main_ingredient

The Main Ingredient, by Randall D. Kittle

If you were to run into me at the grocery store, you would most likely find me standing in the aisle holding a box of something and reading the label. Yes, like many Americans I must confess I am a label-reader. And I am not alone. You are not likely to make it through any trip to the grocery store without finding a good number of people standing there reading the label on the side or back of some item. In fact, label reading has just about become a national obsession in this country.

While it might be interesting or even educational, I often find it isn’t very appetizing. By simply taking the time to read the label you can find out how much fat, how many calories, and what percentage of your daily allowance of sodium can be found in almost anything you might care to pick up at the store.

One of the things I find interesting about the ingredient part of the label is that things are listed on the ingredient list in the same order as their content is found in the product. In other words, the first ingredient listed is the main ingredient, the second thing listed is found next most, and so on down the list.

Wouldn’t it be handy if you and I as believers had an ingredient label as well? Think what it would be like if each of us wore a label that clearly told everyone we came in contact with what things are the most important to us.

Let’s take this example a little more personal. Let me ask you a rather revealing question, if you had a label that listed the ingredients of your life in order of their true importance as shown by the amount of time, money, and effort you put into them, where would Jesus be on the label? First ... second ... or less than 2%?

Every born-again believer must come to the place where Jesus is the main ingredient of our lives — the one thing that our lives are fixed and focused upon. We need to be certain we are getting 100% of our daily allowance of Jesus, not just all that we require, but all that God desires.

When Jesus really becomes the main ingredient of our lives, and not just an additive we use to season our lives, people will take notice. No matter how people feel about religion, people are attracted to Jesus. As Jesus becomes more completely the central core of our lives and our meetings, people will take notice and both curiosity and desire will grow in their hearts.

We can see this in the second chapter of Mark when the four men brought their paralytic friend to Jesus. Jesus was teaching in a home. In this house was a meeting that was all about Jesus. These men so desperately wanted to get their friend into the midst of this “Jesus-meeting” that they uncovered the roof and broke through.

So too today people will press into our lives and our meetings when all that is done in our lives and services is about Jesus. If you and I will make Jesus the main ingredient of our lives, people will taste and see that He is good, and come back hungry for more.