It’s the best non-secret recipe of summertime, where I am from, is the state-fair BEST EVER CHICKEN BBQ Sauce – prepared in the original 1950’s way by a Poultry Scientist… It’s not that it is just another marinade but it’s a deliberate reapplication of the “special sauce” every 5-10 minutes when flipping over the coal-fire cooked bird halves on the metal grates. Reapplication to get much flavor to stick and the oil keeps it from burning. Cooking over coals just right. It takes time. It takes sauce application and reapplication, it takes cooking dedication (6-7am start times) and it takes planning. It is worthwhile to plan as a group and prepare hundreds for a big crowd. 300 halves, $12 meals, that are snapped up in an hour is commonplace, and yes it is something special… In the heyday of service clubs (and my old marching band BBQ), I knew of 1500 halves to sell out in 2-3 hours at most. And if it doesn’t, worker people snap up the cooked halves for their freezers. Yum all around. 

It’s NOT a secret recipe (egg oil poultry seasoning salt) or a secret process, it is freely shared, but it takes time and preparation, yes, but so worth it. Especially if someone else does the work and all you have to do is pay? and eat? Oh blessed bites, I can taste it now. 

Lord forgive me, but the BBQ dedication to remind me of scripture applications – yes I am stretching it, but I find it a reminder of Your Love and Mercy. Mercy Applications – over and over again. On metal grates? Well, we are in Your net and lest we are throwing ourselves into trouble we WON’T fall into that fire while Jesus holds us on the grate of life. We are slow-cooked our whole lives over the fires of this world, yes, but remember we are IN it but not FROM this world. Yet we must experience the fires of life. You cover us to keep us protected, You catch us to keep us from pit death. Oh and your application of forgiveness comes again and again, every 5 minutes if needed when asked for. It’s not just Mercy but Mercy REAPPLIED. The blood of Your Sacrifice is like a soaking rain of a covering of special sauce and it sticks to us, doesn’t just slide off. It’s reapplied and reapplied too. It’s no secret EVEN IF IT IS THE GREATEST MYSTERY. 

And the coal???… Oh my Word, I just read Isaiah 6… Isaiah said one of the seraphim flew to me with a LIVE COAL in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; YOUR GUILT is TAKEN AWAY and YOUR SIN ATONED FOR.” 

Cool… I mean HOT… I mean AWESOME!!! Isaiah didn’t say the coal hurt or didn’t hurt, I bet that didn’t even matter at that moment. What mattered was that God forgave him, so that he could see God, talk with God, work for God. It is GOD Who forgives and makes Clean. It is God who can use His Fire for His cause. How do I want to approach God? Covered in His Mercy. 

May we all realize that the secret is in the coal (for Isaiah), and in the sauce (forgiveness), and these are NOT secret at all… NO secrets here: the Savior savors us!

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. David in Psalm 34

AMEN 

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Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.  And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” 

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”