Regularly Taste and See That God Is Good

As a child, I needed help to understand that God really forgives. I remember one instance in which I kept asking God for forgiveness for the same sin. The problem is, I was already forgiven. Jesus wants us to know that we are forgiven — to taste and see that He is so faithful that He forgives our sins as far as the east is from the west. I needed to trust Jesus.

Today, I must say that I do. I believe that my sins are no longer my own — because of Jesus who “became sin” for me — for us. How does it “taste” to be so forgiven? It tastes glorious, peaceful, uplifting, emboldening. It tastes good. I believe that our inner spirits regularly need the boost of tasting and seeing that the Lord is good, especially because we live in a fallen world.

Otherwise, we will feel like our sins stick — or feel, God forbid — that we would find better life elsewhere (perhaps not volitionally, but in an insidious way that creeps into our souls). We must remember how good it is to follow Jesus and how much goodness is in Him. When we think about being indwelt by the Spirit, the goodness within us by deposit, we know He reaches toward us for fellowship continually.

One preeminent passage on the ministry of the Holy Spirit is: “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). This verse reminds us that we are new people — people made to partake of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit like love, joy, and peace. When is the last time you marveled that you were washed clean? The last time you rejoiced that you were sanctified? The last time you felt the peace of being justified before God the Father for all time?

The world doesn’t operate according to these principles. God does. And we magnify the Spirit’s work in our lives when we look to the Word to never minimize the goodness of God and never doubt the forgiveness of God. We must remember that Jesus longs for us to be happy in Him. He desires for us to feel free in Him, and wants us to be pulled into our love relationships with Him more and more.

In Psalm 34, the Lord’s benefits are made clear. The psalmist commends tasting and seeing that God is good. He commends those who take refuge in God as blessed and happy. And he writes that those who fear God have no lack. We who seek the Lord lack no good thing — and that’s true right now because we have the Lord, the ultimate source of goodness. It’s also true in an eternal sense when we will have eternal pleasures at the right hand of God. When we struggle and reach out to Jesus, He answers our prayers with spiritual provisions that help us to trust Him and set our sights on the realities of our salvation – the realities of our forgiveness – the realities of our eternal sense of home being in Him, with all the benefits of the Spirit applied to us.

The devil, on the other hand, is roaming around like a roaring lion seeking someone to destroy. When we doubt the goodness of the gospel, when we stifle the joy that we receive in Jesus, when we disconnect from the faithfulness of God to forgive, we distance ourselves from God, who is love.

So remember, there is a great divide between the things of God and the things of the world. There is a great divide between the Lord Jesus who wants you to trust His goodness, washing, forgiveness, and faithful love — and the evil powers and forces in the world that lie, deceive and destroy. The world wants us to doubt the total goodness of God and His gospel. The world wants us to find joy and peace and security outside of Him with pleasures that appear to, but cannot, satisfy like Jesus does. Jesus gives us true joy, peace, and security — and He testifies to it through His Spirit. Don’t be deceived by the world, but cling to the Lord. Remember to taste and see His goodness regularly so that your spirit will become more and more bound to Him and His praise.

Nothing can separate us from the love that God has determined to set upon us. We need not be afraid. But we will grow in our maturity as we lean our faith on Jesus and the work of His Spirit more and more each day. You see, God is glorified as we make progress in the Christian life, as we move our faith forward and trust when times are challenging. And, as His very own special washed, sanctified, and justified people, we want to glorify Him. That is our deep, dear desire.

He has put the deposit of the Spirit into our hearts. We know it’s all true — the good that He has done for us and our souls. So, let’s maximize the deposit. Let’s live according to it and give great return to Jesus for all He’s given us.

James says that the one who doubts is like a wild wave of the sea (James 1:6). So, let’s never doubt our salvation. Let’s never doubt that, yes, God will forgive us once again. Let’s never doubt that we have received the Holy Spirit to help us walk with Jesus in this life.

With this kind of confidence, let’s see what God will do! God will do great things in and through us as we stake our trust in Him. He will take us from where we are and show us wonderful things in His Word. He will lead us forward through fellowship and prayer. He will allow us to be lights in the world through Him. He allows us to know the joys of praising Him, as the psalmist writes: “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be on my mouth” (Psalm 34:1). And, He will keep us — let us rejoice — as His very own precious-to-Him people. Taste and see that the Lord is good through the love that He has poured into our hearts through the Spirit He has enabled to be there.

Lianna Davis is author of Keeping the Faith: A Study in Jude and Made for a Different Land: Eternal Hope for Baby Loss. She is also a contributor to We Evangelicals and Our Mission with Cascade Books. Lianna is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. She lives in Illinois with her husband and daughter. You can learn more about her writing at her website.