Taste and See part 3
I wanted to quote this memory verse the last couple of days, but it'll go nicely right here. "Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious" (2 Peter 2:1-3). Taste the good and you'll lose your appetite for the bad. Not that I'm trying to split hairs between "good" and "evil." Because we know that the tree of death (the tree of knowledge of good and evil) emcompassed both. We're talking about a more excellent way. The Tree of Life. Which only has one fruit. The fruit of the Spirit. Love. When you enter into that love feast (which is what the word "love" means most times in the Bible), you find that love is all you want to eat. And you find that you ARE what you eat. Desire the milk of the word. I once preached a sermon about milk and honey. Milk being righteousness and honey being revelation. I might Rant about that after I finish with this, but for now I want to focus on "that ye may grow thereby." Because milke helps you grow, right? Strong healthy teeth and bones. Calcium. Its grow juice. And that's what tasting and seeing is all about: learning and growing. Trusting in God--even in baby steps--because He continually proves Himself trustworthy. Having faith in God (faith in love) because He consistently proves Himself faithful. Growing in grace. Learning how to love by learning how we are loved. Receiving and releasing the love of God. Filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've been filled with. Receiving BY releasing. Releasing by receiving. And I just did a Guerrilla Gospel message about this: We need to stop getting it twisted around. We don't lay aside all malice, and guile, and etc. in order to make room for forgiveness, and mercy, and love. We don't focus on the negative--even in the sense of trying to get rid of it. Because what you focus on is what manifests in your life. If you're struggling with forgiving someone, its probably because you can't stop thinking about what they did to you that needs to be forgiven. You're feeding the very thing that's holding you back. But if you set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth... if you shift your focus to the truth that you have been forgiven... that's why (and how) you can forgive. You've done some stuff. We all have. And if your heavenly Father can (and did) forgive you... then it doesn't matter what someone else did. You can focus on the solution, instead of focusing on the problem. You can taste the milk. The righteousness of God, which is who you are. And you can GROW by that knowledge--heart knowledge, not head knowledge. You can be who you are as you learn who you really are. By learning who Jesus really is. By letting Him reveal Himself to you, and in you, and through you, and as you. By, if I can borrow a phrase, letting Jesus take the wheel. Having faith in Him that He knows where to go and what to do. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. Because the Lord wants to bless you. HAS already blessed you. And all you have to do is stop robbing yourself from the gift that you've already been given, and start sharing what you've already got! When you're full of love its easy to lay aside everything else. There isn't even room for anything else!