What do you crave? Success in life? Popularity? Good health? Wealth? Power? Most of the things we crave leave us hungry and wanting more, even after we get them. There is a story of a pastor visiting a couple’s home. Atop the mantle of their fireplace was the painting of a beautiful home large in stature. The pastor inquired about the paining. “Oh,” the couple replied, “that is our dream home.” A few years later, the couple had that very home built. The pastor went back to visit them in their new home, after some time passed. Atop the mantle of their new fireplace was a new painting of an even more beautiful and larger house. The pastor again inquired. “That’s our dream home,” the couple explained. Will our appetites ever be satisfied? Will we always want more?
The Apostle Peter had a remedy for such worldly hunger pangs, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk… (1 Peter 2:2).” What is this spiritual milk? Some scholars say that it refers to the Word of God. Given the near context, that makes some sense. But, there seems to be more to it. The Greek word that many translations render “spiritual” is a compound word in which the root is borrowed from stoic philosophy. Peter takes that word and gives it new meaning. In stoic philosophy this word referred to the principle ordering the universe. Here it likely means one’s experience of the Lord Jesus Christ, the creator of the universe who gives order and meaning to it.
We experience Jesus through the means God has graciously made available to us. We experience Jesus by reading the authoritative account of his life and ministry in God’s Word. We also experience him through our prayer lives, the work of the Holy Spirit, public worship, and the Lord’s Supper.
Are you craving the one food that can truly satisfy? Are you reading the Word and ransacking it when you have an important decision to make? Are you praying daily? Have you cultivated a lifestyle of walking with the Spirit? Are you attending public worship? Partaking the Lord’s Supper? In a nut shell, are you immersing yourself in Christ’s presence?
Having traveled the world some, I can tell you to have much or to have little matters far less than having Christ presence around you and in you. Are you craving pure spiritual milk?