CAPA Corner

An Acquired Taste

Psalm 34:8  O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

Have you ever started off not liking the taste of something and then later in life you love it? For some people it may have been liver or brussle sprouts or broccoli. As children we would gag at the mentioning of these and now as adults somehow our taste has changed and we either like or love some of the foods we found horrible.  I have to be honest, I’d rather eat Play-doh than choke down a brussle sprout.  Some would say it is an acquired taste.

Acquired Taste = something or someone that is not easily or immediately liked or appreciated.

I remember as a young boy tasting my dad’s black coffee.  It was bitter then and black coffee to me is still bitter today. I want to drink coffee but not like that. So what is the solution to my dilemma? Change it to satisfy me. You see, I like coffee when it doesn’t taste like coffee. I like rice when it doesn’t taste like rice; put some gravy on those little, white, bland grains and look out.  I like noodles when they don’t taste like noodles; add some marinara and I am all about it.

In the same sense there are some people who like God when he doesn’t taste like God.  They want God but not in his purest form.  They feel they have to sweeten him up or add something to him in order for them to be satisfied.  They may  have tried him early in life and found him to be bitter or he tasted different than what they expected. So the solution for many is to either not partake of him or change him for their own satisfaction.

As long as we walk in the flesh and in our own selfishness, the things of the Lord are going to taste very bitter and they will not satisfy. As 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”  And in 1 Peter 2:1 it says, “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”  If we walk in the Spirit, die to the natural man, and conform to his word, we will acquire a taste and see that the Lord is good and gracious.

Kenny Kepper,
Berean Ministries