Baked in the Loaf

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Carl H. Stevens Jr. is pastor of Greater GraceWorld Outreach located in Baltimore, Maryland.Pastor Stevens is also chancellor of Maryland BibleCollege & Seminary and host of the internationalChristian radio program “The Grace Hour.” Thisbooklet was created from a message preached byPastor Stevens.

Pastor Stevens can be seen weekly on cabletelevision stations throughout the United States.Call us for information re g a rding programming inyour area.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from

the King James Version. Italics for emphasis are ours.

GRACE PUBLICATIONSP.O. BOX 18715

BALTIMORE, MD 21206

Printed in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

Copyright © 1996

in Hallmarks from the Heart, Vol. 1

Reprinted 2005

Grace Publications is a ministry of

Greater Grace World Outreach, Inc.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

WHAT IS GENTLENESS?

Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

BRING FORTH MUCH FRUIT

Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

BECOMING ONE

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

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INTRODUCTION

In Matthew 28:18, Jesus said, “All power isgiven unto me in heaven and in earth.” It is allunder Jesus Christ. In Philippians 2:10-11, Goddeclared that every knee would bow and everytongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,to the glory of the Father.

Jesus Christ, who holds all things togetherby the Wo rd of His power (Hebrews 1:3), is sosweet and so unique in the spirit of gentlenessthat He doesn’t even break a bruised reed, nordoes He quench a smoking flax. Do you under-stand what that means? It is hard to interpre tthis unless the Holy Spirit reveals it to yourheart: Jesus Christ, God A l m i g h t y, will not bre a kthe bruised reed.

Peter was an enthusiastic disciple with avery course exterior who was often devastatedby his own behavior. Yet, the Lord corrected himwith gentleness. Knowing what Peter was like,Jesus said to him, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan

hath desired to have you, that he may sift you aswheat” (Luke 22:31). Then, the Lord took Peter’ sb roken life and made him a vital part of HisBody. Peter was baked in the loaf and was usedto feed God’s sheep (John 21:16-17).

Is it any wonder that King David wrote, “thygentleness hath made me great” (Psalm 18:35)?What made David great? The gentleness of JesusChrist. Not judgment. Not negativity. Not Godstanding over him with a club ready to let himhave it. The thing that made David great was thegentleness of Jesus. And that same gentlenesshides us, shapes us, and allows us to go into thefire, where we are baked in the loaf, to becomea portion of God’s life on earth.

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Chapter One

WHAT IS GENTLENESS?

“A b ruised reed shall he not break, andsmoking flax shall he not quench, till he sendforth judgment unto victory. And in his nameshall the Gentiles trust” (Matthew 12:20-21).

This is one of the most unique passages inthe Bible because it speaks of something thatmade Jesus Christ great—His gentleness.

Think with me. He created the universe. InGenesis 17:1, “…the LO R D a p p e a red to A b r a m ,and said unto him, I am the Almighty God.” InIsaiah 45:5, He said, “I am the LO R D, and there isnone else, there is no God else beside me.” Andin Isaiah 45:21, “…there is no God else besideme; a just God and a Saviour; there is none be-side me.”

“But the wisdom that is from above is fir s tp u re, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be in-t reated, full of mercy and good fruits, withoutpartiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17).

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The wisdom that comes from God applieswhat it knows. This wisdom is very gentle, verypure, and very peaceable. Second Timothy 2:24-2 5a helps us understand what gentleness means,as it speaks of the behavior of an officer of thec h u rch: “And the servant of the Lord must notstrive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach,patient, in meekness instructing those that op-pose themselves.”

The servant of the Lord must not strive, asthat is the opposite of gentleness. He must notstrive; but, with meekness and gentleness, heshould teach those who oppose themselves.

One of the greatest characteristics of JesusChrist is, was, and always will be His gentle-ness. A gentle father will do more for his chil-d ren than any other type of father. Gentlenessdoes not compromise with sin and neither didJesus. There is a literal hell, and people who arenot saved will go there because gentleness doesnot compromise with sin. But gentleness knowshow to take the worst sinner and minister loveand grace in the unusual, divine methods of Goduntil His life takes over a terrible, hard e n e dheart.

