Taste And See

March 5, 2021

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

~Psalms 34:8~

David declares trust in God. His words emanate into our souls when we may feel confused, alone or overwhelmed. I love the metaphor used here; "taste and see that the Lord is good." When we want to partake in something and let it seep into our bodies, we must first sample it. Have you ever been asked to "try a bite" of something and once you took that bite your face lit up as if to say "what in the world is that, its so good I need more!" You end up taking the rest of it and then asking for more. I can attest to this many times! I can also say this is what it felt like when I first met the Lord Jesus Christ. Just a sample of Him was not enough for me and even now I still need more each day. Jesus can never fill us enough, can He? We always crave more! "And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.”(Mark 8:3)

Jesus was talking of literal food here in this passage in Mark yet at the same time it was also deeper then that. I like to believe Jesus was also saying "let me fill you with more of my words before I send you off so you do not grow weary." Some of us have gone many years without ever knowing Jesus, that when we do finally find Him in our lives we realize we have been starving for so long. We have been close to fainting. The word is our food and we need plenty of it each day to survive spiritually. "But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it." (Deuteronomy 30:14)

Just as if we starved ourselves physically in a day our bodies would grow weak and we would not be capable of standing; when we starve ourselves in a day from His word and His life we would grow weak and not be able to stand in our faith. We must taste and see He is good at all times, reminding ourselves to trust in Him during the times we are living in. God supplies us with all we need. He does not spare us, we are the ones sparing ourselves when we slow down our need for Him. "that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.” (Deuteronomy 30:20)

David knew there wasn't a day that went by that he did not need the Lord, he pressed the importance of trusting in God in several psalms. Why is that? Perhaps he realized after his own trials that many people after him would need a reminder as he himself did. The Lord used David to remind us even today that God is good and He wants us to trust Him and not our own ways. When we taste and see, we are truely diving deep into Jesus' promises. We are latching on to something we can't get enough of. We are feeding our inner man with the right food. There are many times we may give our bodies the wrong food, "junk food" as it's called. We over eat. We feel sluggish. We regret it at times. This same thing works for spiritual food. We can give our spirits the wrong food; negative thoughts, ungodly lusts of the flesh, wrong motives and carelessness. The enemy always desires God's children to fall into his traps. "Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil." (I Thessalonians 5:20‭-‬22 )

We cannot afford to fall into a snare, we must stand firm in Jesus, for the time is near. We must trust in all He has for us and will do through us. Let us rid ourselves of this "junk food" to our spirits and fill ourselves with the truth of God. The Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, was made flesh; "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)

The Lord brings His truth to us so we may humble ourselves and love Him fully. We all matter to Him, He gave Himself on the cross so that we all may taste and see that He is our Way.

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?"

(Luke 15:4)

As His sheep we shall follow Him each and everyday or we may end up wandering off or being scared off by something in this world. We are seeing this happen all around us today with the fears the enemy is pushing through all through tv, newspapers, social media, etc. We must take our eyes completely off these devices and focus on Jesus. "lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices."

(II Corinthians 2:11)

This is the reason as to why the Holy Spirit pressed me to delete all things at the beginning of 2020 off the internet, to stop watching tv and listening to music I once loved; to be done with what I was tasting and seeing in this world. It is an open door to things of this world to pull us away from the truth of God, and satan himself uses them. We all make our own decisions, mine was to obey Him, to do whatever it took to be without spot and blemish; even if that meant stepping down from what everyone else considered to be "harmless." Jesus told me to follow Him and follow Him I shall.

"Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." (Matthew 22:37)

If we are too busy filling our minds with evil/negative thoughts, our souls with our own fleshy desires and our hearts with foolishness we will starve ourselves and our spirits of what the Lord Jesus has to offer us. Once we get just a sample of God and His glory we will be hungry for more and we should continue to taste and see that He is so good! When we trust in Him, nothing can or will take us down for He is our Rock.

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, thank you for the ability to know You, to see You, to understand just how good You truely are to me. I am hungry for more of You Jesus and I vow to taste and see just how good You are each and everyday. I know it is health to my flesh and bones. I declare I am fully Yours and I rebuke any attempt of the enemy to pull me away from You. The victory is Yours and I want to always remain beside You. Help me to rid myself of any wicked thought, desire and action so that I may put all of my trust in You alone and hold fast against the wiles of the devil. I give You all the praise and honor today in how You choose to use me, I pray those who are bound in darkness to see Your light and run to it; that they may taste and see that You alone are good. It is in Your Trustworthy Name I receive this prayer, Jesus Christ. Amen.