I grew up in a farming community in northern Indiana surrounded by the idyllic landscape of contented milk cows grazing in fields of green. These cows looked pretty happy munching away on grasses of all kinds. Cows eat grass. Cows like grass. It is in a cow’s nature to eat and enjoy grass.
But cows aren’t the only rural residents who eat grass. Sometimes kids eat grass. I remember lying in the grass of our front lawn on a summer afternoon thinking, “My, this grass looks tasty.” So I did what every kid has done sometime in their life. I grabbed a handful and began to chew it up. The chewing was soon replaced by spitting as the taste settled on my tongue. Soon I was spitting out everything I could to get rid of the awful taste of the grass. Why did grass taste so bad? Because it is not in our nature to eat and enjoy grass. Our nature is different from the cow’s. To us grass tastes funny.
Sin is the same way. Prior to our conversion, sin was our natural response. Sin was the driving force in our nature. Sin’s taste was appealing. However, after we embrace the message of Christ, sin is no longer our natural bent. To a believer, sin tastes funny. What do we do with things that taste funny? We spit them out. Throughout the New Testament, the theme for believers is this: Sin tastes funny. Spit it out! And the beauty of the whole enterprise is that because of the power of your new identity, your new nature in Christ, you can do it. You don’t have to swallow.
Mull this idea over (like a cow chewing its …well you know). Does this concept sound foreign to you? Does it make sense to you? If you would like to study further the biblical basis for this idea that sin tastes funny to the believer and its ramifications, please click here for a pdf file, “Your Moral Resemblance to Christ,” Jay’s line-by-line commentary on I John chapter 3.