After being back from family and senior camp for about a week, the food in our house is finally returning to normal. All remnants of the plethora of chips, twizzlers, and beef jerky that we brought to camp have disappeared. Mom bought salad ingredients, dad made a batch of boiled eggs, and Jon is squeezing pizza and brats into our diet any where they’ll fit.
The one staple that is yet missing from the Poland household, however, is Cheerios. You know, those round, crunchy bites of heaven that will fill you up yet reduce your cholesterol by 10% at the same time? Yes, those are sadly missing.
Yesterday, mom went to the grocery store with my desperate pleas for her to “please, don’t forget the cheerios!!!” still ringing in her ears. What did I see in the back of the car when she came back?? Horror of horrors, it was a box of Tasteeos!!
When you compare Tasteeos and Cheerios, they look the same and the ingredients are almost identical. So what makes one heavenly and the other like chewy bites of cardboard?
The taste. The cost.
The Taste:
If you had a blind taste test, I guarantee that you can distinguish between cheerios and tasteeos. It’s the same in our walk with God. God can tell when our relationship is real. The Bible makes several references to our “savour”, when it is pleasing, and when it is unpleasing (i.e. 2 Corinthians 2:15 & Amos 5:21).
Put God up to a blind taste test of us, and if we are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, Revelations 3:16 states that God will spew us out of His mouth (Which happens to be my first reaction when I eat Tasteeos :)
The Cost:
When questioned why she brought home Tasteeos instead of Cheerios, mom’s reply was simple: The Cost. She wasn’t willing to pay the price to get the genuine thing, so instead she bought the knock-off. Again, it is the same in our christian walks. To have a genuine relationship with God, we need to be willing to pay the price, no matter what it may be. Anything less and you have a knock off relationship.
Even though the boxes look the same, the nutritional value is the same, and the ingredients are the same, there are very real differences between Tasteeos and Cheerios. It is exactly the same with us. We might look the same on the outside, receive the same amount of nutrition through sermons and devotions, and have the same foundational beliefs and doctrines, but there are differences between genuine and knock-off Christians.
There are Cheerio Christians and Tasteeo Christians. Which are you?
