Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. (1 Peter 2:1-3)

Have You Tasted What The Lord Offers?

There are five basic senses of the human experience. They are taste, touch, sight, smell, and hearing. Each of these sensory systems responds to stimuli that produce a response to the brain helping to understand the world around them. The five senses are necessary for the experience of life provided in the material world by the Creator. Taste is a gustatory sensation resulting from materials passing over the tongue and throat producing an experience of pleasure or pain. Through the mechanism of taste, conclusions are derived that will tell the person whether the ingested portion is good or bad. Those things that are most pleasant are desired and sought after. Tasting sour or distasteful things will immediately have a negative response. This is necessary to keep a man safe from harmful things that might enter the body without the warnings of taste.

In a spiritual parable, the five senses of the human experience replicate themselves in knowing God. Faith begins with hearing that moves the spirit to feel a need to change the heart. Seeing the word of God and the grace of God, the aroma of the will of God produces a change in the soul of man to touch the hem of the Lord’s garments for forgiveness. All these senses draw the open heart to taste or experience the wonderful love of a forgiving Father who shares His blessings abundantly to His children. The experience of taste is to discover the nature and quality of the character of God. Nothing is nobler for a man to seek than to experience the heavenly gift and enjoy the feast of God’s love.

The character of taste is to immediately recognize something unpleasant to the tongue or throat. To digest, a sour lemon brings about an immediate reaction. Tasting something that might be poisonous can easily be discerned as saving a life. Peter shows the two-fold character of the spiritual senses found in the Christian. Some things should be distasteful, disgusting, and revolting to the taste of the discerning child of God. Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking should be spewed out of the mouth as repugnant. These are things that should be rejected by the ‘spiritual taste buds’ of those who speak words of grace and live lives of devotion to the Lord. The heart filled with evil will show a life guided by wickedness. Rather, desire the wholesome milk of the word, to grow in the grace of Christ.

Newborn babies love the taste of milk and are one of the first things they experience in life. A baby long without milk will become irritable and unhappy. Without the proper amount of nutrients, the baby will die. Taste is one of the first noticeable experiences of a newborn. Like newborn babies, the Christian will crave the pure spiritual milk so they can grow into a full experience of salvation. No matter how old a child of God is, they still cry out for this nourishment. Those things that are distasteful are rejected and spewed out of the mouth.

Taste is the precursor to the enjoyment of what is digested. A hot cup of coffee warms the body. Enjoying a fine meal brings great satisfaction to the spirit. The sense of taste is fully realized when the experience is felt by the whole body. Tasting the grace of God is the most wonderful experience a man can ever know. Forgiveness is the sensation of pure joy knowing that God promises to wash away all sins (no exceptions) with the blood of Jesus Christ. There is no condemnation to those in Christ and what a delightful taste of joy to know the grace of God. Tasting that the Lord is gracious is to dine at the table of Lord daily counting all the blessings of what it means to be a child of God. There is no greater sensation than when a man comes to the table of the Lord and looks upon the feast of eternal grace. Have you tasted the Lord and found Him gracious?