Christians and Smoked Brisket

After reading the title to this entry, you may be asking what do briskets and Christians have to do with each other. In this post I will attempt to link the two together to provide an interesting illustration.

First, let me say that I love smoked brisket. I have a smoker at home and try to smoke something at least once a month if financially able to do so. Nothing, according to my taste buds, is more palatable than a good heaping portion of brisket that has been cooked long and slow over hickory or mesquite smoke. A brisket, however, has not always been so favorable to those doing the cooking or the ones doing the consuming. In times past this hunk of meat was simply thrown out and was not used for anything, because the meat is very tough and stringy. The brisket comes from the area of the neck between the shoulders of a cow or steer. Cooked in a traditional manner, you would have to chew for a week to be able to swallow a piece of this meat. In most cases it is good for nothing and fit only for the garbage heap, not the table.

However, when you take this otherwise worthless piece of meat, and cook it at a low temperature (approx. 150 - 225 degrees) for an extended amount of time (12 - 16 hours) an amazing transformation takes place that is not seen by the human eye. A brisket literally changes its chemistry. It is transformed from something detestable to something delectable. It changes from something worthless to something exceptional. This piece of beef that was once thrown out with the entrails metamorphoses into one of the most tender, tastiest cuts of meat. A brisket is genuinely changed from the inside.

I am smoking a brisket for my son's birthday party tomorrow and, as I was preparing the meat with seasonings, it occurred to me how much a Christian and a smoked brisket share with one another. Before a person places their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are as worthless and vile as a brisket once was. In the fifth chapter of the book of Galatians the apostle Paul says, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like." When writing to the Corinthians Paul, giving the same basic list of the deeds of the flesh, says, "and such were some of you." Man is a corrupt, wretched, reprehensible creature.

However, like a brisket meeting smoke and time, when a person meets Jesus Christ and gives their life to Him, they, too, are changed from the inside. An amazing change takes place within their hearts. They are the ones whose chemistry is rewritten. They have now become something delectable to the Lord's taste rather than something detestable. They are the one's who are transformed from something worthless to something exceptional. Paul went on to say to the Galatatians that, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul said, "but ye are washed, but ye are sacntified, but ye are justified" to the same people he said "and such were some of you."

People want "proof" that Jesus is who He says He is. The only evidence they need is the change in the lives of the people who have made Him their Lord and Savior. The only way for someone to produce the fruit of the Spirit is to have their lives totally changed. Paul, in Second Corinthians, says that if a person has trusted in Jesus that he is a totally new creature and the old person he was has passed away. Only one person can make such a change in a person's life and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. So, the next time you are savoring a piece of smoked brisket remember the change that that brisket under went and examine your own life to see if you have been transformed.