Have you gotten a taste of the Lord’s goodness?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ©

Taste and see that the Lord is good;
(Psalms 34:8a (NIV))

Have you ever asked yourself why this passage uses the word taste?

Think about the process of tasting and eating and drinking. We slowly put something into our physical body via our mouth to see if we will like it and if it will be good for us. In essence, we are taking something that is foreign to our bodies and putting it inside of us. It becomes a part of us! We become intimately familiar with what we are tasting.

Ever since the fall from grace, God’s goodness has been foreign to our spiritual being. Due to our sinful nature, we are not sure what to do with what is good and pure. We sample, or taste, just as we do with physical food and drink to see if it is good. We taste of the Lord and find that His love and mercy is sweet and very good for our lives. We ingest bits of His Word and find that it is very palatable and we soon find ourselves wanting more. Just like physical food that tastes good, we find ourselves feeding on the Word of God and we find that it becomes integral to our lives. The more we taste, the more we want.

David wrote much about the goodness of the Lord. He understood it. He longed for it. He never wanted it to end.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
(Psalms 23:6 (NIV))

David had gotten a taste of the goodness of the Lord. As a result, he followed the Lord all the days of His life.

Have you gotten a taste of the Lord’s goodness?

Copyright 1998 – 2020 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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What is the source of your sustenance?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ©

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”
(Matthew 4:4 (NIV))

We spend so much time thinking about what we eat. We spend so much time worried about eating the rights things in the right amount so that we don’t put on weight, or so that we will lose weight. It seems like every day we hear about new diets or nutrition supplements that are designed to make us the best possible physical specimen that we can be. The things that we put into our bodies are important, but why do we spend so much time and effort with this aspect of our lives while we neglect a very important aspect of our growth and maturity? Why do we ignore the spiritual aspects and focus on the physical when the physical is here today and gone tomorrow?

We need to focus on feeding our spiritual side. We need to feed on the very Word of God.

Jesus IS the Word made flesh.

Jesus IS the bread of life.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem means house of bread.

I find it interesting that in order to receive salvation, each of us must accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior. We must embrace Jesus as the bread of life. But, we are not to stop there. We are to immerse ourselves in God’s Word in order to become like David, a man after God’s own heart. We can’t know the Father without spending time in His Word. We can’t truly know the Son, without spending time with the Word. We can’t mature in our faith without knowing the very heart of God! They go hand in hand.

We eat physical food to strengthen our bodies. We must also strengthen our spiritual nature. We need more than milk. We need to mature in our faith!

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.
(Hebrews 5:12-13 (NIV))

Are you acquainted with God’s Word?

What is the source of your sustenance?

Copyright 1998 – 2020 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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What will it take for you to believe?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
(John 20:30-31 (NIV))

It has often been speculated that Jesus performed far more miracles than any of the books of the New Testament recorded. These words from John give credence to that idea. Think about it for a moment. Just how many miracles do you need to have documented before you will believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God? Will it take 10,000 to make you believe? Will you settle for only 1,000 miracles? Will 100 be sufficient to draw you into faith? Perhaps 10 will be enough to make you realize that Jesus is the Son of God?

Could you believe if you were only told of one miracle that Jesus performed?

If so, which one would it be? Turning water into wine? Walking on water? Feeding the 5,000 or would it be raising Lazarus from the dead? Personally, everything that Jesus accomplished when He walked this earth takes a back seat to the ultimate miracle. Everything that He did, even when raising Lazarus from the dead, was a temporary fix to the situation that was presented to Him. The one and only miracle that has an everlasting effect on all of creation was His resurrection from the grave after a brutal death. Through this one miracle, Jesus has ascended to the right hand of God the Father and He has overcome the power of sin and death for all time.

The time for being a skeptic is over. Look at the miracles. Look at the lives impacted. Look at the promises fulfilled. Look at the empty tomb!

What will it take for you to believe?

Copyright 1998 – 2018 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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