1 Peter, Day 8: 1 Peter 2:1-3 - Do You Long for the Word of God?

Do You Long for the Word of God?

1 Peter 2:1-3

1 Peter, Day 8

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So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

- 1 Peter 2:1-3, ESV

"Betcha can't eat just one!" Remember that slogan from Lay's potato chips? It's effective because it's true. It's really hard to eat just one good chip. If a chip is no good, and you get a bad taste from it, you're not really tempted to take another. You might be able to force yourself to, if you have to. But you don't really long to have another, do you?

Psalm 34:8 says, "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!" Peter picks up this verse here in 1 Peter 2, and he expands the thought in this way: If you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, then you should long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word of God.

This is one of the key marks of being a born-again Christian. If you have been born again by the Holy Spirit, then you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. If you are spiritually alive, you will long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word of God just as surely as a newborn infant longs for the pure nourishment of his mother's milk.

Sometimes newborn babies have trouble nursing, and they may need some coaching and encouraging. But for the most part, the instincts God has given them take over and lead them to nurse well.

New Christians may not always understand everything they read in the Bible. Not everything in the Bible is milk for newborns; some if it is meat for more mature believers. However, the appetite to know God through His word should be strong in every born again believer. If you have no real desire to know God better, to grow in your knowledge of Him through His word, you may have real cause to question whether or not you are truly born again. If the only time you open your Bible is when someone convinced you to do so, then have you really tasted and seen that the Lord is good? 

The pure milk of the Word is as necessary for young believers' growth as milk is for babies. It is the way we "grow up into salvation." Peter doesn't mean by this that we earn salvation by growing in our knowledge of the Bible. No, we are given life as a gift, but we grow up into the life we've been given by spending time in the Word. It is the Word which reveals more of Christ to us and helps us to grow in Him. Just as we were born again by the living and active word, so we grow in the Lord as we grow in His Word. 

So, taste and see that the Lord is good, and then grow up in Him through time each day in His word!