Scripture shows us faith through every human sense. Faith is sight: "Look to me and be saved." Faith is hearing: "Listen, and your soul will live." Faith is the sense of smell: "All your garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia"; "Your name is like perfume poured out." Faith is spiritual touch. By faith, that desperate woman came from behind and touched the hem of Jesus' robe. By faith, we handle the things of the good word of life.

And faith? Faith is equally the spirit's taste. "How sweet are your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my lips!" Jesus himself said it: "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you." This tasting—this is faith at its highest operation.

Watch how faith unfolds. First comes hearing. We hear God's voice, not with the outward ear alone, but with the inward ear. We hear it as God's Word and believe it. That's faith hearing.

Then our minds look upon the truth as it is presented to us. We understand it. We perceive its meaning. That's faith seeing.

Next, we discover its preciousness. We begin to admire it, to find how fragrant it is. That's faith smelling.

Then we appropriate the mercies prepared for us in Christ. We make them ours. That's faith touching.

And from this? From this follow the enjoyments—peace, delight, communion. That's faith tasting.

Any one of these acts of faith is saving. To hear Christ's voice as the sure voice of God in the soul will save us. But that which gives true enjoyment is this aspect of faith where Christ, by holy taste, is received into us and made—by inward and spiritual apprehension of his sweetness and preciousness—to be the food of our souls.

It is then we sit under his shadow with great delight and find his fruit sweet to our taste.