Got MIlk? - Pt 2

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). Thousands of people live year after year without much passion for God or zeal for his name or joy in his presence or hope in his promises or constancy in his fellowship and feel like that’s just the way it’s supposed to be. They just settle in to the mediocrity of lives that bear no resemblance to that which God desires for his children. As I wrote yesterday, our reading from the Apostle Peter contains a command from God for not to be spiritual fatalists. Peter says, "Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation" (v. 2). The word for "long" here is very simply the word "desire," it's a command to desire.

What this means is that if you feel stuck because you don't have the kind of spiritual desires that you should, this text says, you do not need to be stuck! It says, "Get them! Get the desires you don't have." If you don't desire the milk of the Word, start desiring it! Now, isn't that amazing!? A command to desire? A command to feel longings we do not feel? A command to feel desires we do not have? Is anything more contrary to spiritual fatalism than that? Fatalism says, I can't just create desires. If they're not there, they're not there. If I don't feel things the way the psalmists seem to feel things when they say, "As a deer pants for the flowing streams so my soul pants for you, O God" (Psalm 42:1). If I don't feel that way toward God, then that's that. I just don't. I'm not like the psalmists. That's what spiritual fatalism says. But God says, "Desire the pure milk of the word!" (v. 2). Now before you raise all kinds of objections, like, “How can you command me to have a desire?” or, “What can I do to obey a command like that?” or, “How do I just produce a desire? My whole problem is that I don't have the strength of desire I want. And you just tell me to desire. You may as well tell a lame man to walk.” John Bunyan wrote a few verses that illustrate an essential truth. It's one of the best statements I have ever heard about the difference between the law and the gospel: Run, John, run, the law commands But gives us neither feet nor hands, Far better news the gospel brings: It bids us fly and gives us wings. In other words in the old covenant God gave commandments, but did not give the power that overcomes the depravity and rebellion of the heart. But in the new covenant, God gives even harder commands, and he also gives the power we need to fulfill them (cf. Romans 8:4-6). We are duty-bound to run, even though our feet are willfully frozen in the ice of sin. The gospel is not different in having no commands, no conditions. In fact, flying is harder than running. The gospel brings much better news than a mere command. It bids us fly and gives us wings!