I love making bread!  It is a hobby, not a routine, so I’m hardly a professional.  Homemade bread takes a lot of time when made from scratch.  It all begins with a good dough.  The dough is made from all kinds of flour varieties you can choose.  Then you add heated butter, milk, a bit of salt, sugar and the most important ingredient of all—yeast.  You will not have bread that “rises to the occasion” into beautiful golden loaves to slice if you don’t add the yeast.  It only takes a relatively small amount but it effects every part of the dough.  The yeast is the catalyst for success! 

Jesus must have watched his earthly mom, Mary, as she made the daily bread for the family.  He related quickly to his female audience by adding this parable about yeast to his repertoire of illustrations.  “The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast…it permeates EVERY part of the dough.  Every.  Part.  Mixing and kneading is also an important process in bread making.  If the yeast is not mixed into the dough, the dough will not rise to become bread to eat that is good and tasty. 

So, it is with our lives. EVERY part of our life belongs to God.  We must give it all to Him so He can transform us from dough to sliced bread!  It is a process of allowing Him to mix in His growing character traits of mercy, grace, humility, gentleness, kindness, compassion and most of all His love.  Love is the basis of our faith in Him.  His love for us is the yeast that causes our faith to grow to be more and more like Him.  His love in us and our faith in Him will permeate our lives if we allow it.   We will be transformed!  No loafing around!

I have observed that too many of us compartmentalize faith.  We only pull out the “faith card” one day a week, if that.  We completely turn our lives over to Jesus ONLY when we have problems that we cannot solve with questions we cannot answer.  What if we stop putting our faith in a box and let it permeate every part of our lives—like yeast in the dough?  What would that look like?  I have learned that it begins each morning as we wake for the day.  Paul explains how to add the “yeast” to daily living;

“Place Your Life Before God” – “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”                   Romans 12:1-2, The Message

We give ALL our lives to Him.  Not in part but the whole.  Then we allow God to permeate every part of our being.  Walk with Him, talk with Him, listen to Him.  Allow all of God to permeate all of us.  Every. Part.

Matthew—The Law Fulfilled

Matthew 13:33-35, NLT

Parable of the Yeast

³³ Jesus also used this illustration: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.”

³⁴ Jesus always used stories and illustrations like these when speaking to the crowds. In fact, he never spoke to them without using such parables. ³⁵ This fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet:

“I will speak to you in parables.
    I will explain things hidden since the creation of the world.”

Abba, Father in Heaven,

If I want to think and behave more and more like You, I must give all of me to You.  Here I am, doing just that.  I cannot do anything of significance in this life without You.  You are my everything so I give every part of me back to you.  Transform me to be and do all you want which I know will be Your best for me.  Help me to love like you love. Change me from the inside out by permeating every part of my life.  May your glory be seen in my life so others will know you, too.

In Jesus Name, Amen