faith relationalizes us.  This is a unique personal faith relationship with God through Jesus.  He is the One who stirs up the measure of faith in us to stretch for what He knows will develop us.  He becomes the norm, the standard, the real faith partner.  We are apprentices in faith following His lead. We are interns learning the trade. 

 Now comes the way He prescribes we each work with the faith we have been given.  It’s the way He loads the baked potato to fit our individual design.  It’s the way His mercy is worked out in us.  Unlike the world with its rejection and merciless isolation, God does the opposite.  He gives us gifts.  It’s His way of showing how real His mercy and forgiveness are.  He gives us spiritual gifts (vs.4-8, 1^st Cor.12, Eph.4).  It is the practical, pragmatic and functional ‘boots-on-the-ground’ application of faith that works day-to-day.  Spiritual gifts are what make the baked potato loaded.  They are the added flavors that make us fit into God’s love plan.  Personally, I like bacon bits.  Not too much, just enough to flavor the bite.  That’s just me, if you get the drift.

 ‘Spiritual gifts’ is how ‘we think of ourselves with sober judgment.’  “The measure of faith” is how we add to our faith the awareness of God’s presence in us and let Him work through us.  Spiritual gifts humble us because they come from Him and can’t operate without our conscious willingness to let the Spirit motivate us.  Spiritual gifts grow us and stimulate us to want to grow more.  They are the added flavors that keep on adding the more they are practiced.  I’m sure you’ve gathered by now this is really more than about baked potatoes.  But if it helps you to be reminded about the way to get faith on the ground, moving and productive, try this baked potato.  This one has far more flavor than the one at the restaurant.