Pastor Steven Furtick

How often do you catch yourself thinking how much better your life would be…  if only something or someone wasn’t a part of it?

There are so many painful events and difficult relationships that we would gladly strain out of our lives if it were up to us.  But a lot of times, the very elements that leave a bad taste in our mouth are essential ingredients in the recipe of our destiny.

Study the recipe for the sacred anointing oil in Exodus 30:22-25.
Note that it calls for lots of fragrant cinnamon and fragrant cane.  That’s the good stuff-the sweet smelling stuff.  Who doesn’t want God to load their anointing with cinnamon and cane?  Pleasure and popularity?  Encouragement and affirmation?
Sugar and spice and everything nice?

However, the same recipe that calls for cinnamon and cane calls for an equal amount liquid myrrh.  Myrrh is an extremely bitter substance.  Nobody really likes the idea of myrrh with their cane.  The two don’t seem to go together very well.  Who likes the smell of rejection and the stench of depression mixed in with achievement and accomplishment?

However, without the bitter, the sweet isn’t fit for consumption.  Every ingredient in the mix of your experience and anointing has been intentionally selected.

When God is preparing you for service He combines the bitter, the sweet, and the bittersweet.  Next He heats it up.  Then He stirs it up.  Finally He offers it up-for the good of others and the glory of Jesus.