Crockpot spirituality

When commitments cram a day, I’m grateful for a kitchen appliance called the “crock-pot.” It’s the modern version of the kettle that sat over low embers all day. I cut some meat into fist-size or smaller pieces, then add chopped vegetables, a cup of water and a hearty shake of various spices. Lid on, dial turned to “low,” and eight to ten hours later the house is filled with pleasant, mouth-watering aromas.

The Christian life, I think, is much like that. When the apostle Peter summarized the development of Christian virtue (2 Peter 1:3-11), he used this phrase: “add to.” Like the ingredients mingling their flavors in my crock-pot, the components of godly character enhance one another. Bible teacher George McDonald, commenting on this passage, noted that a life of discipline is a common thread in spiritual growth: “There must be discipline in prayer…Bible study…the use of time…in curbing bodily appetites…in sacrificial living.” The end of all this is “that Christ will have the best of our lives.”

Peter’s “recipe” for godly living begins, of course, with the foundation of faith—for without faith in the living God, trying to achieve these graces on our own is destined for defeat. After faith come these (synonyms in parenthesis from the Amplified Bible):

*Virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy)—the desire to live wholly before a holy God.

*Knowledge (intelligence)—not satisfied with knowing the bare basics of the faith, but earnestly, like a dog gnawing on a bone, desiring to know more and more about God through His Word.

*Temperance (self-control)—willing to give up things we realize enslave us. (Think: what possession or activity absorbs your time and energy, even though it might be interfering with your growth in Christ?)

*Patience (steadfastness, endurance)—having a long fuse when provoked, giving up “rights” when the purposes of God are better served by deference.

*Godliness (piety)—known for conduct that truly reflects God.

*Brotherly kindness (affection)—truly caring about people in the full spectrum of their needs: physical, emotional, spiritual.

*Charity (Christian love)—Not the “valentine” type love, but the deep, God-sourced love that causes us to invest our time, treasures, and lives for others. It’s what the old apostle John characterized: “This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for ours sins” (1 John 4:10).

Peter adds that failure to develop these seven graces will result in barrenness, unfruitfulness, shortsightedness, blindness, and forgetfulness. To bring it back to the crock-pot analogy, it’s like never plugging the pot in. After time, the meat and veggies will rot and cause quite a stench.

I’d rather be a vessel holding good things. Appropriately, all those ingredients require heat (fiery times—see 1 Peter 4:12-13) to become a finished product. We’re to be crock-pots, not refrigerators!