Most of us when we think of tasting food we think of taking a sample and eating it. That is actually swallowing the food that we consume. There is another type of taste testing though. Those who are professional taste testers most often do not swallow the food that they are tasting. They often spit out food to reset their palates between samples and to avoid feeling full. This concept is foreign to most of us. The only way we typically spit food out that we have tasted is if it tastes bad. These people on the other hand can taste something magnificent and spit it out. This means that it never gets into their stomach. While they may absorb some nutrients from the food through the mucous membranes in their mouth, the amount absorbed is minimal and not enough to provide significant nutritional value or cause weight gain. You see the human body obtains most of the nutrients from food through digestion and absorption. Through this process nutrients, vitamins and other things that we need are absorbed directly into the bloodstream. This means what we eat becomes part of us. This also means those that taste test in this manner will only receive very minimal benefits from what they have tasted. It will never become a big enough part of them to sustain them or change them.
The Word says taste and see that the LORD is good (Psalm 34:8 KJV). Too many times people taste and see that the Lord is good, but they spit it out before it becomes part of who they are. They don’t receive the full benefit. Yes, they may feel blessed and can testify of the Lord’ s goodness, but it doesn’t change them nor sustain them. They come back to the Lord’s table tasting over and over, but never digesting or absorbing what they have tasted.
In Ezekiel we read where the Lord is speaking with Ezekiel: He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you see in front of you…So I opened my mouth and he fed me the scroll…He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your belly with this scroll I am giving to you.” So I ate it, and it was sweet like honey in my mouth (Ezekiel 3:1-3 NET).
This is what we should do when we taste and see, we should consume it and digest it. We should taste His Word, His goodness, His presence and we should let it change us. We should let it become part of our being. Let it sustain us, help us grow and become more like Him. Because after all, you are what you eat.
1 Peter 2:2-3 KJV 2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 3 If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
Matthew 5:6 KJV Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.