In Fort Worth, Texas, for many decades, motorists passing through downtown were assailed by the most delightful of aromas. On the Near South Side, alongside the freeway, stood a massive bakery. On pleasant days, the smell of baking bread drifted through open windows, making mouths water and stomachs rumble.
Visiting motorists could even stop in for a tour and walk away with a freshly baked treat for a snack.
However, in great bins at the back of the bakery were the remains of broken products that hadn’t baked up just right. No one would find equal enjoyment in the old crusts of moldy bread, or in the odor of those spoiled treats. It was the bakery’s masterful concoctions that drew the visitors to the bakery’s doors and customers to the grocery store shelves.
Yet all the products were made from the same ingredients: flour, water, and yeast. What made the difference?
Flour, water, and yeast do not have a life of their own. They cannot become the bread that draws us in. Rather, they are the ingredients that the Master Baker uses to create his masterpieces for the world to enjoy. Leave one ingredient out, and the whole product becomes fit only for the refuse bin.
Christians are the same way. We cannot be the pleasant aroma on our own. We cannot tempt others to Christ by the merits of our deeds. No, it takes the Master Baker to mix us just right, bake us to perfection, and draw the sinner in for a taste of a masterful concoction, one that only he can pull from our sinful state.
Without the Master Baker? We are nothing more than a broken crust of bread, ready to be tossed in the bin and left to spoil.
Ezekiel 16:15 begins a passage that tells of a broken crust of bread. Jerusalem had begun to trust in herself instead of the Master Baker, offering her charms to everyone who passed by. She was the flour and water, but she never became the bread. Why? Only the Master Baker could provide the yeast. Try it sometime. Bake flour and water and see what comes out of the oven. It might even smell good when it is cooking up. However, without the yeast of God, all we will get is a broken piece of crust, and it will tempt no one to take a bite.
Only God can create beauty from our lives. He is the yeast that causes every part of who we are to become a treat that no one can resist.
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