Yeast Of The Heart.

There was a very nice story on CNN recently about a Baker who helped about ten ducklings jump down from the roof of his shop in Spokane, Washington in United States of America, Spokane also is the home of my friend Chris Merkling who pastors a church there, and while I was thinking about the Baker who took these birds to the local river, I also wonder whether my friend Chris will use this Baker to talk to his congregation about taking the focus of ourselves and help other people, whether they a children or ducklings.

One aspect of Baking that still fascinates me is the yeast; the yeast is mentioned throughout the bible, one of the interesting place yeast was mention in the bible is Mark 8: 15, Jesus spoke about yeast, not his own yeast, we know he was a carpenter and not a baker, but he spoke about the yeast of the Pharisee and that of Herod.

Before we can understand what Jesus meant by the use of the word yeast, we should look at what yeast does to bread. Yeast puffs up the bread, giving it an inflated shape and allows it to be filled with hot air.

There are certain things that can puff us up, one of them is pride, pride could be positive or negative, and pride can destroy.

An inflated estimation of your past successes can lead to prideful behavior and as the saying goes pride comes before a fall. Pride finds comfort in false security; it also blinds you to your vulnerability to temptation.

Our pride can become positive, when we feel the satisfaction of what God does through us, not being proud of what we have accomplished but what God has done through us; you can feel positive pride in the integrity and the honesty of your life.

Negative pride can take you to two extremes, one is legalism the other is passion and vice, legalism is the end product of pride, this is not wanting to accept God’s grace in Christ Jesus and always trying to pay one way or the other for salvation that has been freely provided. On the other hand with all that success has provided for us, for some of us the next thing we want is to fulfill all our fleshly desires. Either way our negative pride like yeast can spread and influence other people.

This brings me back to the Baker of Spokane; he guarded the ducklings and their mother to a local river in the town till they are safe to swim away.

We also must guard against the activity of negative pride in our lives, and not spread the influence to our spouses, kids, siblings, co-workers and families. This could be achieve when we relax and allow God to take full control of our lives, when we submit our hearts and our minds to him, this is achievable. Amen