To Encourage You

1 Peter 2:2-3 “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

I am currently reading the book “Religious Affections” by the early American theologian and preacher Jonathan Edwards.  Among the many wonderful insights in this book is how a believer’s perception of spiritual things is completely “other” than the perception of those who are void of the Spirit of God. He likens it to the sense of taste as compared to the other senses.  As an example, he states that “the sweet taste of honey is diverse from the ideas men have of honey by only looking on it, and feeling of it.”  That is such a powerful analogy, don’t you think?  And it’s so in line with one of the ways that the Scriptures speak of such things as in the passage above from 1 Peter 2.  It talks about “tasting” that the Lord is good.  It’s that experience that goes beyond looking at the Lord, touching Him, or even hearing Him.  Many people in the first century did such things, but it was only those who actually took the step to partake of Him with a step of faith that, in a sense, fully tasted that He is indeed good. And so, the Bible invites the unbeliever to “taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8).  It’s only in that full step of faith, in a wholehearted commitment, that that taste can come. 

Again, to the analogy of honey, one can look at honey, touch it, and smell it but those steps are only partial “commitments” to understanding fully what honey is like.  To actually take honey and eat it is a full-fledged commitment to understanding it.  It involves taking the honey and making it a part of our self. Jesus put it this way in John 6 when He said: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. . . I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” With these words Jesus was pointing to what belief in Him really was. It was a total commitment to Him. It was by faith that a person “takes Him in” as one consumes a piece of bread, a total embrace of His life into our very being so that, as Paul said, from that point on “for to me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21).

It was because of this teaching on being totally committed to Him as one who feeds on bread commits himself to what he consumes, that “many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him” (John 6:66).   At this point Jesus turned to the twelve and said this: “’Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’”  Little did Peter know at that point that his belief in Jesus would lead to his own death.  But that was ok with him. He, like Paul, knew that “to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).  It is only the one who has truly tasted and seen that the Lord is good, come what may, that can say this.   

So, are you one who has looked at Jesus from afar, perhaps read about Him, heard about Him, and otherwise thought about Him, yet you’ve never taken that final step of faith and committed your whole being to Him as one must taste to fully understand honey.  If not, I would urge you to taste and see that the Lord is good, for it is He that is the very definition of the word “good.” Indeed, infinite and eternal goodness characterizes everything about Jesus Christ.