O Taste and See

We had a quest speaker at our Home league on Tuesday, our dear sister in Christ, Sandra from the Somercotes Salvation Army Corps. We had another sweet afternoon, Sandra had brought along some Cadbury's biscuits for us to enjoy with our cup of tea and then told us of her trip with her husband Brian to Cadbury World last year, Brian having links with Cadbury as he had worked in a scientific capacity at Cadbury when he was in his teens. And so they had a trip down memory lane. The talk was most informative and extremely interesting, Sandra gave us the background to Cadbury's and how it started. It definitely is well worth reading about how it all came about, the change and reforms for the workers and all the changes over the years, follow the link to find out more.

Sandra read out the story of the prodigal son with a twist, we had to see if we could work out how many chocolate, sweet, or biscuit related words were in it, we all concentrated hard and added them up, 28 times things like that were mentioned. It is quite a lovely feeling when you are the first one offered the chocolates you have such a variety of choice. Sandra reminded us that we make many choices in life, some good, some bad, we choose where we are going to work, who we are going to marry, where we are going to worship and a host of other things, daily we make choices some of them quite mundane. The prodigal son made a wrong choice when he left the protection and security of his home. But he wanted to go his own way and his father didn't hinder him, of course he squandered everything and the so called friends were soon gone. He now faced a life changing choice he could sit with the pigs in the pig pen or he could go home repentant and seeking forgiveness. He chose the latter, Luke 15:11-32

Oft times we do what we want to do rather than what the Lord wants us to do that is not a good choice, we find ourselves getting into all kinds of scrapes and having to repent and seek the Lord's guidance. Christians never retire we are in God's service right to our last breath, many of us feel that there is nothing we can do, we are too old or too infirmed. But we can pray for those who are in active service, pray for their whole well-being, spirit, soul and body, God is faithful He hears and answers the prayers of the righteous. Most of us like sweet tasting things but there are other more important things in our lives, Sandra read Psalm 34  emphasising verse 8: O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Sandra reminded us that only in Christ we will find true and rich fulfillment, lasting peace and joy. We are to share with others all the rich fayre of the banquet of God that they too may want to taste and see that the Lord is good. Our daily lives should be a witness to His unfailing grace and mercy as should our church life, no matter where we worship, or which denomination we belong to, first and foremost we belong to the church of God, which is the body of our Lord Jesus. So we should lay aside all the petty things that can so easily effect our witness. Jesus alone should be the centre of our individual lives, our daily lives, and our church life, that others may see how good it is to know the Lord and that they too may want to taste and see that the Lord is good.

We ended the meeting with the song, Jesus, the name high over all we sang the first three verses and read out verse 4 before singing the rest:

O that mankind might taste and see
The riches of His grace!
The arms of love that compass me
Would all the world embrace. 

the chorus is wonderful: 

We have no other argument,
We need no other plea;
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.

I pray that you will know the riches of God’s grace and that you will know true forgiveness through Jesus Christ and taste and see that He is good. God bless you.