The year my mother and brother died, we decided to have a big ole family Christmas at my parents’ house. Everyone would be there from my mom’s side of the family. We even decided to draw names and exchange gifts. My mom and brother had only died 23 days apart from each other. It started in October, so we were all still very raw and pretty much going through life like zombies.
Now, my mom was famous for her chocolate pie. It was absolutely awesome, and my father just loved it! She always topped pies of this sort with a mile-high gorgeous meringue. Cool whip, or some other type of whipping cream, had no place on a pie – unless it was as an enhancement to the pie as is the case in apple or cherry. Nope, cool whip on top of a pudding/cream pie was a sign of either a lazy cook or someone who just wasn’t brought up right. This was very much a point of pride with my mother. (We won’t even discuss pie crust at this time, but just so you know, mama wouldn’t have brought a store-bought crust into her home to save her life!)
No one in the whole family knew how to make this pie…except me. Mama made the pie, with me, at her home one time just before we knew she was sick. I know now that she knew, and she wanted to make sure someone would be able to continue making that pie for my dad and the rest of the family. My sister lived on the West Coast at the time, so the responsibility fell to me. I look back now and remember how she carefully looked over her recipe with me and explained things. She made me do the more difficult steps to make sure I understood, but she handled the meringue herself – describing as she went.
No Use Crying Over Liquid Meringue
And so, the task fell to me to make mama’s famous chocolate pie for the big ole family Christmas that year. I felt up to the task. I got up early that morning and began making two chocolate pies. Everything was going great. The crust was perfect and the chocolate filling was amazing. Now if I could just add the crowning glory on top, all would be well and we’d be ready to go.
I had made meringue only a few times before this, but I knew I could do it. First batch – didn’t make. It fell flat. Well, it actually stayed flat cause it never did rise or get fluffy. I wasn’t very happy about this, but I wasn’t going to let it discourage me. I’d just get it right the second time. I had just enough eggs left to do it one more time. I looked back over my notes on how to make the perfect meringue, reassured myself, and turned on the blender. To my shock & awe, the meringue didn’t make…AGAIN! I had these two perfectly beautiful chocolate pies just sitting there waiting to be topped with meringue. I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to do. The whole family was coming and everyone was expecting my mom’s pie.
Out of desperation, I went ahead and poured the liquid meringue on top of the two pies and put them in the oven. I had some miserable hope that during the cooking process, the meringue would miraculously rise and form the lofty peaks of lusciousness that were the epitome of my mother’s work.
It was not to be.
When I took the pies out of the oven and saw the pitiful excuse for meringue on top, I just started crying. I cried and cried. I called my sister in Portland, and cried to her and she cried with me.
Just Not Good Enough
It was just another reminder that my mom was really gone and she wasn’t coming back. It was just another reminder that I wasn’t her and I would never be her. It was just another reminder that I could never even fill her shoes.
It was just another reminder that I was a failure. I couldn’t do anything right. If I ever did get something right – it was just an accident. I wasn’t good enough. I never would be. I could read a million books, do a million Bible studies, lead a million women’s ministry events, earn three PhD’s, raise the best children and have the happiest husband in the history of the world…and I would still be liquid meringue. All I’d ever be – is liquid meringue.
Liquid meringue isn’t what it should be. It fails to meet the standards and expectations we have for meringue. We look at it and say, “Well, that ain’t right.” All the ingredients are there, unfortunately, it just ain’t right.
As Christians, we face this kind of spiritual warfare on a regular basis. I face it myself almost daily. Satan knows our weaknesses. He loves to twist things and place doubt. At some point in my day, he will usually find a way to whisper, “You aren’t good enough. You will never be good enough. What makes you think you can do that? Look at your past. You were such a terrible person. You still sin everyday; you are just a hypocrite. You don’t have a close enough relationship with Jesus. You need to do more here, here, and here.”
Satan does these things because that’s his job. He runs around on earth doing all he can to deceive and devour.
The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?”
“From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered Him, “and walking around on it.” (Job 1:7)
Be serious! Be alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
He wants Christians to focus on anything except Jesus. When we aren’t kingdom-focused, we aren’t producing fruit. The less fruit produced, the happier Satan gets because we aren’t doing the work of the Father. If Satan can keep you frozen in your insecurities about your worthiness, then he’s winning, and he’s filling the world with liquid meringue. (Let me make this clear, any Christian that is struggling due to hidden sin must bring that to Jesus. You will always wrestle with that until you exercise those demons.)
