Whole wheat. Multigrain. Oatbran. Sourdough. Asiago. Ciabatta.
Whatever you call it, we love our breads. I love the homemade breads that Marcia makes. Sometimes, I try to help her, though that usually makes it take more time. 🙂 My tasks are usually relegated to measuring the flour, salt, oil, water, and yeast. Yeast is what makes the bread rise to its best level. Every cook knows that just a little bit of yeast works its way through the whole loaf. We can’t see it working but we can see the results in the risen bread. It grows wherever it makes contact.
Yeast is a metaphor for the things we allow into our lives. What we look at, listen to, and think about enter our lives through the open doors of our hearts and minds. It only takes a small amount of certain things to influence and feed our growing desires, thoughts, and ambitions. We can’t always see their influence in our lives, but the results become evident soon enough. They rise within us. It could be a good yeast, like God’s call for us to step out in obedient faith. Or it could be a harmful yeast that rises within us, feeding selfish desires, tolerating evil, and ignoring God and others.
Paul refers to this harmful yeast in 1 Corinthians 5. He is referring to participating and boasting about detestable things that should not be tolerated. He warns, “Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?” In other words, every time we open our lives to even a little bit of harmful influences, it finds a way of insidiously spreading throughout our entire lives. It becomes the pattern for how we think, speak, and act. That’s why Paul says in Ephesians 5:3 “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” Do you find it interesting that he speaks about sexual immorality and “any kind of greed” in the same sentence? It emphasizes the point that we can’t judge the sins of others while excusing our own. However we choose to classify evil and sin, it all will find a way of infiltrating and rising up in ways that take over the control centers of our lives until we’re totally subdued by its destructive influence.
But there’s good news!
While the reference to yeast in the bible is often one of warning to avoid and admonish sin, it’s also an encouragement for us to pursue what can rise within us in such a magnificent way… that “yeast” is the kingdom of God exposed to our hearts.
Jesus said the kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.” (Luke 13:20-21) God’s kingdom is a spiritual one that affects us even now as we expose our hearts and minds and ambitions to it. Little commitments of faith and obedience, like yeast, rise within us and make our lives rise to a higher level. We don’t always see it at work, but the results are evident:
- Peace where there used to be anxiety
- Prayer that replaced worry
- Confidence where fear once stood ground
- Faith standing firm where only doubt stood trembling
- Persistence where it was formerly easier to give up
- Generosity where greed prevailed
Like yeast, the continual yielding of our lives to the transformational power of God’s Spirit influences more and more of our lives. We expose ourselves to this good “yeast” by studying God’s Word, talking with him in prayer, by creating space in our lives to simply enjoy God, by seeking the counsel of mature believers and investing ourselves in others. What once represented a lump of lifeless dough rises to a wholesome, aromatic, and pleasant offering to God when it is regularly yielded to the rising power of God’s truth and grace. And whereas bread yeast doesn’t jump from one loaf to another, the yeast of God’s kingdom in us readily spreads to those around us. They might not see how it works, but the results in our lives should be evident to them. “There’s something different about them,” they say, “something genuinely appealing to my heart.”
Here’s the truth. You get to decide every day what kind of yeast you want to add to your “bread of life.” Let’s choose wisely. Whatever you add, even a little will have a bigger influence than you may know!
