Day Ninety-Five “Pepperoni Rolls”
Nothing compares to the aroma of freshly-baked, homemade bread. When our littles still lived at home, they loved pepperoni-roll day. I generally would arise pre-dawn, kneading and rolling out the dough, stuffing them to overload capacity with pepperoni and cheese, and then carefully spacing those small oval yummies on baking trays. After covering each tray with a light-weight towel, I sought out the warmest spot in the house to allow the fungi to do its thing. Fungi? Doesn’t sound appetizing, now does it? But common baker’s yeast is just that, microscopic organisms capable of fermentation. The resulting gases produced through this process cannot escape the stretchy, expandable dough. The dough rises, that luscious aroma fills the room, and voila, pepperoni rolls!
When leaven is mentioned in the Bible, it generally is a representation of sin or evil. Centuries ago, leaven was made from white bran or barley mixed with certain legumes and water, allowed to stand until it soured, or fermented. When this was added to fresh dough, the entire batch would, as a result, become leavened, or rise. To the Hebrew mind, this type of decaying state of fermentation suggested spiritual uncleanness and corruption. As Moses prepared for the first Passover feast before the great exodus out of Egypt, the people were instructed to eat “unleavened bread;” they were to “put away leaven out of their (your) houses:” and if anyone disobeyed and ate leavened bread, “…that soul shall be cut off from Israel.” That’s serious stuff! Cut off from the nation of Israel? God would soon meet face-to-face with His children on their wilderness journey, and He wanted them to be clean as they approached a holy God.
In the New Testament Book of I Corinthians, leaven is equated with “malice and wickedness” whereas unleavened bread is “sincerity and truth.” Sin had crept into the young church at Corinth and as a result, Paul warns his readers to “Purge out the old leaven,” Get rid of that sin quickly! Why the urgency? because leaven will eventually affect everything around it. That little sin that we allow, that slight touch of false doctrine, that bit of sensual stimulation, that seemingly insignificant backsliding, that tiny seed of bitterness, will spread its ugly roots throughout our lives. Just as the yeast popped those pepperoni rolls, sin left untreated and unconfessed will sour our entire Christian walk and testimony.
Perform some self-examination daily and be on the lookout for leaven. When you find it, purge it out of your life. Don’t allow it to fester, grow, and infect your walk with your Father, but confess and forsake it. Keep clean “with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
II Corinthians 5:6-7 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump: Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.
Lord, make me conscious of those little sins that creep into my life. Help me to purge them immediately so that my life will be clean in Your sight.
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