For previous posts, follow the links below:

Slow cooker faith, part 1: “on fire” for Jesus?

Slow Cooker Faith, part 2: Trying to re-kindle the flame

Slow Cooker Faith, part 3: Burn Victims

Slow Cooker Faith, part 4: What is slow cooker faith?

Slow Cooker Faith, part 5: Five Simple Ingredients

Slow Cooker Faith, part 6: A lifelong simmer

One of my favorite things about Crock Pot cooking is the smell.

Let’s say you’ve got some soup on low for seven hours. About two hours in, you’re going to start smelling the goodness. If you dump everything in the slow cooker and go to work, when you come home, the whole house is filled with a pleasing aroma.

It’s a different kind of smell even, than cooking on a stovetop. It’s a welcome-home, sit-a-spell kind of aroma. It smells like warmth and hospitality. It’s appetizing.

One of the favorite passages of those who want you to have “on fire” faith is Matthew 5:14-16:

You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

CSB

‭‭This passage is true—if Jesus said it, it’s true. But He’s not calling individual believers to be “on fire” to be the light that draws others. He’s talking about a lamp on a lamp stand. Which means He’s speaking to the gathered church (Revelation 1:20). It is simply not one person’s responsibility to be an ever-shining light. Unless that one person is Christ Himself (John 1:5; 8:12).

It is simply not one person’s responsibility to be an ever-shining light. Unless that one person is Christ Himself.

A slow cooker faith, by contrast, might start small, but then it builds into a pleasing aroma over time.

Your life in Christ will have a consistent temperature overall, even though there will be ebbs and flows. Others will catch a whiff now and again, and then eventually—to those the Lord is saving—your life will give off a warm, welcoming aroma.

For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved … an aroma of life leading to life.”

2 Corinthians 2:15, 16 CSB

By the long, slow work of sanctification, the Holy Spirit will make your life into an invitation for others to taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8).