Is it any wonder that Paul said that he nour-ished and cherished Christians with gentleness

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even as a “nurse cherisheth her childre n ”(1 Thessalonians 2:7)?

Gentleness Works Today

Even today, it is gentleness that makes peo-ple great. The gentle husband, the gentle wife,makes the other partner great. This means thatyou don’t ever have to be anxious to expre s syour self-image. You don’t have to be anxious toshow your own temperament.

You don’t have to pitch in there and forc eself-expression. There is no need to do that. Youcan trust God with the Lord’s life. You don’thave to get excited. You don’t have to get crudein your dealings with people. You can be gentleand yet allow gentleness to be the power of love,the power of joy, the power of peace, and thepower of longsuffering in your life.

Gentleness, an expression of the character oflove, moves and motivates us with meekness.Meekness is a willingness to transfer my rightsbecause I can trust the life of God expre s s e dt h rough gentleness. A b ruised reed He will notb reak, and a smoking flax He will not quench.Why? Because Jesus Christ is gentle.

Galatians 5:22 tells us “the fruit of the Spiritis love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness….”

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David, who will be the prince in the MillennialReign, said that the one thing that made himgreat was God’s gentleness.

Gentleness is never critical. Gentleness doesnot judge. Gentleness doesn’t have to blow itsstack. A b ruised reed that is ready to bre a kneeds gentleness. Through patience and meek-ness, the one who is gentle transfers his own de-sign and his own temperament to Jesus. Hedoesn’t step back and say, “This is the way Iam.” No, this one goes to the Cross and says,“This is the way God is.” He says, “You can ac-cept Jesus as He is through me.”

Gentleness is a ministry of purity, a ministryof peace, a ministry of meekness, and a ministryof power that can control everything, just asman rules over a city (Proverbs 16:32). Gentle-ness is the very life and love of God acting outHis divinity in your humanity.

When Gentleness Takes Over

What happens when gentleness takes overyour life? First, God begins to nourish you. Hislife begins to take care of all the foreign elementsin your life. He could point out everything thatis wrong, but instead He ministers His life. AndHis life begins to get into your spiritual blood-

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stream, and that life begins to bring so much ofGod in you that whatever is foreign leaves yourestless and without peace. But ultimately, thegentleness of God takes you to the Cross so thatyou can make things right. One step after an-o t h e r, God’s gentleness begins to ministerpatience and love; and, because it is so wonder-ful, so consistent, and so steadfast, you becomerestless until that precious life comes in tochange your life.

Next, God’s gentleness cherishes. It is onething to nourish, but it is quite another thing tocherish. Gentleness cherishes every degree ofpotential you have. It cherishes your eternalsoul; it cherishes any possibility you have to beused by God. God c h e r i s h e s you today. Why? Be-cause in you is His eternal life. God cherishesyou because you have an opportunity to expre s sa portion of His life on earth. God cherishes youbecause you have the privilege of expressing thecharacteristics of the Lord’s divinity.

God cherishes you because He has chosenyou and ordained you to bring forth fruit (John15:16). He desires that you become a part of HisB o d y, that you begin to minister His mind.Every one of us has the privilege to minister aportion of the living God, “effectually working

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in the measure of every part” of His Body (Eph-esians 4:16).

He is going to nurse you along. He willnourish and cherish and love you, and then Hewill nurse you some more and cherish you somem o re and love you some more. You may want tosay, “God, I don’t deserve it.” But the love con-tinues, the nourishing continues, the cherishingcontinues, the patience continues, and the peacecontinues.

You say, “I am a failure,” but God comesback and cherishes you and nourishes you somemore. And He loves you and ministers patienceto you again. Maybe a few weeks later you failagain, and still He nourishes you and cherishesyou. The love continues, the gentleness contin-ues, the peace continues. Why? Because He isgentle.

The Purpose of Gentleness

The purpose of His gentleness is to placeyou in the Corporate Body as a grain of wheatthat is baked in the loaf. What does Jesus Christdo? What does His gentleness want to do? Hewants us to be baked in the loaf. Every one of usre p resents a grain of wheat, and we are to bebaked inside the loaf.

