Recipe for Success

While unfamiliar to me and others in the UK, the 29th December is considered National Pepper Pot Day over in the US. At first, I wonder the reason why 🤔 because of how peculiar it is to remember one condiment on the table 🧂(and yes I know this is of salt but I couldn't see a pepper one 😅😂). That is until we learn of the Continental Army in 1777 and how it gave birth to 'the soup that won the war' and turned a hopeless situation around after the farmers sold their supplies.

Now one irony you may be considering, especially if you are American, is hearing a Briton describe the British defeat 😅 and from something so simple as being defeated by soup 👀 but I believe it bottles down to the fact that we all have a need 😬 and desperate calls call for desperate measures. It is just more astonishing when something so simple becomes the answer.....

Where Jesus ✝️ becomes the answer....

Now before he became known as the Apostle Paul, he was known as Saul who despised anything to do with Jesus and his followers, believing the man to be dead and his followers spreading false propaganda. He described himself as 'Hebrew of the Hebrews' (Phil 3:5), in other words 'the perfect student/citizen' and was so feared by Christians of the Early Church that he had to receive authority to go outside his jurisdiction to hunt them down ⚠️ 

Even after his conversion, he was feared 👀 but used by God in a mighty way to reveal the condition of Jew and non-Jew alike like an X-Ray machine. Revealing all have faults and all are guilty (Rom 3:23) 👨‍⚖️ whose sentence would be death before God (Rom 6:23) if not for Jesus. For it was the Jewish custom year by year to sacrifice animals to vaccinate themselves 💉 of sin but it would not last long. Hence the reason for the annual visits to Jerusalem which Jesus attended as a boy (Luke 2:41) and it wasn't until Jesus was grown, until He was a man that we remember His death at Easter ✝️ as 'the Lamb of God 🐑 which taketh away the sin of the world' (John 1:29).

Christ being eternal, meant His sacrifice ✝️ is also eternal and big enough to cover all sins. When his Prophetic Ministry was completed with His death, which the gift of Myrrh had prepared Him for, He began and continues to perform His Priestly Role 🙏🏻 that the gift of Frankincense had prepared him for. 

>>> This is best described by John the Apostle as he received a vision and witnessed Heaven rejoicing that 'the power of His Christ' overpowers 'the accuser' the Devil (Rev 12:10) who makes it his mission to remember what we've done wrong. Now how many times do we beat ourselves up about that? and how many times do we remember the bad stuff more than the good stuff? It's one of those unexplainable things that we cannot really explain naturally 😵 but spiritually it is designed to bring us down ⬇️. Whether we are guilty or accused of being guilty, that is the effect in the courtroom 👨‍⚖️ until we have Jesus as our advocate/lawyer (1 Jhn 2:1) and offering an Exit Strategy, a pardon, so we can walk free 😊🙌🏻

This is the Hope 😇

This is the solution 💕

It is that freedom that the Apostle Paul writes about (Gal 5:1) that just as following one man had condemned us in the courtroom, following the one man Jesus ✝️ frees us (Rom 5:18).

He is 'Emmanuel' that the angel said to Joseph (Matt 1:23) to be 'God with us' 👍 and 'Saviour' as the angel said to the shepherds that watched their flock by night (Lk 2:11) meaning Deliverer. Being the reason why John the Baptist in his mother's womb leapt for joy (Lk 1:44) for the joy that was coming + in this Christmas season 🌟, the joy that has now come 😊

This - is why we celebrate Christmas

This - is what the carols mean when 'Christ, the Saviour is born' and 'tidings of comfort and joy' ❤️🙏🏻🎉

For just as the Pepper Pot Soup delivered victory for the Continental Army, it is Christ who can deliver victory for you!

However just like the soldiers, the Soup couldn't work its magic unless the soldiers accepted it. The same with Christ if you accept Him 🙏🏻

#JesustheReason4theSeason