Title: Taste and Know
Contents
Bible Text: Psalm 34:8
taste and know
There is a saying that is unsweetened. It means that you don't know the taste of food because you're worried about it. A novelist said, “Why is alcohol that was so delicious today so tasteless! It definitely tastes like boiled dishcloths!” Alcohol is the same drink, but probably because of anxiety.
“He who is full hates even honey, and the hungry eats bitter things” (Proverbs 27:7). Food can be tasty or sweet. Eating the same food when you are hungry is different from eating when you are full. The market is a side dish. I heard the same sermon, some said they received grace, and some said they couldn't even smell the grace. There are basically four flavors. It is salty, sweet, bitter and sour.
“Taste and see” is to taste the goodness of God. When you taste it, you think of food, but it means to experience the goodness of God. It means to savor God by exercising your spiritual taste. The best way to know is to taste.
Taste the bitter taste and know
It is impossible for a person to live without suffering. There is no life without trials and suffering. Joseph was sold to Egypt and suffered all kinds of hardships. The sufferings of being a slave and a prisoner were all unfair. When he became prime minister, he brought his father and his relatives to Egypt. Pharaoh asks Jacob. “How old are you?” “My life as a sojourner is 130 years…I have had a rough time” (Genesis 47:8-9)
The book of Ruth is set in the period of the Judges. Elimeldek, who lived in Bethlehem, moved to Moab with his wife, Naomi, and their two sons. The eldest daughter-in-law returned to her parents' home, and Naomi returned to Jerusalem with her second daughter-in-law Ruth. When the people of your hometown see me and my old friend with the years, you say, "Are you Naomi?" “Do not call me Naomi, but call me Mara” (Ruth 1:20). Naomi means “joy,” and it means what joy I am because I am old and poor after losing my husband and two sons. Rather, say Marara Hara Mara means “suffering” or “bitter experience.”
The life of Joseph or Jacob was bitter. Naomi's life had a bitter taste until middle age, but as she got older, her life became a happy ending.
Naomi's second wife, Ruth, married a powerful man named Boaz and had a baby, and the neighboring women named him 'Obed', saying that Naomi had a son. Obed means "servant of God." Obed is David's grandfather. What Joseph and Naomi, who had a bitter taste, had in common was that they served God well. He drew closer to God in the midst of suffering.
To be truly successful, you have to taste the bitter taste of painful failure. This is because the principle of success is found in the experience of failure. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, suffered the bitter taste of failure countless times. I always lost in elections. His four-year-old sister died, and his mother died when Lincoln was nine. Two of his sons died before his father. But he did not fail. There is only a 5% chance that a tiger will succeed in hunting. It takes 20 attempts to successfully hunt one. If you give up after failing, you are not a tiger. As you drink the bitter cup of failure, your hunting skills develop.
“It is good for me to be afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes” (Psalm 119:71).
I learned to love from knowing you... As the song says, people only know life when they taste bitter. There is a saying, “He who does not know bitterness does not know sweetness.” It tastes bitter and goes into a new world. When you taste bitter, you become strong.
“I come to Jesus to take off the yoke of pain, I come to the Lord who gives freedom and joy/
After disappointment and disappointment, I come to Jesus. I come to the Lord to receive grace on the cross.”
Taste the sweetness and know
When you taste bitter, you crave sweet. I pray for grace. What is sweet? Honey is sweet. To the saints, honey is not honey, but the honey of the Word and the taste of grace. “How sweet are your words to me, and sweeter than honey to my mouth” (Psalm 119:103). Meat tastes better the more you chew it, and you need to meditate on the Word of God to know its taste. Meditation is chewing the cud. As a cow chews the cud, you must ruminate on the Word to become the flesh and blood of your life.
“Take honey, my son, for this is good; eat the honey from the honeycomb, let it go to your mouth, and know that wisdom is like this to your soul. 24:13-14) The soul must receive wisdom like honey to have a future.
“Beloved, I pray that all things go well and may you be in good health, as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2). It is wisdom to prosper in the soul, and the words of the Bible are wisdom. The word ‘prosperous’ means ‘to prosper’ and ‘to work out well’.
When you start to know the taste of the Word, you cannot miss the Sunday worship service. When Jesus saw the crowds scattered around, he looked at his disciples and said, “Are you also going? Then Peter answered, “To whom shall we go?” (John 6:68).
