I have two boxes here.  This one is a recipe box.  It has lots of great food recipes in it.  Let’s see here, there is Brownie Pudding Aunt Martha’s Chocolate Cake and lots of cookie recipes!  And macaroni and cheese!  Yum!  Barabas and Mrs. Potato Head are looking through the recipes but they can’t decide what to make.

“I don’t know.” said Barabas.   As a second grader, he doesn’t know much about cooking.  He just knows about eating!

Mrs. Potato Head was no help.  She doesn’t bake or cook very often now that she lives in the Retirement Home.  Sometimes, when she has nothing else to do, she just sits down and flips through her recipe box and doesn’t actually make anything!  Recipe boxes can hold lots of memories.  She still has some recipes in her MOTHER”S handwriting!  But you know what good are recipes if you don’t actually USE them?  They are just pieces of paper in a box.  A recipe tells you the correct way to DO the food preparation.  You can’t EAT a recipe!  A recipe points you toward food, which of course you need to eat to stay alive!   

Finally they agreed to make chocolate chip cookies.   Now things got interesting, because they started to get out the bowls and the whisk and the wooden spoon and the flour sifter (Barabas’s personal favorite piece of equipment,) and measuring cups and measuring spoons.

Mrs. Potato Head made Barabas put on the apron. 

“I look like a girl in this!” thought Barabas.  “I’m glad no one can see me except Mrs. Potato Head!”

They got out all the ingredients and started to measure and stir and beat and sift.  It was a lot of work, but knowing that there would be cookies as the end result, believe me, the work is worth it!  Barabas LOVES chocolate chip cookies!

Now, for this other box I have.  It is a box of commandments.  There are papers in here that have words that are like recipes for our life from God. 

Let’s see here, there is:

Do not murder.
Do not take the name of your Lord in vain.
Do not steal.
Do not gossip or tell lies.
Do not be jealous of what other people have.

Oh and here is the one that Jesus said was the most important commandment TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Now what good are these commandments if you don’t actually USE them?  They are just pieces of paper in a box, like unused recipes.  They are not doing much good if you don’t USE them. 

Jesus said that He knows we love Him, when we USE these commandments in our life.  And the most important commandment is to LOVE.  It would be hard to live our life without LOVE . . . or FOOD.  Either way, we would starve.

So, my recommendation would be to USE the recipes in THIS box and USE the commandments in THIS box! 

THE END

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