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What happens if I am a grain of wheat, andGod doesn’t bake me in the loaf? Then I am out-side of the loaf, and Satan sifts me. In Luke22:31, Jesus said to Peter, “Simon, Simon, be-hold, Satan hath desired to have you, that hemay sift you as wheat.” He will sift you. But 1Corinthians 10:17 says “we being many are onebread, and one body.” We are one Body, and weare in one loaf.

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Chapter Two

BRING FORTH MUCH FRUIT

“Except a corn of wheat fall into the groundand die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringethforth much fruit” (John 12:24).

Do you get the picture? Jesus sees everyborn-again Christian as a grain of wheat, butthat grain must be baked inside of the loaf of theCorporate Body. If you are not, you will be siftedas wheat by the devil. Probably only 25 to 30p e rcent of all Christians consider what thatmeans. That would leave at least 50 perc e n tavailable to be sifted. Anyone not baked in theloaf of the Corporate Body will be sifted bySatan.

When you are baked inside the loaf, the godof this world cannot find you because you arehid inside the Lord’s Body. You are a portion ofthe whole loaf; you contribute your measure as apart of the loaf, and Satan cannot find you. Youcannot even be detected because you are just a

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grain of wheat hid in the loaf.

Recognizing Jesus As Head

What happened to John the Baptist? Therewasn’t a greater man born among women, ac-c o rding to Matthew 11 : 11. Yet, Jesus said He wasthe least, compared to the Bride of Christ, whichis His Body. Why did John get his head cut off?Was it just because he challenged Herod? Thatwas certainly one reason. John the Baptist was abeautiful Christian. He was a moral man. Hefulfilled his role just as Isaiah prophesied.

T h e re is, however, a vital principle to belearned from John the Baptist. His disciples werealways criticizing Jesus’ disciples. They didn’tunderstand oneness. They criticized for one re a-son or another. They were not one with the oth-ers. Why? Because John’s disciples still had Johnas their head instead of Jesus, even though Johnthe Baptist told them to “Behold the Lamb ofGod, which taketh away the sin of the world”(John 1:29).

So Jesus said, “If they are going to have Johnas their head, I will have to let the enemy cut offtheir head.” Jesus allowed the enemy to cut offJohn’s head so John’s disciples would have noother head but Jesus. There was no more divi-

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sion after that.What we are saying is that if there is any

other head beside Jesus in your life, you can besure God will cut it off. It may take him a year,t h ree years, or a day, but Jesus Christ will cut offany other head beside His own because, in Eph-esians 1:22-23, He is the Head and we are “hisb o d y, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.”There is no other head but Jesus. John the Bap-tist’s followers asked Jesus many things aboutHis disciples. “What’s the story on that?” Theyhad another head. John was a good fore ru n n e rand a wonderful man of God. But he wasn’t hidin the Body, even though he played a role outsidethe Body in introducing the Messiah. He wasn’tin the Body, and his head had to be cut off.

If you don’t get into the Body of Jesus Christ,spiritually speaking, God is going to have to dosome cutting—and it isn’t going to be your armthat’s cut. It will be whatever you have estab-lished as your head. What do I mean by that? Imean that the thing your mind trusts in, adores,and focuses upon must be Jesus. We must haveno other head but Jesus.

When Jesus is your Lord and Master, you arejust a portion or a grain of wheat baked in theloaf. You don’t try to be seen. You have never

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h e a rd a grain of wheat say, “Wait a minute! Iwant to get out and announce that I am here be-fore you eat me.” You have never heard a grainof wheat say, “Hold it! Before you bake me, leteveryone know I am in the loaf and tell themwhat I look like.” A grain of wheat would neversay that. We, as spiritual grains of wheat, are putinto the loaf, stirred up, baked, and nobodyknows who is who because we are all baked inthe loaf.

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Chapter Three

BECOMING ONE

God wants to take His Body members andmake them one. He will bake us in the oven oftrials so we can nourish and cherish people withthe gentleness of Christ, which will make themg reat. Jesus prayed five times in John 17 that Hispeople would be one as He is one with the Fa-ther and the Holy Spirit. Why? “That the worldmay know that thou hast sent me, and hastloved them, as thou hast loved me” (John 17:23).

