Cultivating a Taste for the Spiritual

by David Gibson

When my wife Sara first tasted avocado when she was young, she thought it tasted like butter, and it did not appeal to her. But over time, she learned to enjoy it enough to put it in salads.
My first memory of eating cheese was its strange, unfamiliar flavor. In time, I learned to like it.
No doubt many reading this have had similar experiences. What you did not find appealing at first, you later came to appreciate.

In the spiritual realm

Note these passages from both the Old and New Testaments:

• “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalms 119:103).
• “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” (Psalms 34:8).
• “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 Peter 2:2-3).

What a tragedy it is when Christians turn away from the faith, even though they “have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come” (Hebrews 6:4-6).

An acquired taste

Does this describe us? “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psalms 1:1-2).

If we are not there yet, what can help us develop and share this blessed man’s delight in God’s word?

• Give it time to work! Diligent, daily exposure to the Scriptures enables us to find great satisfaction in studying them as we recognize the Big Picture they present and how passages connect with one another in a beautiful tapestry of truth. In other words, it grows on us!
• Applying what we read brings the blessing that comes with obedience: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves . . . . the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who is but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (James 1:22, 25).
• By never being satisfied with our current level of Bible knowledge, we press on toward a deeper understanding, graduating from the milk to the more challenging meat (I Corinthians 3:1-2; Hebrews 5:11-14; 6:1-3). There’s more in God’s word than we can digest in a long lifetime.

The more we study, the more confident we can be in sharing what we learn with others. “For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). Ezra “set his heart” (made up his mind) to study, practice, and teach. As a result, he exercised a powerful influence on the lives of others.

And so may we!