S39P3 – Taking it all in: taste
Psa. 34:8
Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Heb. 6:4-6
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age—and then have fallen away—to be restored again to repentance, because they themselves are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to open shame.
A man walked into a pharmacy to buy sinus pills. After looking over the selection, he found the ones that provided the remedy he needed for his specific symptoms. The instructions told him that he needed to take these pills at certain intervals over the next few days. Instead, the man took another tack. First, he spent some time looking at the pills. After not feeling any better, he decided to take in their aroma. Still feeling under the weather, he put his ear down to the bottle to listen to the pills. After that, he took them in his hands and felt them and clenched them hard, but none of this made him feel any better. This is because the medicine he needed was not to be touched, looked at, smelled or heard. It was to be tasted in order to be effective. Without actually taking in the medicine, the man would never get better.
God’s Holy Spirit interacts with us in many ways. Sometimes we see him work outside of us. Other times we hear of the work that He has done. These are both great experiences for us, but there is more. If we want to truly experience the Holy Spirit, if we want to truly take him in, we must taste him. This is not a physical ingestion but a spiritual one. God’s Holy Spirit desires to dwell inside us. In fact, there are things that we cannot do without the indwelling of the Spirit. To taste of the Spirit is to welcome him into us, which is more than a mere external interaction. If we want to be sanctified, we must invite the Holy Spirit to do a good work in us. He cannot do this good work if we do not make a place for him. Not only that, but it is the Holy Spirit that unites the greater church as one body. We need him if we are to grow together as the greater bride of Christ.
It is an incredible thing that God himself would desire to reside within us. Amazing as it is to see the work of God in others and hear about it, it is even greater to experience God’s work within us personally. Scripture says that those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior are now of one spirit. That spirit is God’s Holy Spirit. One cannot be part of the Church without him. To taste of God and his Spirit is to take them in completely and allow them to do a great work from within. It means to carry God’s Spirit just as we carry our own. This goes beyond experiencing him from the outside. We must make a place for him to dwell on the inside and invite him to work within us. Father, thank You for imparting your Spirit to us, and teach us to relinquish control as He does a great work in us.