Grilled Cheese, Oatmeal, and a Side of the World, Please.

Most every major childhood memory has one consistent feature...what I was eating at the time. I love food. I have recently been reading through 1 Peter, which (for reasons beyond my comprehension) caused me to think about what I liked to eat as a kid.

I loved a lot of foods, but I came up with a list of some that all contain one similarity:
- Grilled Cheese
- Oatmeal
- Rice
- Cottage Cheese
- Milk

Can you think of what all these might have in common? Mom had to alter them so that I would eat them. Here's the list, more honestly stated:

- Grilled Cheese (with Jelly spread on top)
- Oatmeal (with Butter & Brown Sugar)
- Rice (again with brown sugar, but also regular sugar)
- Cottage Cheese (1 part cottage cheese, 1 part sugar)
- Milk (1 part milk, 3 parts Nestle Quik Chocolate Milk mix)
- Sugar (with sugar sprinkled lightly atop)

As a child I would not accept these perfectly healthy foods as they were. Instead, I wanted them mixed with something less than healthy. I wanted the "good for me," but not enough that I could actually taste it. The same could often be said of our spiritual lives as well. This brings me back to 1 Peter 2:2-3:

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,  now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:2-3, NIV)

We've found salvation. It is good! Freedom from our sin, shame, guilt; freedom from fear of eternal condemnation is the best thing. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.  Peter directs us to crave pure, spiritual milk. Pure: unaltered, as it should be. Not milk mixed with something else. Not Jesus mixed with something else. 

Not:
- Jesus (with a side of porn)
- Jesus (with a little gossip)
- Jesus (with a touch of divisiveness)
- Jesus (with a pinch of grumbling)
- Jesus (with the grip of grudges)
- Jesus (with a dusting of disobedience)

That list looks awful. When we place Jesus Christ alongside anything the world has to offer, we see it for what it is...not enough. Not satisfying. It looks ugly, doesn't it. The reason is because Jesus was not meant to be placed next to anything. Jesus was meant to be placed as Lord over everything.

- Jesus is your everything.
- Jesus is all you need.
- Jesus is enough.