I’m sure you have heard preachers ask the question, Why, after you’re saved, doesn’t God just take you out of the world? There are probably more answers to this than there are categories of High School Musical memorabilia; but I think there’s a (lame) analogy in baked barbecue chicken (which, as you can guess, I made last night; thus the following afflatus):

Bake chicken skin side down at 425 for 45 minutes.
Remove from oven and spoon barbecue sauce over and return to oven for 40 minutes at 375.

So goes the recipe. The chicken after 45 minutes at 425 looked crispy and ready to eat. I venture to say it was cooked; but did we just eat the plain chicken after 45 minutes at 425? No! The chicken was basted with barbecue sauce and returned to the oven to bake for another 40ish minutes. Why? Why return it to the oven, if it’s already ready to eat already? Because it tastes better to the cook after baking longer.

“Tell us what this means teacher,” you say.

I’ve been baked once (“saved”). I got the barbecue sauce (“Holy Spirit”) and I’m baking a second time (“sanctification”) to taste better to the Cook.

More than this and the analogy breaks down quicker than teenyboppers watching High School Musical II.