Bird River Bible Blog

Have you ever had some unknown food put in front of you and whoever put it in front of you said, “You’ll like it once you try it.” I can just hear my dad saying to me, “Try it, you’ll like it.” When I went to Japan, I had the opportunity to sample all kinds of Japanese food that was beyond teriyaki chicken and sushi. One thing I noticed about Japanese food in Japan is that it is almost always pretty. We would go to these restaurants and I would be served my meal in several beautiful dishes with everything all laid out like a picture. It looked so good! It smelled so good! But I wasn’t always guaranteed that it was going to taste good! In fact, I found myself on occasion, sneaking tidbits of food onto my dad’s plate. I always liked it best when I found some food that not only looked good, but tasted fantastic too! I heard a story once about a teacher who walked into class, peeling an orange. The skin was a bright orange, the skin shiny, and the sharp, distinct fragrance of the orange peel filled the air. He asked the class “Does this orange taste good?” “I think so.” “Why do you think so?” “Well it looks good, and I can smell it. “But how do you know it tastes good?” asked the professor. “How should we know?” one of the students asked. “Right, how would you know?” as the teacher tossed the peeled orange at the student. “Why don’t you taste it and tell us if it is good.” he said. The student chomped into the orange as the sticky, sweet juice dribbled down his chin. “Umph…tastes good.” the student managed to mumble out between bites of orange.
Is God good? Is he powerful? Does he love you? Do you know it? Do you know how much? If you know, how do you know?

Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”

What does that mean: taste and see? Like with the orange or with the Japanese food, one needs to experience God to know God: to know how good, how powerful, and how loving he is. Some people will say that God is no more than an “idea”, that what we read about him in the Bible is kind of like a fairytale, rather than fact and history. This is wrong. Because anyone that has spent time with God, experiencing his presence will know how very real he is and how wonderful he is. If you haven’t “experienced” God yet, I want to encourage you to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” You don’t know how? Ask God how! Spend time, talking to Him, and listening to Him. Hang out in the presence of God.

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power…to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ….” Ephesians 3:16-18

Imitation
Over years of living in community, I have noticed that I have a habit of talking like the people that I have been spending a lot of time around. I am sure that you heard at camp this summer, a lot of phrases like, “Don’t even worry about it.” or “Whaa-at???” and “I mean, clearly…” coming from the summer staff. From being together all the time, every day, we started to sound like each other, even picking up some of the same hand gestures and facial expressions. Maybe you have a best friend that you hang out with all the time and people have told you that they can tell that you are best friends because you sound/act the same. Sometimes you and your best friend may even be able to finish each others’ sentences because you know how one another thinks!
As Christians, our relationship with God should be the same. We should be spending time with God all the time. We should be spending enough time with God that we start to do as He would do. The more time we spend with God, talking to Him and listening to Him, the more we will know what He wants to say to us. And God wants to spend lots of time with us! We know that God will always have time for us, so you can hang out with God any time you want! I want to encourage you to spend time regularly with God, just as you would a good friend. I should also add that you should talk to God, like you would talk to a good friend. Tell Him how you’re doing and don’t hesitate to ask God how He’s doing and what He’s thinking! If you’re serious about having a relationship with God, then He will definitely talk to you! It may not necessarily be a voice you can hear out loud, but maybe He will talk to you through something you read in your Bible, or in a thought that might come into your head as a moment of realization. Sometimes God even uses other people (like Christian leaders or friends) to talk to us. Just make sure that when you think God is talking to you, to test it out! And how do you test it? Well does it sound like something God would say? How do you know what God would say? Look at the fruit of the Spirit! If there is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness or self-control involved in what was just said to you (Galatians 5:22-23) then you can believe that God just said something to you! And then when you’ve been spending time with God, you’ll also be acting with the fruit of the Spirit too!

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Ephesians 5:1

“Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.” 3John 11