Faithful

 Scripture: “Therefore, let us keep the festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corin. 5:8. NIV).

Set up

Set up the tables like a family dining room. Use dishes from the thrift store for the various food items that will be shared. Provide recipe cards for the women to copy the recipes for food that they would like to try in their own home. Or pre-print some of the recipes. Set up a table at the front of the room for the cooking demonstration.

Program Ideas

• Ask everyone to bring a family recipe to share. Give them time to explain what memories their family recipe brings.
• Ask five women to prepare a crockpot meal for everyone to sample.
• Ask someone to demonstrate their favorite easy recipe that is a family favorite.
• Put the women into groups and have a “Chopped” competition. They are to cook an appetizer, meal, or dessert with only the ingredients provided in their bag.
• Bake cookies three different ways leaving out an ingredient. Talk about how that affects the way the cookies taste, look or bake. Discuss how our spiritual life is affected when we leave God out.
• Watch a cooking show and talk about how the host introduces the ingredients in the dish. How can we better display God’s roll in our life and the life of others, highlighting the good things He does?
• Invite a local chef to do a cooking demonstration with the emphasis of using the best healthy ingredients.

Festivals

Festivals are designed to bring joy to people. It is a time where they gather to enjoy great food, fellowship, and fun. As we look at 1 Corinthians 5:8, we see that Paul is reminding the church to keep the festival … not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth.” That is a reminder to keep our Christian lives clean, fun, and joyful and not to turn back to our old ways of living.

Our Christian Walk should be like a festival that is filled with joy, sincerity, and truth. At times we can find that we will be faced with the temptation of sin, and human malice. Because the human heart is deceitful, we must ask God, the Holy Spirit to clean out our hearts, our souls and our minds of the sinful temptations that can produce malice and wickedness in our thoughts and in our actions.

Just like the festivals around us that are planned with the intention of bringing fun and joy to people in the community, our Christian Walk should be centered around showing the love of Christ to the people in our community and sphere of influence. That when they look at us, they will see Jesus.

In making a good meal for our family, friends, or church members, we must be careful with the ingredients that we use. If we use too much cayenne pepper it could make the meal too spicy for some to enjoy. We could use expired ingredients, which would not bring out the full flavor of the meal and result in making it not taste as good as intended. But when we use the proper ingredients, we make a meal with love that provides good nourishment to others. We need to use our evil human intentions and trade them in for the sincerity and truth found in the gospel. We need to keep in our relationship with Christ foremost, showing His love to each other.

As we go through our week, may we be aware of using the good “ingredients” of our Christian Walk with others to bring our community closer to Christ.