CRAVE WHAT IS PURE
1 Peter 2:1-3 (NIV 1984) 1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Speaking to new believers and urging them to grow up in their salvation, Peter tells them to crave pure spiritual milk. He doesn't tell them to start a Bible reading plan, pray more, and get more involved in church, though that would certainly be good advice; rather, he tells them to crave. Craving kind of has a life of its own. I mean, how do you control what you crave? Don’t cravings come automatically, with little input from us? Yes and no! Our cravings come from the limbic system of our brains, what we call the heart, which is the deeper place of the mind not immediately accessible to the conscious or analytical part. We do, however, have input in developing these cravings through the choices we make. In other words, when we put ourselves in places where we encounter the love of God, His beauty, and the deep truths of His Word, we fashion our hearts to focus on and desire a different kind of activity and input. The first order of business is to get rid of the lies and false belief systems in which we have become entrenched and go after a different set of inputs that promote Godliness. Here Peter gives us a list of negative inputs to avoid and Paul does the same with the Ephesians, telling them that these are improper for God’s people, the basis of idolatry, and the very reason the wrath of God is coming. He encourages them to find out what pleases the Lord (Eph 5:3-10). In other words, rid yourselves of destructive activity and input, and replace it with something that God desires for you. We do not control our cravings well in a particular moment; they exist as a bi-product of what has come in the weeks, months, and years before. So if we are going to have input into our cravings we must press the input within the timeline it occurs, making choices for weeks, months, and years. Righteous living is a long game. Years of focusing on the truth of God’s word and encountering His goodness create different cravings in the heart, developing new neural pathways in the brain, which in return has direct input into what we crave and direct affect on how we behave. The choice of righteousness is not just a choice in the moment of temptation, but the result of a thousand choices in the weeks, months, and years before. This is how we grow up in our salvation.