Wrestling with Worthiness
So, let me help you with your struggle about worthiness.
Are you good enough? Have you read enough? Is your life perfect enough? Are you worthy?
The answer is…no, but yes. Give me a minute to help you see this.
Even John the Baptist said he was not worthy. “Someone stands among you, but you don’t know him. He is the one coming after me, whose sandal strap I’m not worthy to untie,” (John 1:26-27).
In Luke 7, Jesus proclaimed the man with the most faith in all Israel was the centurion who sent messengers because he wasn’t even worthy enough to go to Jesus himself, much less have Jesus come under the roof of his home. He believed if Jesus just spoke the words, his ailing servant would be healed. He showed his faith by confessing his unworthiness, and this moved Jesus.
Humans aren’t good enough, and can never be good enough, to cleanse ourselves of sin. If we were, there would have been no need for God to create a New Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, people were governed by a set of laws which included atoning for their sins once a year. This was called the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. In Leviticus 16, God explained to Moses exactly what must be done for the Israelites to make atonement for their sins. Only blood sacrifices of innocent animals would work. The High Priest wasn’t worthy enough to enter into the Holiest sanctuary to perform the ritual until he made a sacrifice for himself. Then he could begin to atone for the people. This had to be done every year.
This is to be a permanent statute for you, to make atonement for the Israelites once a year because of all their sins.” And all this was done as the Lord commanded Moses. (Leviticus 16:34)
God promised His people a New Covenant would be established, and the ways of the Old Covenant would be no more.
“Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, (Jeremiah 31:31-32)
Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise. Jesus is the New Covenant by which our sins are forgiven. He is the pure lamb of God. Only His blood is sufficient to truly atone for our sins. Jesus only had to die one time. The unworthy sacrifices of animals under the Old Covenant had to be made every year. Jesus’ sacrifice is so worthy – it lasts forever.
But Jesus has now obtained a superior ministry, and to that degree He is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been legally enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second one, (Hebrews 8:6-7).
He entered the most holy place once for all, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow, sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of the Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to serve the living God? Therefore, He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance, because a death has taken place for redemption from the transgressions committed under the first covenant, (Hebrews 9:12-15).
Balancing the Scales of Worthiness
When we accept Christ as our sacrifice and realize that we can never save ourselves without Him…we are made worthy by His blood. His blood covers us. That is the very purpose for His sacrifice.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Christians don’t get a free pass to sin just because we are covered by the blood of Jesus. We can’t go around just doing whatever we want. The Holy Spirit lives inside us. It guides us to live a life that reflects Jesus and condemns us when we don’t act Christ-like.
Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
If you love me, you will keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you, (John 14:15-17).
It’s a pretty magnificent thing to know that God created us in His image (Genesis 1:27). That alone makes us worthy in some way, but the fact that He sent His only Son to die for us (John 3:16)…that is absolutely incredible. When I think about it, I feel just like liquid meringue. So unworthy. Yet, God felt we were so worth saving that He sent His only Son to save us. Only Satan would keep telling you that you’re not.
The balance in this scale of worthiness is found in that perfect recipe where you realize all these things at the same time:
- The Almighty Creator made YOU with His hands and loves YOU deeply
- You can never be good enough or do enough to be worthy of salvation on your own
- Jesus sacrificed Himself not because you deserved it, but because He loves you that much and it was the only way you could completely reconcile with the Father
- Bear fruit for your Savior because He is worthy
- With Christ as your Savior – you ARE good enough, not because of you but because of Him
- Every blessing you have been given comes from God simply because He wants to give it to you, and you should praise Him and use it to glorify Him in return
- Turn to God above all else; treasure Him above all else
This quote by John Piper sums it all up pretty nicely,
“To be worthy of the infinite worth of Jesus is to see and savor him as infinitely worthy.”
The Life of a Chocolate Pie
I remind myself quite often that I don’t have to be perfect – Jesus is. I am human and I will make mistakes, but I am saved and the love of Jesus abides in me. It is my deep desire to be worthy of Him and to have a life that reflects Him. So, I acknowledge my sins and ask for forgiveness and strength. Then, I cuss the devil every time I get a chance cause he just keeps trying to turn me into liquid meringue. Here’s some advice I’m gonna take myself: next time you feel like your Christian life is my mama’s chocolate pie with liquid meringue on top….just scrape that meringue off and eat it anyway, cause that’s a darn good pie.
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