Ps 119:103-104 103 How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! 104 Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.
As we have been working through the senses of sight and hearing, we have found that our bodies are very important in regards to serving the Lord rightly. What we see and what we hear have an impact on our faith. Of course, how we see and how we hear are vital as well.
God has given us the wonderful ability to taste. It is probably one of the most joyous senses and one that we utilize to a great degree each day. We spend a huge amount of time and money on pleasing this sense. Our sense of taste can lead us to sweet things easily gotten, candy and chocolate, or salt and spicy things, purchased readily, chips and beef jerky. But if we are to appreciate God’s variety and kindness in food and drink, we have to work at it. There are many dishes and drinks that cannot be easily appreciated. Many items take a great deal of preparation to produce a fine tasting and aesthetically pleasing meal. A fine lasagne is not made in minutes. Other good foods take some getting used to, Greek olives, Salsas, strong cheese, various vegetables, good beer and fine wine and many other dishes. Even basic foods take an appreciation in order to enjoy them, potatoes, rice, beans. We want to develop discriminating taste. This is not the same as becoming a picky eater. We want to enjoy all of God’s good gifts to us, so we eat what is good and learn to like what we eat. Picky eaters are developing bad habits that spill over into other areas of life.
How does this relate to tasting God? In many ways. First, God is good. He is good in all of His dealings and particularly in His dealings with us. Some taste Him and find that He is too bitter, or too sweet, or too strong, or too weak. But God deals with us in many ways, some strong, chastisement, and some easy, mercy. But all of His dealings are full of grace for our God is good. But we must develop a taste. We must eat all that is put before us, trusting our heavenly Father that it is good for us and will help us to grow up to be healthy and strong. We must not be picky about eating from God’s table. This is rude and shows a tendency to a creeping rebellious heart. Only give a Bible picky mind time and all of God’s food will be rejected.
Prov 24:13-22 13 My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste: 14 So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off.
Of course, we need to eat correctly. We must use our mouths to the glory of God in our eating and drinking. Drunkeness and gluttony are prohibited to us. We will look at those things next week.
Before we come to learning how to eat, we must learn to eat the Lord’s food which produces wisdom. Otherwise, how will be instructed on how to live out the details? We must commit to eating whatever is put before us by the Lord. If it is biblical, then it is food from Jesus and we are required to eat. Many of you have a rule that your children must eat whatever is put before them, and this is good. They must eat because the food is good, it comes from mother and it is healthy. If they refuse, they prove that they have, at the least, an immature appreciation of good things, whether in their taste buds or in their minds. And, at the worst, they show a disdain for mother and father in refusing that which is good. I am not saying that you should feed your toddlers spicy enchiladas with hot salsa. They need to develop a taste. But God is calling us to maturity. Milk for babies. A full course meal for adults. All of His food is good. Grow up, take and eat.
