The Substitute

John 18:14– Caiaphas was he, which gave counsel to the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people (KJV).

I enjoy testing new recipes, but when the urge to create appears, the required ingredients are not always in the cupboard! I occasionally substitute one item with another. This creates a new recipe but it is certainly not the one I started with! When my friend gave me her Ham and Corn Chowder recipe, this is what happened.

Ham and Corn Chowder (original)

1 ½ cup whole milk, ½ cup chopped deli ham, 1 lb. bag of frozen whole kernel corn, 1-10 oz. tin of cream of celery soup and 2 sliced green onions. 

I had 1% milk but cut it down by ¾ because I replaced the corn kernels with 2 tins of creamed corn. My ham was leftover from a recent dinner steak. I used a cup because I didn’t want to be bothered with more leftover bits. Mushroom soup replaced the celery. I diced Spanish onion, heated it and ate some. It didn’t taste like my friend’s chowder. Good, but definitely not the same.

We all search for substitutes We’re lonely so we eat; angry, so we drive with road-rage. Desperate to be loved, we make ourselves over to appeal to a possible partner. We waste time trying to fill the void with the false, unsubstantial, the phony, the whatever that is not Jesus.

Dear Ones, there is no substitute for the real thing. Christ.

Romans 5:18– Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it (MSG).