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God’s Building 121
of life in a positive way. We can end with something that gives us hope. This
is from Peter’s own experience. 1 Peter 2:1-4 says, “Therefore putting away
all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envyings and all evil speakings,
as newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by
it you may grow unto salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Coming to Him, a living stone….” Peter understands that the way to get rid of
guile and hypocrisy is to take in the guileless milk of the word. Let us admit
that we have guile. We have hypocrisy. But there is a guileless One. There is
a genuine One in the word of God and we can receive Him as nourishment
like a baby taking in milk. This will remove the guile from your inner being.
I am really looking forward to meeting Peter. I want to fellowship with him
about 1 and 2 Peter. In 1 Peter 2:2 it says, “long for the guileless milk of the
word.” But then in 1 Peter 2:3, it says, “if you have tasted that the Lord is
good.” I might say, “Peter, you have made a mistake. You should have said
that the word is good. Take the milk of the word and then you will taste that
the word is good.” Peter might answer me and say, “You should have pray-
read the verses. The Word is the Lord. When you taste the Word, you taste
the Lord!” Then I would say, “Amen, brother Peter, I got it! Yes, the way
we taste the Lord is to taste the Word.” I long for our young people to have
this experience. When I was 18 years old, as a new believer, I came into the
Lord’s recovery and experienced this. I tasted it! The Lord is good! And I
tasted Him in His Word! I like to study. I am just the kind of person who likes
to study and to read. But let me tell you, right now I am not talking about
studying. I am talking about tasting. We have tasted that the Lord is good
through the word.
According to John 6, the way to eat the Lord is to eat the Word. Then the
way to eat the Word is to contact the Spirit as the essence of the Word. Also,
the way to contact the Spirit as the essence of the Word is to use our spirit to
pray. I do not use the word “pray-reading” here because we have concepts of
what it means to pray-read. A lot of our pray-reading is simply repeating the
word, which is good. We may pray, “Oh, if you have tasted! Amen! If you
have tasted! Hallelujah! You have tasted!” This is very good. But that is not
really prayer. What is prayer? Prayer is our intimate contact with the Person
of the Word. So, we may take the same verse and say, “Oh Lord. I want to
taste You. I do not want just knowledge. Lord, I want to taste You. Oh Lord,
You are good. Your word is so good.” Now I am praying. I am contacting that