During the Christmas season many share and enjoy a rich, traditional delight called fruitcake. A fruitcake consists of a variety of textures, colors and flavors. Generally, fruitcake is a mixture of fruits and nuts with just enough batter to hold them together, and if kept in a tightly closed tin, a fruitcake may be kept for months or even years.
But fruitcake is also a negative label given to individuals whose ideas, speech, and actions are wacky, and unappealing to others around them. As Christians, we want to avoid becoming a spiritual fruitcake.
A spiritual fruitcake is one who lacks balance between the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. They are filled with zeal for the moves of the Spirit, but have not developed understanding and wisdom that come from the Word.
In this post I am going to give a simple recipe to follow so that we can preserve our witness for life.
Ingredients:
1. Word of God – Add a generous amount daily.
It says in Joshua 1:8-9, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
2. Living Waters – Mix with the Word of God.
Jesus says in John 7:37-39, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
3. Redemption – We must carefully follow the instructions listed in Romans 10:9-13. There is only one way to add this ingredient. “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Because in Ephesians 1:7 it clearly tells us, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;”
4. Relationship – This ingredient takes time to cultivate. David cried out in Psalm 42:1-2, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?”
5. Revelation – As the other ingredients listed above are cultivated this special ingredient will naturally supernaturally come. This truth is revealed to us in 1Corinthians 2:14, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”
6. Living Word – If above ingredients are mixed well, your batter will come alive. It says in Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
7. Consistency – You need to double check your batter on a regular basis to see if it is right. It says in 2 Corinthians 13:5a to, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.”
8. Balance – We must take the time to weigh the batter to see if we have balance. Ecclesiastes 3:1 encourages us that, “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.”
9. Fruits of the Spirit – It is very important to carefully add all the Fruits of the Spirit into the batter. These fruits are listed in Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.“
10. Gifts of the Spirit – These are added as the Holy Spirit wills for the benefit of all. 1Corinthians 12:8-10 lists the gifts that the Holy Spirit will be adding, “For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:”
The batter is the base of the recipe and it holds the other ingredients in their place. The Word of God is our spiritual batter and it holds every area of life together. In order to have a good batter we need to read and study the Word of God 365 days / year.
A batter needs to have the right consistency, so we need to carefully measure our ingredients. The amount of liquid determines the consistency of the batter. A runny batter has too much liquid and not enough solids and can’t hold other ingredients together. A thick batter has too much solid and lacks sufficient liquid and is difficult to work with.
We need the Living Waters, the redemptive blood of Jesus Christ and His power, the Holy Spirit freely flowing in our lives. If we have the Word of God only, then we have religion. But when we have relationship with our Redeemer, Jesus Christ and the revelation of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God becomes the Living Word.
The Fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance add the balance that is needed to preserve a good witness throughout our lifetime.
And added at the right time a mixture of the Gifts of the Spirit, a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healings, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, diverse kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues, will add the variety of textures, colors and flavors needed to draw others to Christ and His ways through us.
Working with this recipe will prevent us from becoming spiritual fruitcakes and will enhance the variety of textures, colors and flavors that we’ve been given that will preserve our testimony of God’s grace upon our lives.
Becky Dvorak is a prophetic healing evangelist and the Destiny Image author of DARE to Believe, Greater Than Magic and The Healing Creed. Visit her at authorbeckydvorak.com.