In his description of what it means to "love one another earnestly from a pure heart," (1 Peter 1:22) Peter tells his readers to "put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander" (1 Peter 2:1). That stuff needs to be replaced. What does Peter tell them? "Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation" (1 Peter 2:2). Now, Peter has already explained what that "pure spiritual milk" is. It is the Word of the Lord (1 Peter 1:23-25). Thus, in order to love earnestly from a pure heart, we need to "long for" God's Word as our primary sustenance.
Peter follows this thought with an interesting qualifier. He tells them to long for the pure spiritual milk "if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good" (1 Peter 2:3). Now, that's interesting, isn't it? Peter is drawing from the Old Testament here -- specifically Psalm 34:8. "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!" And, you see, this is, indeed, the fundamental question, isn't it? Is the Lord good? "Well, of course He is," most of us would say. But do we believe that? Eve didn't (Gen 3:4-6). And we get tripped up on it all the time. Sure the Lord's good ... when things are going the way we like them to. What about when they're not? What about when a loved one is dying or a job has been lost or we're beset by injustice? Where is your "good God" now? It is the tripping point of most who part ways with God. He didn't do what they wanted Him to do, so He's out. He's not good.
That, then, is the question before each of us. Is God good? If He is, then we can trust Him. If He is, then we can trust His Word. If He is, then we can place our confidence in Him even when things don't look good to us. If He is, then we can know that He works all things together for good. If He is, then in Him we can find complete rest and full contentment. If we are not finding those, it might just be that we haven't tasted, haven't seen, are still asking the question. Is God good? You need to settle that.
1 comment:
I was in a study recently going through 1 Peter, and I noticed that phrase "tasted of the Lord" and it immediately brought to mind the warning in Hebrews about sacrificing Christ again. It would seem that taking in God's Word would be an important and crucial thing for a Christian to keep us fed.
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