“The Recipe for AHA”
Our devotion this week comes from the YouVersion Bible App. It was written by Kyle Idleman and is an excerpt of his book, “AHA”.
My wife has this cookbook at home, a gift from our wedding. It’s called “The Three Ingredients Cookbook.” She would want me to tell you that she doesn’t really use it. When she cooks, there’s typically more than three ingredients involved. The truth is that I am the one who uses “The Three Ingredients Cookbook.”
On the rare occasions I’m allowed in the kitchen, this cookbook is my go-to cooking companion, because honestly, three ingredients is about my culinary capacity. One of the things I’ve learned the hard way is that when using The Three Ingredient Cookbook, all the ingredients are necessary—no, absolutely vital.
This is the downside to The Three Ingredient Cookbook. You can’t cheat. If you only use two ingredients, it doesn’t work very well.
The same is true for AHA experiences.
I’ve listened to the AHA experiences of hundreds—if not thousands—of people over the years. I’ve studied numerous transformation experiences of key figures in the Bible. With striking consistency, AHA always has three ingredients. If any one of these ingredients is missing, it short-circuits the transformation process:
(1) A Sudden Awakening (2) Brutal Honesty (3) Immediate Action (Awakening, Honesty, Action = AHA)
If there is an awakening and honesty, but no action, then AHA doesn’t happen.
If there is awakening and action, but honesty is overlooked, AHA will be short-lived.
But when God’s Word and the Holy Spirit bring these three things together in your life, you will experience AHA—a God-given moment that changes everything.
Read Luke 15:11-32.
11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his propertybetween them.
13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
Are you ready for an AHA moment that changes you? Are you willing to go through the three steps in this process?
“AWAKENING – Coming To Your Senses”
Often we miss the alarms sounding in our lives because we’re not sensitive to them. The soft harp alarm won’t do the job—it’s going to take the blaring alarm to wake us up. So instead of responding to the alarm early, we keep hitting snooze. The alarm grows louder and louder until eventually it is so unpleasant we can’t ignore it any longer. So we wake up, rub our eyes, look around to find the prodigal sons pigs surrounding us, and wonder how it came to this.
Here’s my question for you: Are there alarms sounding in your life right now?
In Scripture there are a number of examples of how God sounds the alarm. Often times the alarm sounds early on to wake us up before things have fallen apart. Sometimes people think they have to hit rock bottom before they come to their senses, but what if God is trying to wake you up right now to save you from heartbreak in the Distant Country later?
2 Chronicles 36:15 speaks of how God sounds the alarm to warn his people. The expression “rising up early” doesn’t mean God got out of bed early. Rather it is best understood as “taking action early.” In this context, it means He sounded the alarm as quickly as the problems were perceived.
And then we read why He warned: “… because he had compassion on his people…” These alarms are for our own good, because God loves us.
Read 2 Chronicles 36:15.
15 The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place.
Read Genesis 4:6-7.
6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.
Are there any alarms you’ve been ignoring, choosing to snooze rather than awaken? Can you think of any time when God gave you early alarms in order to save you from later heart-break/sin?
