When Jonathan brought word to David that his father, King Saul, did indeed want to kill David, David escaped and went into enemy territory to Gath. You can read about it in 1 Samuel 21. When the servants of Achish, the King of Gath, reminded the king of the victories David had against his enemies, David feigned madness and escaped. It is thought that Psalm 34 was written on that occasion. In that song, David extends an invitation to all of us, “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good….” [vs 8 NKJV]
Taste and discover the goodness, the graciousness of the Lord. In the New Testament, Peter takes David’s invitation to taste and see and he tells us that there are two results when we discover the goodness, the graciousness of our Lord. There is a negative action; there is a positive action.
“Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” [1 Peter 2:1-3 NKJV]
When we discover how gracious our God is to us, we will lay aside malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and evil speaking. That is the negative. We will through repentance, forgiveness and by cooperating with the Holy Spirit, remove these far from us.
Then we will desire to grow through the nourishment of the Word of God. That is the positive. We will add to our lives the power and strength of God’s Word to lead us into righteous living. It is not enough to simply do the negative, we must add the power of the positive to live well.
All this, of course, hinges on David’s original invitation – “if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”
