Molasses Cookies in January--Following the Recipe!

A couple days ago, Hannah and Danny helped me make (or shall I say I helped them make?) molasses cookies.

Molasses cookies are some of my very favorite, as can be seen by this worn out recipe card!
(By the way, I got out a new index card and copied the recipe the same evening!)

The cookies are fresh, but they are based on a recipe that is old.

The same ingredients go into a molasses cookie recipe every time--butter or margarine, brown sugar, molasses, eggs, flour, soda, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger.

Don't try adding your own ideas in.

Chocolate chips are nice in chocolate chip cookies, but not molasses sugar cookies. 

Peanut butter is nice in peanut butter cookies, but not molasses.

Deciding on our own ideas and adding in almond or peppermint flavoring, oatmeal, carrots or raisins just ruins the whole thing.

If you want molasses crinkle cookies with sparkling, crinkly tops, you have to believe the recipe and follow the directions and use the correct ingredients.

We've had some interesting conversations with people in the last several weeks, people who were upset with God or didn't really want to follow His recipes and were looking for excuses.

One shared that since a relative was living in a situation that Christ said was adultery, he had been  told that the relative was going to hell. (At least that was this person's perception of what had been told him.)

"Why would God send her to hell?" he asked darkly. "She is a good person!"

We did not answer one way or another.
When a person has already made up his mind that God is bad and he knows better than God, what can you say to them that they will not also reject?
The best Jonathan and I could do was to steer him to consider what he was doing about his own soul and his own need to obey God's Word and to stay right with God.

If we want to get to heaven, we must follow the Recipe, found in God's Word.

Jesus is the only way, and His commands are what we must obey.
The main issue is not "Is God good or is He cruel?" The truth is, God is always good and what He does is right, even when He sends to hell people who have refused to obey and love Him. 

We can't decide we don't like what He says, or change the ingredients and expect to come out with eternal life anymore than we can make molasses cookies out of pinto beans and fresh, home-grown-in-a-can parsley, something wonderful but not the right ingredient.
 

Another time recently, a lady was watching me make supper, and she suddenly asked, "Would God send to hell children who have been brainwashed in a cult?" 

She was worried about her grandchildren who are being brought up in a Jehovah's Witness church, and about all the people she'd learned about by watching part of a documentary about the people who killed themselves in the cult in the Waco disaster years ago.

We know the lady's grandchildren, too. We had them in our home more than once, and were in their home, helped them move, helped them clean out their barn. We loved those dear children. We understand the grandmother's grief. We grieve, too. 

But we are not without hope, and that is what I tried to convey to this grandmother.

First, I shared that the blood of Jesus covers little children until they reach the age of accountability and become able to choose for themselves what they will believe and what they will do with Jesus.
I shared what I'd read about Richard Wurmbrandt fellowshipping in the Communist prisons with men of every faith--Pentecostal, Jehovah's Witness, Catholic, and Baptist--and how they all disagreed on many points and would spend their lonely prison time trying to convince each other to change what they believed (and in the end usually just believing more firmly than ever what they originally believed).

 But in the end, when one got taken out to get beaten or interrogated, everyone would support that person, pray together and support each other in their belief in one God, and for many of them, their belief in Jesus.

I shared that I think that God can save a person no matter what church or even cult they are in, if they will believe in Jesus and surrender to Him. My new home schooling mother friend was saved in the Catholic church at age 15, even though she didn't understand all of Christianity's beliefs.
I tried to share everything positive that I could rather than focus on whether God was going to send certain people to hell or not. 

It doesn't seem to  me that saying, "Yes, God is going to send them to hell," is a very effective response (even if it is true) to someone who is already burdened about the possibility of someone they love going to hell. How would we feel if someone said that someone we love is going to hell???
Jesus didn't come to condemn the world but to save it.
The world is already condemned. These people are already on their way to hell. This grandmother is already burdened and desperate about it. 
So we focus on the salvation part--just like Jesus did!
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance," Paul wrote.
A grandmother has all of God's power and love on her side when she prays for her grandchildren.

So may we pray for people who are in trouble and for whom we grieve--on our knees, and while we are doing dishes, while we clean and mop and iron. 

 A grandmother is not helpless. She can write letters, make phone calls, send birthday cards, share verses, exude joy, provide a fun time whenever they are together, stay connected, be a joy-filled influence in their lives. And she can tell those children and their parents, "It's all about Jesus!"

Jesus is the Recipe for Eternal life and joy in this life, too!