The Secret Ingredient in Any Good Recipe

There is one ingredient to any recipe that can make or break the taste. This ingredient makes all vegetables taste better, especially ones you grow. No, I am not speaking of salt, and in actuality, it’s not just food that this ingredient makes great. This ingredient is the secret of making all of life great. What is the secret ingredient? Love!

The Secret Ingredient

The presence of love in anything makes for greatness. For instance, when someone loves cooking, their food tastes better. When we love our work, the result is more fruitful. Raising a child in love is most effective. Everything we do in love is better. Love is the secret sauce to all of life.

I have seen this over and over. As an example, you can have two people cook an identical recipe and the one who cooks with love, has inevitably better food. Love makes everything better, and without love even the best ingredients are left lacking.

Why is this? Why would love be the deciding factor? Because Love is God. Our God is love and when we love He is there.

God is love, and the man whose life is lived in love does, in fact, live in God, and God does, in fact, live in him.
1 John 4:16b PHILLIPS

Love Makes the Difference

I use the example of food because food makes this obvious and immediate. We can taste and see the presence of love or not. It is just that evident. But this is true in all of life. This principle is universal. Whether building, writing, serving or whatever we are doing, love makes it better.

Find an anxious person and look at the fruit of their labors. I guarantee the wake will be destructive. We’ve spoken on the podcast of how people who have served us in the flesh and out of self left waves of disaster. It was as if everything they touched was corrupted. This is how it is when we live without love.

There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love.
1 John 4:18 HCSB

On the other hand, with the presence of love we have the Midas touch. Love is the making of life. Life infused with love is God. It is impossible to be in love and it not be love for God. Because God is love, if we love it is because we love God.

Brother Lawrence

I believe this is what we see in the life of Brother Lawrence. He did everything for the love of God. He has become a hero of mine in the faith. His focus was so clear and I wish I could have known him. In The Practice of the Presence of God, Lawrence says, “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.” Isn’t this just beautiful?

I’m reminded of the song I learned at vacation Bible school: “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” We will be known by our love. So as I proceed through my world, I am purposing to be in Love. And this doesn’t mean soupy and sloppy emotion, this means Love which is God. Everything I do, I choose it to be bathed in love.

We have come to know [by personal observation and experience], and have believed [with deep, consistent faith] the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides continually in him.
1 John 4:16 AMP