Monday, December 16, 2013

Holiday Stuffed Bread----------The Savior Complex


Prep:
What do people eat for holidays? Ham. Potatoes, mashed. Corn or another veggie. Rolls. At least in my experience. And, maybe I'm just weird, but I love all those thing smushed up together on my plate. So this recipe is a holiday meal, pre-mixed together. Also easily made largely from leftovers.Yum. Preheat your oven to 400.

Ingredients:
-Dough (pizza, turnover, dinner roll dough, you pick) OR french bread with a bunch of its core removed.
-Mashed potatoes or smashed potatoes. Creamy and good. But stiff. So leftovers are perfect.
-Ham, chopped into bits.
-Creamed corn. Or another veggie of your choosing.
-Cheese. Colby Jack is great.

Cooking Instructions:
1. Roll out your dough on a lightly floured surface OR remove most of the fluffy white insides of some french bread. 
2. In a bowl, whip together mashed potatoes, ham, and veggie. Add some garlic, salt, and pepper for a good flavor. A little butter never hurts either.
3. Spoon mixed ingredients onto dough and wrap dough around, forming a ball OR stuff mixed ingredients into bread.
4. Bake in the oven on a greased cooking tray for about 15 minutes. Top with cheese. Bake another 5 minutes.

Mmm.....



Thoughts on the Savior Complex

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." -John 15:12-15

How many times I've heard this verse misused (and misused it myself!) It's so common to hone in on the laying down one's life part and to catapult into thoughts and discussions of who you would gladly die for. But that isn't the point here. 

Consider the phrase "lay down my life" in another context.

"Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”
Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”
Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!" -John 13:36-38

That Peter denied Jesus is not what killed Christ. Nor was admitting he knew Jesus necessarily going result in peter getting killed. Laying down one's life has little to do with dying and much more to do with a willingness to sacrifice things of the self for the sake of others. 

Including pride. Sometimes it is truly laying down your life to not step in as a hero or a savior because you know that if you did so, it would honestly be for your own ego. Any other benefit for any other person would be the side dish.

Yet in so many ways, we make ourselves up as savior figures. Mini-Jesus'. Surely the intentions are good in many instances. 

I don't want to hurt her.
If I walk away, there will be no one left to witness to him.
It can't be loving to disappoint or offend so much.
Without pushing church on her, she'll walk away from it all.
He just needs to see that my love in unconditional, whatever the cost.
Too much hardship in her life- I just need to be nice no matter how mean she is. Kill her with kindness!
But, he needs me.

And it goes on and on. Sacrificing because we love others. Laying down our lives because we want them to live more wholly....

Stepping into shoes we cannot fill, or, more accurately, a cross that has already been the death of a Savior and already witness His rising again. 

Dying for someone doesn't save them, not truly. Giving up everything in one's life to try to be right in front of others, even for others' sakes, cannot save anyone. Being overly loving or extremely strict will save nobody.

The church cannot save. I cannot save. You cannot save.

Only Jesus Christ can save. 

We tread on dangerous ground when we develop a savior's complex. Satan lurks there, eager to bind us in our pride. To trample us when we don't measure up as we want to. To push us when we see "progress" and believe that we're succeeding.

In the wise words of my husband, "never try to do for God what is God's alone to do."

When He calls on you to be willing, to lay yourself down and the life of your's you so cling to, and to do so because He is at work in someone's life, obey. But never look for ways to be a martyr. Never pounce on the opportunity to be a savior-sort. The Lord can save without you. And when He calls on you, consider it pure joy and prepare to suffer. That's sacrificial love. 


"But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." -Acts 20:24




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