What God wants is oneness inside the loaf.He wants the love of the Father, Son, and Spiritto be revealed. He wants that loaf to be the sameas the Tr i n i t y. He wants it to cook the same, totaste the same, to look the same. He wants thatloaf to be one.

Jesus Christ is building His Body, and Hewants His Body to be one—one with His plan,one with His purpose, one with His power, onewith His goals, one with His unity, and one with

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His love. He wants His Body to be so one that itwill have no other personality but His, no otherpriorities but His. He wants it to be so one thatfrom one member to another, with all the diver-sity of individual expressions of His person, it isJesus. One speaks, it is Christ. Another works, itis Christ. It is all Christ.

Made One with Him

Jesus is trying to bake you into one loaf andmake you one so you will stand as one. Yo upray with the Lord’s burden as one. You sharethe Lord’s portion as one. You sing the Lord ’ ssong as one. You give as unto the Lord as one.You sacrifice with the Lord’s Cross as one. Yo us h a re as one. You testify as one. You love as one.You are together on earth in the oneness of theTr i n i t y, and the kingdom of God is manifestedthrough the Body, and that Body becomes expe-rientially one new man (Ephesians 2:15).

So many people don’t want to be baked in-side the loaf. To be baked inside the loaf, youmust lay down your life to become one withGod’s life. This whole thing is just to share theLord’s life, to be the Lord’s portion, to have theL o rd’s burden, and to enter into the Lord’s edifi-cation. The whole thing is just sharing the Lord.

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That’s all it is.When anything foreign gets into a healthy

human body, the body begins to deal with it.The circulatory system and the cells go to workto reveal the foreign element. Fever comes soyou will know something is wrong. The bodydetects the infection and then the individualparts of the body begin working together to re-sist the infection. If you obey the laws of yourb o d y, your body will, for the most part, take careof itself. That is, until it’s time for you to gohome with God.

When Christ’s Body is one with the life andlove of God, it will take care of foreign elements.You don’t have to push the panic button. Gen-tleness will do the job. Meekness will do it. Joywill do it. Grace will do it because it will revealthe foreign element. Life will penetrate death,the light will take over the darkness, and thef o reign element will be defeated through the lifeof the Lord in the Body.

The Lord’s life will heal in a situation whereyou would rebuke. It will recover what you seeas lost. The Lord’s life will build up. The Lord’slife will edify. The Lord’s life will be an oint-ment. It will be oil to a wound. It will be some-thing beautiful.

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The bruised reed Jesus will not break, andthe smoking flax He will not quench. He willjust let His life flo w. That is what He wants fro mHis Body—to get His life flowing. And as itdoes, His gentleness make others great.

The Fruit

What will God’s gentleness do to you? I willshow you what it will do. David arranged am u rd e r, he was married several times, and helived a wicked life in many instances. Still, JesusChrist’s gentleness made him great (Psalm18:35). Why and how? Acts 13:34 speaks of “thes u re mercies of David.” A c c o rding to Romans4:6-8, David was blessed, God did not charg eDavid with iniquity, and God did not impute sinto him.

What changed David? God’s love and pa-tience forgave, re s t o red, healed, and bro u g h thim into repentance (Psalm 51). He was divinelyc o r rected in the healing ointment of gentlenessso that he could once again live in oneness withGod through the Holy Spirit. God’s gentlenessb rought David to repentance. Love and gentle-ness healed him and made him great, and Davidwill be great throughout eternity.

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CONCLUSION

God wants to approach us through one por-tion of His character—His gentleness. He wantsto nourish, cherish, edify, and build up HisBody. He wants us to get to know Him as a gen-tle God.

The bruised reed He will not break, and thesmoking flax He will not quench. He wants toput you inside the loaf and bake you so that youare hid in the Body. As a measure of God’s life,you can share your portion inside the loaf. Inthis way, we all can minister a portion of theL o rd’s life, which results in His fullness—a man-ifestation of all that God is. When we meet as aBody, we get built up. You share your portion, Ishare mine, and we get built up in the measureof every part contributing. We minister JesusChrist and nothing else, and we manifest themessage of the glorious Gospel.

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