9. Pilgrimage to Paradise: It's in the milk!

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It's not the milk's fault!

I don't know when it happened but somewhere along the line the "perfect food" became imperfect. Milk used to be considered that "perfect food".

I remember one choir tour that took us to a farming community in Eastern Ontario. The ladies of the congregation prepared and served lunch for us in the church basement after the morning service. It was a full meal, a banquet in fact. Part of any meal is a beverage, and milk was one of the items offered that day. I took the milk and I seriously doubt that what I drank was ever touched by anyone but the farmer from whose cows it came. It was the real deal. It was sooooo good!

What appears in our stores today is not that. And while what we drink might be so altered as to no longer be "perfect" perhaps the problem is not the milk so much as it is the drinker. We are an altered people, contaminated by the world we have contaminated—tit for tat.

But this post isn't about ecology. But it is about milk. It's about Peter's words to the pilgrims scattered throughout the Roman world, heading for heaven and bent on making the world a better place as they journeyed (Psalm 84:5-7).

In my last post I quoted 1 Peter 2:1, "Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind". How do you and I do that? Peter continues with, "Like newborn babes, crave pure spiritual milk, so that you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good". (2:2, 3)

You've heard the expression, "you are what you eat". The altered food we eat inevitably leads to altered people. Spiritually that works as well. What we feed our spiritual selves is what we end up being. Feed anger, and become increasingly angry. Feed hate and become increasingly hateful. Feed envy, and become increasingly envious. Feed greed, and becomes increasingly greedy.

Peter's argument is that we have to replace the altered, the evil, with the good. And that good must also be unaltered. It must be pure.

I guess this becomes my argument for the personal exploration of Scripture as "pure spiritual milk" that will help us grow in faith. Lots of good people have lots of good stuff to say ABOUT the Scriptures, but one good book about the Good Book is one step removed from the real deal—just me and the Word of God and the Spirit of God speaking through that Word.

This post is not the real deal. This is altered milk. Go get your own. Go straight to the source. Believe me, the real deal is much, much better than the altered version no matter how good that version might be. 

God is good—so is His "milk".