The honest truth is that I have a strong aversion to vegetables. On the positive side, I love chocolate, ice cream, and pastry. However, my family tells me the sweets I gravitate toward are actually very bad for my health. Therefore, I recently armed myself with the mindset of a new, healthier diet, finding inventive ways to cook vegetables so that they actually taste good, and I’m eating them every day. I’ve even been juicing vegetables. My family thinks this change is something like a miracle. But in reality, it is a choice of a willing mindset.

When Peter addressed Kingdom saints, he wrote: “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby” (I Peter 2:2). He knew the only way they would be able to find consistent spiritual victory, or to grow spiritually, was through consistent time in God’s Word. The Lord intended for their faith to be demonstrated in a vibrant, transformed, and satisfying daily walk. In the previous chapter, Peter instructed them not to revert back to sinful habits consistent with life before their salvation. Instead, they were to demonstrate a newness of life by “…laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings” (I Peter 2:1). Only time in God’s Word and a surrendered spirit would empower them to do so. Therefore, Peter urged them to “desire” God’s Word. This would be a choice to willingly embrace a mindset to want to consume the Scriptures as one consumes food. Perhaps Peter had in mind the words of Jeremiah 15:16, which says: “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart…” Peter wanted these saints to crave the Word of God and experience the joy of being spiritually fed in the Scriptures. He also appealed to them to embrace this mindset because “…ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (I Peter 2:3). If they wouldn’t choose to love the Scriptures to find victory, perhaps they would by remembering how gracious God had been in giving them eternal salvation, freeing them from eternal punishment.

Dear believer, have you consciously embraced the mindset that you will choose to desire God’s Word and consume it for yourself each day? It’s beneficial, it will taste good to your soul, and it is the only realistic way for you to live a vibrantly transformed life for Christ.