One of the five senses that God has given us is taste! We use it to decide whether something is good and enjoyable. It determines whether we want more or not. It’s the way God created us. The scriptures use that illustration in terms of trying out God. In Ps 34:8 it says, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!” The Psalmist encourages us to taste of God’s goodness and see that He is good. The word taste means to “perceive” and “evaluate” by consumption. So as we consume God we will see how good God really is.

Some people just want to scratch their religious itch, but not commit to a lifestyle change.             (tweet)

Unfortunately, many times people don’t take the time to see how awesome He is. Reality is until we taste and move into trusting God to the point of applying Him to our life, we will never enjoy the full blessings.

            In this day and age taste testing is such a powerful method in marketing. We all have seen tasting stations in most food stores that we shop in where the individual is encouraged to try a product in hopes that they will like it and will then buy it. The down side to this is there are those that go to such stores as Sam’s club or Costco at lunch time and cruise through the different tasting tables once and even twice in hopes of making it their lunch. They have no intentions of wanting to taste and buy, but to taste everything again and again until they have satisfied the immediate need at hand, which cost them nothing. Those people want to scratch their itch but not commit to a lifestyle change.

As I think about it, some people treat God in the same manner. They want the blessings and the immediate gratification of His problem solving, but when it comes down to it they don’t want to make God a part of their daily life. Even though Jesus shed His blood that we might be called the children of God they don’t want to buy into it completely.

There is no lasting commitment if it doesn’t cost you anything.   (tweet)

In 1 Chron 11:18-19, David was on the run from Saul and openly made known his desire for a taste from the well of Bethlehem, which was under guard. Once his mighty men brought him what he desired David poured it out refusing to enjoy the benefits of something that he hadn’t bought into or made a commitment for when others had risked their blood for it. He wasn’t going to satisfy his immediate desire with something that he wasn’t willing to make the same commitment too as his mighty men did.

            Again in 1 Chron 21:24-25 we see David’s understanding of not making shallow sacrifices to the Lord. King David chose to buy a threshing floor instead of receiving it as a gift, so he could make an altar and sacrifice to the Lord. He knew that his sacrifice to the Lord had to cost him something personally. There is no lasting commitment if it doesn’t cost you anything.

In the rich young ruler’s search for eternal life we see four important aspects. He came to the right person, he asked the right question and he received the right answer. But the crucial and determining point was that he made the wrong decision. He wanted the blessing of assurance but didn’t trust God enough to commit whole-heartedly. Are you just tasting the blessings but not trusting the one that blesses?