Adding God to the Mix - Jemima Varughese

I was recently thinking about what I could share at church, and as I was thinking about it and praying about it, I started thinking about all my favourite cooking shows. Does anyone else love the Cooking Channel? I’m talking Bobby's Brunch, The Kitchen, Nigella Lawson, MasterChef, Best British Baker. But my two favourite shows are called The Pioneer Woman and Farmhouse Rules. The reason why I love these two shows are because it's just a mama in her kitchen having a chat as she cooks. You literally feel like you're sitting across the bench having a chat with her, watching her as she puts together this incredible dish. You can almost smell it through the television.

I love to bake. In our first year of marriage, I used to bake a lot. We would always have people come over, and I'd always serve them chocolate chip cookies.

THERE'S SO MUCH THAT YOU CAN LEARN ABOUT CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES From GOD

...so I’m going to share with you the recipe for my famous chocolate chip cookies, and as I do, I'm going to talk to you about what happens when you add God to the mix; because life is like a dish. You have different ingredients to make something special. Just like your life, you have different components to your life that makes you who you are. For example, I am Jemima. Part of me is a daughter of the Most High King. I am the wife of the very gorgeous Mark Varughese. I am the mother of two sons. I'm also a pastor. I'm a worker. I'm a friend. I'm a sister. All these components make up who I am.

WHEN YOU PUT EVERYTHING TOGETHER, YOU CREATE SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE TASTE, SEE, AND EXPERIENCE.

When you make chocolate chip cookies, the first thing you need to do is put in flour. I like to use 2 and a half cups. When you put in the flour, you must always sift it, because if you just dump flour into the mix you end up with a very lumpy batter. Some things in your life need to be sifted before it's added. Then always you have to add sugar. I've mixed brown sugar and white sugar together. Sugar is like your family. You know, the sweetness in your life (for some of us.) For others of us, it could be the salt. You must have both. Then you have bicarbonate soda. You need a bit of that, which makes the recipe rise- just like the rises and high moments of your life. Then you've got some protein, an egg, which brings life and all sorts of stuff to make your dish. You always need a little bit of vanilla. That's what I told my husband when we had kids...we got a lot more than what we thought. Just like the batter, in life, all these things get mixed together to make something.

Now, there's one ingredient, well, two ingredients that are missing. To make chocolate chip cookies, you've got to have chocolate or else the cookie is boring, it's bland, and it's lifeless really. It's actually hypocritical. "Hey, would you try my chocolate chip cookies without chocolate?" People would be like, "That's crazy." You need chocolate in your batter for chocolate chip cookies. However, if I put chocolate into this batter right now it's not going to work because the batter is dry. A great ingredient to use is oil. Now, oil also can represent the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The Bible describes the presence of God like an anointing. When you put oil into batter, it gets moist and it starts to make the batter stick together so it's better and ready for the chocolate.

You might be in a season in your life and it feels dry. You want the chocolate. You want that miracle, that thing to make your life go into the supernatural dimension of what God has for you- but it’s dry at the moment. I'm here to say: add God to your mix. When you add God to your mix, it creates hope. Just by adding God to every part of your being, every part of your life, creates a hope in your heart and gets you ready for what’s to come. You know, there was a woman in the Bible named Elizabeth and she so desperately wanted a son. She would cry out to God, pray every day, "God, give me a son." You know what? She added God to the mix of her life. Sometimes we’ve just gotta get up and say, "Come on, God. I want my miracle. Come on. I'm barren at the moment. There's no fruit coming out of me. I'm desperate for this son, God. Can you hear my prayer for this son? Lord Jesus, I want a son, God. Give me just one son. I don't care. Even give me a daughter. It doesn't matter. I just want a child." This was the desire of Elizabeth’s heart. So she added God to every part of her life, every part until it was saturated with God- until one day an angel turned up to her husband and the said, "The Lord has heard your prayer." In Luke 1, the Lord has seen. He's heard. Even though Elizabeth was past the age of giving birth, it was physically impossible, God came down and, in one instant, her chocolate turned up. And God answered her prayer. Not only did He answer her prayer, there was such sweetness in the prayer because do you know who her son was? John the Baptist. This lady who added God to her mix created hope in her life- and God saw this and thought,

"I CAN WORK WITH THIS WOMAN. I CAN GIVE HER SOMETHING AND NOT ONLY WHAT SHE DESIRES, BUT SOMETHING WAY BEYOND HER IMAGINATION."