There is a saying called Schematic (倒食蔗). This means that the more you eat, the better it tastes. The more you drink, the more it tastes like alcohol, and you may have cirrhosis of the liver. The more you smoke, the more flavorful it might lead to lung cancer. For a person to prosper, the soul must prosper. Because when the soul prospers, all things prosper.
The more you read the Word of God, the more you want to read it, the more you need to see it and report it. The more you listen, the more you want to hear it and it is a blessing and a blessing to have a strong appetite. I hope that the more you taste the word, the more you taste it, and the more you eat it, the more you know the taste. In the Bible, there is a saying about panting. “I opened my mouth and panted, because I longed for your commandments” (Psalm 119:131) “The beasts of the field also pant toward you, for the streams have dried up, and the grass of the field is burned with fire” (Jon 1:20).
And what is sweet like honey? It is the taste of victory. We saw the tears of Choi Min-ho, who won the gold medal in Judo at the Beijing Olympics. How can you describe its taste? The taste of victory is honey. “Taste and see” I hope you win and taste it. Who asked Chairman Ju-Young Chung? The president should have been that successful. What are you trying to do to be more successful? I thought for a moment and said, “Success, it tastes so good.”
Like the deer, my soul longs for you, my God, as a deer longs for brooks; my soul longs for the living God...” (Psalm 42:1-2). wish.
Taste the saltiness and know
“Taste and see that the LORD is good.” If you meditate on these words and express God through taste, what kind of taste would it be? It was salt. Salt is generally said to have four functions.
The first is the function of purifying, the second is the function of preventing decay with a preservative, the third is the function of flavoring it with a seasoning, and the fourth is the function of fertilizing the soil.
Salt has the character of God.
“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul…The teaching of the Lord is upright and rejoicing in the heart, and the commandments of the Lord are pure and enlightening the eyes” (Psalm 19:7-8).
While Elisha was staying in Jericho, people said to Elisha, “As you can see, the city is beautiful, but the water is not good, so the land is not ripe.” Elisha took salt and sprinkled it on a spring of water, and the water was healed. 2 Kings 2:19-21). I fixed the water with salt. God fundamentally heals man. He turns an unhappy life into a happy one. He makes us turn away from fruitless and useless things and leads us to live a fruitful life.
“Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is he who takes refuge in him.”
God is good. To be good is 'Good'. It means good. A good God A very good God. The Hebrew word for zen is tov, which means pleasant, pleasant, pleasing, or something like this. Aesthetically and morally satisfying. He is materially rich and morally perfect. Noble, respectable, commendable, and wonderful. To taste God's goodness means to share in God's goodness, so that God becomes my God and I become God's people.
Once upon a time, a king of Persia asked the three princesses how much they loved me. The first said that he loved me like gold, and the second said that he loved me like silver. The king was very fond of it. Third, he said that he loves like salt. The king quickly changed his complexion. The cook who watched the scene did not add salt to the food that was put on the next table. The king was angry that the food was tasteless. The cook said, “Please reconsider yesterday that the third princess loves the king like salt.” Said. Then the king nodded and understood what the third princess was saying.
“You are the salt of the world; if salt loses its taste, with what is it salted? Afterward, it is of no use; it is only thrown out and trampled on by men” (Matthew 5:13). was put in. This is an unauthorized ritual. But this is a way of giving every Christian a duty to take. For Christians, it was meant to give a character that tasted heavenly, a character that served as a preservative to others.
There is a saying, “It tastes like boiled pebble in fresh water”. It means there is no taste. It doesn't matter what the tongue feels. There are things that are sweet but harmful, and even fresh water can be beneficial.
In a certain seat, Maupassant was chatting with his friends. There was talk of which kind of meat was delicious. Those who said beef was delicious, those who said lamb was delicious, and those who said chicken was delicious, each said delicious meat, but Mopassant didn't say anything. “What kind of meat do you like?” He said, “No matter what I say, the taste of women is the best.” “People were astonished and asked when they had eaten human flesh.” “You must have tried it too… I liked the taste of milk when I was young. Isn't milk a woman's meat broth?"
Please taste and know the goodness of God. If you make God's goodness your goodness, a blessed life will unfold.