Isn’t it amazing when you no longer love something that used to be your favorite? 

That happened to my pastor.  He used to love coffee and Dr. Pepper.  In fact, that was basically all he drank. 

Then he got cancer and had a hospital stay.  He found that his taste buds changed.  He says that he hasn’t had a pop for over six years. Not only does he not like the taste of coffee, he doesn’t even like the smell!

When he was in the hospital, he knew that to be able to get out, he had to eat and get strength.  The problem was…nothing smelled good. 

He said that one time they ordered macaroni and cheese from the hospital, trying to pick something that they thought would not be as offensive.  When they pulled the cover off of the macaroni and cheese in his room, he almost gagged.  “Put that lid back on!” he told his family.

His wife said, “But you need to eat!”

“No, not that!” he told her.  It smelled like hospital to him.  All the food did.

Everything smelled like hospital, even the nurses’ perfume. 

My daughter told me the other day that is how she feels.  There were things that her heart used to long after—certain songs that were attractive, styles that she wanted.  She kept most of her feelings hidden, but her heart was in rebellion.

All that changed seven years ago. 

Our family went to Victory Chapel youth retreat in Frankfort, Indiana, and God did surgery.  It still amazes me that the night she was saved, everyone in that service did not know what was going on in her heart.  The Spirit was there so strongly to help a couple of boys from the Shelbyville church, that she was not on the radar.  But she was on God’s radar!  He touched her, and all her taste buds were changed.

This year in one of her classes, someone told her that only people who God had brought out of addictions have a radical change.  They said that if you were raised in church and got saved young, there really would not be much of a change. 

They didn’t convince her.  How could she be convinced, when she knew, from experience, what Jesus could do for a ten year old?   She remembers everything she used to want.

“Mom,” she told me almost in tears, “it just tastes like ‘hospital’ to me!”

I don’t know how God changes your deepest desires; I just know that He does. 

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:  old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.  II Corinthians 5:17

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death:  that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.  Romans 6:4