sense of sweetness

Tim Keller in his book The Prodigal God (great book!) quotes Jonathan Edwards saying:

“The difference between believing that God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is a different as having a rational belief that honey is sweet and having the actual sense of its sweetness.”

John Owen talked about this head/heart perspective this way:

“When the heart is cast indeed into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth—when the evidence and necessity of the truth abides in us—when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the thing abides in our hearts—when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for—then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men. And without this all our contending is, as to ourselves, of no value. What am I the better if I can dispute that Christ is God, but have no sense of sweetness in my heart from hence that he is a God in covenant with my soul?”

Here’s to 2009 – a year I long to have more sense of that sweetness...