Labels and Ingredient Lists
I am reading through this book by Francis Chan for small group... you may have heard about "Crazy Love." Can I tell you... this is a challenging book. I'm loving it, but it's not a comfortable book for me to read.
I read through the chapter "Serving Leftovers to a Holy God" this morning, and as a person that has been in food marketing and a guy that is really trying to eat healthy one of the analogies he used really got me thinking.
Francis was talking about a bag of potato chips he ate, which on the front of the bag in big bold letters touted "Zero Grams Trans Fat" - as if to denote that these chips are not bad for you. As we now know, trans fat is really bad for you it obviously should be avoided if you want to live a healthy life. I was interning in the marketing department at a big packaged rice company in Houston when the news about trans fats came out and that the FDA would start requiring that trans fats be listed on the nutritional information. It was a good thing... and it got all of the nutritional analysts and food marketers running at a fast pace for a while back in '04/'05 as the new informational guidelines were being rolled out.
However, if you have seen the Smart Balance margarine ads, you know that "Zero Grams" is not necessarily zero grams. Apparently, the regulations allow the food companies to round down and there is a minimum acceptable amount of hydrogenated (or partially hydrogenated) oil that is allowed in a product in which it can continue to be marketed as "zero grams." Same thing with the bag of chips that Francis was writing about... when he turned the bag around and read the ingredients list, he found a lot of stuff like "Yellow Dye #3," some stuff that you'd have to have attended Mister Bill's chemistry tutorial at A&M (Aggie Fish Engineering students will get this reference) to know what they are, and "partially hydrogenated oil" (aka - trans fat). You see, the attractive packaging on the front of the bag told one story... the ingredient list (in small print where you have to look for it... this is required by government regulations) told a different story.
Are our lives the same way? I confess that there's a little bit (perhaps a lot) of chemistry list items, high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated oil type of items in the ingredient list of my life, while on the outside shining out labels like "Goes to Buckhead Church," "Mission Trip guy," "MBA," "Knows the Bible," etc. But God isn't looking at, or interested in, the packaging claims... He's going straight for the ingredient list. When He sees it, how much love, grace, mercy, passion for the glory of God, zeal for His Kingdom, etc. will He find? And will He find it at the top of the list or at the end?
The reality, and grace of the matter is that whatever's in my life that is produced by the Spirit of God "Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, etc." is there because God put in there as a result of my giving my life over to Him. The chemistry list... that's what me apart from Christ put there. This is very freeing and convicting at the same time, because the degree to which my ingredient list looks like Christ is a direct reflection on the degree that I am wholeheartedly giving Christ control of my life and what goes in and out of it.
So today, Jesus, I give you my life today... create in me what you want to create. Make me more like you today.
I read through the chapter "Serving Leftovers to a Holy God" this morning, and as a person that has been in food marketing and a guy that is really trying to eat healthy one of the analogies he used really got me thinking.
Francis was talking about a bag of potato chips he ate, which on the front of the bag in big bold letters touted "Zero Grams Trans Fat" - as if to denote that these chips are not bad for you. As we now know, trans fat is really bad for you it obviously should be avoided if you want to live a healthy life. I was interning in the marketing department at a big packaged rice company in Houston when the news about trans fats came out and that the FDA would start requiring that trans fats be listed on the nutritional information. It was a good thing... and it got all of the nutritional analysts and food marketers running at a fast pace for a while back in '04/'05 as the new informational guidelines were being rolled out.
However, if you have seen the Smart Balance margarine ads, you know that "Zero Grams" is not necessarily zero grams. Apparently, the regulations allow the food companies to round down and there is a minimum acceptable amount of hydrogenated (or partially hydrogenated) oil that is allowed in a product in which it can continue to be marketed as "zero grams." Same thing with the bag of chips that Francis was writing about... when he turned the bag around and read the ingredients list, he found a lot of stuff like "Yellow Dye #3," some stuff that you'd have to have attended Mister Bill's chemistry tutorial at A&M (Aggie Fish Engineering students will get this reference) to know what they are, and "partially hydrogenated oil" (aka - trans fat). You see, the attractive packaging on the front of the bag told one story... the ingredient list (in small print where you have to look for it... this is required by government regulations) told a different story.
Are our lives the same way? I confess that there's a little bit (perhaps a lot) of chemistry list items, high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated oil type of items in the ingredient list of my life, while on the outside shining out labels like "Goes to Buckhead Church," "Mission Trip guy," "MBA," "Knows the Bible," etc. But God isn't looking at, or interested in, the packaging claims... He's going straight for the ingredient list. When He sees it, how much love, grace, mercy, passion for the glory of God, zeal for His Kingdom, etc. will He find? And will He find it at the top of the list or at the end?
The reality, and grace of the matter is that whatever's in my life that is produced by the Spirit of God "Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, etc." is there because God put in there as a result of my giving my life over to Him. The chemistry list... that's what me apart from Christ put there. This is very freeing and convicting at the same time, because the degree to which my ingredient list looks like Christ is a direct reflection on the degree that I am wholeheartedly giving Christ control of my life and what goes in and out of it.
So today, Jesus, I give you my life today... create in me what you want to create. Make me more like you today.
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