I love chocolate, and that's why it deserves another look!

If you were here Wednesday night, you know I had a little to do with the services. Part of what I did was the invitation, and I talked about chocolate. I actually had a little different train of thought about it, and not to let the idea go to waste I figured I'd use it today.

Let me say, without hesitation, chocolate is GOOD. Chocolate is a food, so they tell me, and not just a sweet or a snack or even an ingredient. Certainly it can be these other things, but it stands on its own. Chocolate, when kept in its wrapper, will keep for a long time. It might get melted by being left in the car on a sunny day, or become brittle after getting put in the freezer, but it still eats good either way! Sure, it gets white and fluffy looking on the outside after a long time; that's just the cocoa butter coming out of it. If you heat it up a bit and stir it, it goes right back to its delicious, original state.

As I stressed before, chocolate is GOOD. It is made good. Oh, we junk it up by adding nuts or caramel or rice crispies to it, but it's really good just the way it's stirred up in the pot. Chocolate without stuff thrown in it is often referred to as being pure. Folks eat chocolate with lots of good things, and unfortunately lots of bad things, too. They mix it with booze, and hide a drugs taste with it, etc. That's too bad because it almost seems like its misused. I mean, what a waste of perfectly good chocolate that I could be eating!

There are different qualities of chocolate, too, depending usually on the maker. Palmer tastes gritty and waxy, at least to me, and Hersheys is not too far from that. Nestle makes it very smooth, but Lindt or Godiva or Ghirardelli probably top the scale. They all start with the same beans, really, it's the way the beans are cooked that makes the difference.

And we see that people are a lot like chocolate. The fact is, we are all made GOOD. Everyone is! First off, God doesn't make junk. Secondly, babies are not evil they are innocent. Like those beans, we have the potential to be Palmers or Lindt or somewhere in-between. How do we spend our lives - how are we cooked? Do we do the minimum we can so we are just barely recognizable as a Christian, or do we blend in generous amounts of good works, a good heart, love, mercy, faith and hope?

What other things do we blend in? You know, some things aren't very complimentary to chocolate. I don't think I'd like filth or dirt in my chocolate, and how about that we are just as unappealing as Christians if we mix this in our lives, too. Once we get it in, it's hard to pick out. And that wrapper - put on Christ and humility and while life may heat up around you and you melt inside the wrapper, you're still good to eat! That wrapper will protect you and keep you complete.

Chocolate is called food of the gods. What kind of chocolate will you be? Delightful to the taste, or sour/bitter/yuk? Most folks don't like just pure cocoa, either, you need some good stuff blended in, like milk and sugar, obedience and faith. Prayer is a part of it, too, a sweet aroma (and who doesn't like the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking?) In other words, you aren't a delight to God just because. If you love God, you will keep his commandments. Good and faithful servant, isn't that how it's worded?

I saw on TV that some chocolate doesn't turn out right. Oh, it's made OK but then people try to add yuk stuff to it that just doesn't cut it. So it ends up at least in one place being mixed into the road tar. Only fit to be cast out and trodden underfoot... sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

Randy