Half Baked

A devotional from Charles H. Spurgeon's Morning and Evening that has impacted me:

Half Baked

"Ephraim is a cake unturned."

--Hosea 7:8

A cake unturned is half-baked, and so was Ephraim. In many respects he was untouched by divine grace. Although there was some partial obedience, there was a lot of rebellion.

My soul, is this the case with you? Are you thorough in the things of God? Has grace touched the very center of your being? Can you feel its divine operation in your life, your actions, your words, and your thoughts? To be sanctified in spirit, soul, and body should be your aim and prayer.

Although sanctification may not now be perfected in you, it must be evident in all your actions for there cannot be the appearance of holiness in one place and sin reigning in another. If this is the case, you are a half-baked cake.

A cake not turned is soon burned. Although you cannot have too much true religion, there are some who seem burned black with bigoted zeal. Others are charred to a cinder with a vain Pharisaic ostentation of those religious performances that fit their disposition.. An assumed appearance of superior sanctity frequently accompanies a total absence of all vital godliness. Those saints in public are devils in private. They deal in flour by day and in soot by night. The cake burned on one side is mere dough on the other.

If this is I, Oh Lord, turn me. Turn my unsanctified side to the fire of Your love. Let me feel the sacred glow. Let my burned side cool while I learn my weakness and that I need the heat from Your heavenly flame.

Do not let me be "a double-minded man, unstable in all [his] ways" (James 1:8). Let me be entirely under the powerful influence of reigning grace. If I am left as an unturned cake and am not on both sides the subject of Your grace, I will be consumed forever in everlasting burnings. Amen.