05/18/18 DASH-CAM MESSAGE
TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS GOOD
CORRECTION, THE PASSAGE IS PSALM 34:8, (not 38:4 oooops)
NOTES...
When we eat something we enjoy, we invite our friends, "taste this."
Something new, we say, "taste this."
Something we have enjoyed for years, we say to a new comer, "taste this."
Something a child has not had yet, we say, "taste this."
"I know if you taste it, you will love it."
Some foods are scary. Like oysters.
Some things I don't eat, not because they taste bad, because I never tasted it.
Psalms 34:8
8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
Some people do not want to TASTE and see. I am not talking about a "trial salvation." I am talking about taste, open up to God, allow God to have access to our inner man and our whole life.
Some folks do not want to taste because they are not interested in the Christian life, sometimes because of the lives that they see people live.
I don't blame them because I see people who live miserable lives and call themselves Christians. Christians ought not to have miserable lives. It is a misrepresentation.
Sour disposition
Critical
Negative
Fault finding
Judgmental
Arrogant.
And sometimes all of this is in one person.
Even without sin we sometimes turn people off, just because of our own personality quirks and peculiarities. But we should not willing allow things that are contrary to the nature of God. We ought to have love, kindness, mercy, gentleness, long suffering, wisdom, understanding, forgiveness.
Some people have their own view of being a Christian and there is no way they are going to taste. They are not going to visit a Bible preaching church; or come to a Bible study to learn the word of God.
Some folks have no idea of what it means to be a Christian and they don't want to taste. We need to get them to come with us to services so they can see a body of believers in unity and worship.
Of course, our services better be worth visiting. They need to see joy, peace, power, love.
It does not have to be a perfect church.
It does not have to have the greatest preaching.
It does not have to have the greatest singing.
BUT IT NEEDS TO HAVE SOME LIFE IN IT.
It needs to have LOVE.
It needs to have JOY.
Then when people come they will be able to TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS GOOD, as they watch our lives individually and corporately. Then the Holy Spirit will be able to speak to them about their own relationship to God.
Little children do not like to try new foods. But when it comes to tasting and seeing that the Lord is good, children are quicker to respond than most adults.
Adults have deadened themselves to the inner drive to know God. Adults have weened themselves off of spiritual food and developed, acquired a taste for worldly fare. Sin is not only an inner desire, it becomes an acquired taste.
smoking and drinking alcohol are something you have to be able to endure before you start to enjoy it. It is addictive and controlling. People don't start out with a strong affinity for evil. They usually have to work their way into deep sin slowly.
Profanity, obscenity, crudeness, meanness, crime. Yes, there is a sin nature, but deep, dark sin is repugnant to young sinners. It is something they have to get use to before they enter it enthusiastically.
The more people become acquainted with sin, accustomed to sin, the more they acquire the desire to sell out to sin.
Children do not have to re-acquire a taste for God, because they are born in a state of grace. God has already included them in the atonement. We all needed it from conception because we were born with a tainted, a twisted nature. Remember, Jesus is the Savior of all men, and that is because every preborn has been made acceptable to God by the blood of Jesus.
After we are born we all have an empty space in our heart that only God can fill. We are born with a proclivity to sin, but also with an affinity for God. Children need to be nurtured in Christ. Every child comes to a point where we sin against God and we need to call on Him for salvation. But if a child has not been fed on spiritual food, on love, on truth, on mercy, on tenderheartedness, on purity, then that child falls away quickly and completely into the path of sin, desiring the things of the flesh, rather than the things of the Spirit.
Just as a child will turn his nose up and make a face at a new dish and, so it is that those who have been away from God will do the same when they are invited to TASTE AND SEE THAT GOD IS GOOD.
Especially when you offer them the tender side of salvation. Pride holds on to the darker, carnal parts of life and rejects the loving, gentle, trusting and kind aspects, because they are seen as weaknesses.
People have a taste for the ungodly and turn away from that which is godly.
We need to live in such a way that people see something in us that draws them to God, that causes them to TASTE and see that the Lord is good.
