Today Peter’s words are refreshing to say the least.

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.

What struck me here was that the malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking are replaced and possibly displaced by something better; namely, they are replaced by the pure milk of the word of God.  Let us just note that if this is the case, we must have thought at one point in our lives, and indeed may still be tempted by the thought that these evil things will satisfy and nourish us.  Why do we gossip?  Well, we get some sort of sick satisfaction out of it of course.  Why do we harbor ill will toward others concerning their behavior when all the time we often have logs in our own eyes?  Because our souls are hungry, and for some reason this fills us up temporarily, even if in the end it leaves us more empty than before.

This made me think of my 1 yr old son Micah, who definitely loves his bottle.  However, if Micah is on the floor, or on the ground outside, he inevitably places everything in his mouth that will fit in his mouth.  Old food, dead bugs - sometimes alive -, leaves, grass, etc… Aren’t we the same way?  When we have all the nourishment and spiritual satisfaction we could imagine in Christ and His word we go crawling around looking for scraps.  Here Peter mentions the scraps that are actually sinful, but there are also plenty of “good” things that become empty when we rely upon them for our spiritual food.

So let us stop searching today, let us give up the foolish pursuit of sin and simply turn to the pure satisfaction and nourishment that has been offered to us.  Let us delight in the pure milk of the word.  Read it, memorize it, hide it in your heart, teach it to your children, talk about it, treasure it, and allow it to satisfy you.