For one season of my life, I didn't have a husband and my life looked dry. The batter was dry. There was no moist. I made a decision that I would add God to my singleness. I would serve Him. God knew that I was after the most gorgeous, the most handsomest, the most darkest man in the universe, but it didn't come for many years. During those many years, I had to stop adding negativity, stop adding disbelief, stop listening to those people that said my standards were too high, and go, "No, I'm going to add God to my singleness." Then one day I get a call and my chocolate turned up. What I'm here today to tell you is when you add God to your mix, you put yourself in a position for a miracle. You put yourself in a position for God to work amazingly through your life and beyond your imagination. I had no idea who God had handpicked for me. If I had a choice, I would have probably not have picked as high of a standard as what I got. Elizabeth, she was probably just happy with a son, but she put herself in the right place at the right time, adding the right mix of God into her life.

The other thing that happens when you add God to your mix is you create strength. Do you know that disappointment can drain you? It can make you tired. It can make you feel burnt out. When you add God to something, you're adding strength to something. Isaiah 40:29 says, "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." When you add him to wherever those bits of your life are weak, you are adding God to that. If you are weak with temptation, add God to the mix. It will be very hard to fall for temptation when God is added. You know, sometimes we have separate lives. We have church life. We have business life. We have family life. We have work life. Who we are at church is, "Praise the Lord. Yes, brother. Everything is good. Thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah. Amen." Then we go out with our friends and we swear, we tell dirty jokes, we laugh. We are a different person. Maybe with family, we fight, we're narky. We're just not the Sunday person. We are different. We don't add God to the mix of our entire life. The result is, a lot of us, when we do that lack strength. We get weak. When you get weak, it is easy to sin.

There's a man in Bible called David. David, who loved God with all his heart, in 1 Samuel 30 did something stupid. He was a leader and he went to a land with his soldiers, with his team, and they went and raided an enemy. If you look at chapters earlier in chapter 27, he shouldn't have ever done that. He actually took matters into his own hands and didn't rely on God to protect him. He thought, "I need to protect myself. I'm going to move away and I'm going to raid these towns to help me." Him and his team went and raided a town. When they came back, all their women, their children, and their resources were all stolen from an enemy who'd come in and stolen everything. At that moment, David's team, his soldiers, his loyal friends got pretty mad. They wanted to stone him. They wanted to kill him. Right there and then, David could have run away. He could have isolated himself. He could have killed himself. He didn't know if his kids were alive or his wife. He'd come back and they disappeared. There's no Instagrams in those days. It's not like he saw on social media. He had no idea if they were still alive. It says in the Bible that David went and strengthened himself in the Lord. He added God to the mix of his disappointment, of his mistake, of the thing that he had messed up with instead of going, "No, God. I'm not going to involve you." He added God to that mix. What happened? God gave him a word. The word was so powerful he was able to go back to the soldiers and talk to them, turn their hearts back, and they went back to the enemy and they got back everything that the enemy had stolen from them. When you add God to your mix, you create strength, strength in a situation that you can go back to the enemy. Maybe you messed up. Maybe you did something stupid. Maybe you're involved in a sin. You get right with God. You add God to the mix.

YOU GET YOUR STRENGTH AND YOU GO BACK AND GET WHAT THE ENEMY HAS STOLEN FROM YOU.

When you add God, you put yourself in a position for the impossible. It was impossible for David to turn 400 men back to him and convince them to go and take on the enemy. I mean, why would they trust him? He added God to the mix and they were able to win.

You might be in this place and there's an area in your life that's barren. There's a desire in your life that God hasn't met yet. It's a miracle that you need. Maybe it's in sickness. Maybe it's a spouse. Maybe it's children. Maybe it's financial. Maybe it's a conflict. Maybe you're believing for an unsaved family member to get saved. The Lord wanted to encourage you tonight that you've just got to add him to every mix. Keep going. Keep praying. Keep believing. Keep worshiping him. As you keep adding Him to your mix, you're opening yourself up for a miracle. In Isaiah 54:1, it talks about what to do when you're barren, when you're waiting, when your batter is dry. It says, "Sing, barren woman. You who never bore a child, shout for joy. Burst into song." It's what it says. Celebrate. In that season, praise him. "For more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband," says the Lord.

YOUR shout of PRAISE IS A mighty WEAPON against the enemy.

God is getting you ready for your miracle. You've been believing. You've been pouring in in every area of your life. Imagine that strategy that will open up the door for finances in your life. Imagine that amazing spouse that's just around the corner, that child that is yet to be born. What is the miracle that you're waiting for? What is the breakthrough that you need? What is the strength that needs to be added to your life? Begin to praise him. Begin to declare His praises.

Written by Jemima Varughese

Jemima is married to Mark and leads Kingdomcity Communications Ltd. They have two sons, Zeke and Caleb.