Foretaste And Fullness

In the Bible you would find the principle of foretaste and fullness. Foretaste is having a taste or an experience of the fullness before you enter into maturity. It is a temporal experience that you have in a state of immaturity which is only meant to be experienced when you get to a certain fullness or perfection in Christ. It is a tradition of God to give a foretaste before bringing us to fullness. The wisdom behind it is that the foretaste makes us hunger and pursue the fullness. God desires nothing less than fullness for us; He wants us to experience his fullness and all He has to offer (such a loving Father). We can find the principle of foretaste and fullness in the Scripture.

"The Lord now said to Moses, Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the Israelites. Send one leader from each of the twelve ancestral tribes. So Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He sent out twelve men, all tribal leaders of Israel, from their camp in the wilderness of Paran" (Numbers 13:1-3).

 The Israelites were about to enter into the land of Canaan - the land of God's fullness, where they would enjoy the fullness of the covenant promise. Just before they entered the land God asked them to go to the Promised Land, explore it and have a taste of it. God asked Moses to select one leader from each of the twelve ancestral tribes. The twelve leaders would represent the whole of Israel and they are to go and have a foretaste of the land i.e to explore and experience the land even before it became their possession. The whole of Israel through these twelve would have a foretaste of the land of God's fullness.

Foretaste is the sovereign work of God, He takes hold of you by the Spirit and causes you to experience certain things that you are meant to experience when you are mature in Christ. The gift of the Spirit is a foretaste

"And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory," (Rom 8:23).

The Holy Spirit is also called the Helper, he helps us to experience things that are meant for us in maturity. The gift of the Spirit are powers that are a foretaste of the fullness in Christ. The gift of the Spirit allows us in our state of immaturity to manifest powers that await us when we get mature in Christ (I explained this properly in a post titled "Christ Is The Power Of God").

"the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses" (Rom 8:12).

In our weakness, in our state of immaturity the Spirit comes and allow us experience things that we are suppose to experience when we mature in the fullness of Christ. However, there are some people that never experience the foretaste but as they grow in Christ they begin to see these manifestation in their lives — this is not the gift of the Spirit, it is just maturity. Therefore, there are two ways to attain the things of the Spirit; one is Foretaste, and the other is Fullness. From the example I gave about the journey of the Israelites, although through the 12 spies they had a foretaste of the promised land (the land of fullness) yet they still need to press in till they enter into the land, possess it, and experience the fullness of the land.

Even though you experience the foretaste you still need to press into God and mature in order to enter into fullness. To experience fullness we must strive into maturity in Christ. The more we mature in Christ the more we would experience the fullness of Christ. Maturity involves walking very closely with God and growing in faith. So first comes foretaste then after that we mature and start experiencing fullness. This is something that many do not understand; foretaste is not the real thing, it is only meant to push you into fullness. However, it is not necessary to have foretaste before you can enter into fullness. As you pursue Christ and grow into him you will enter into fullness whether or not you experience the foretaste. The Holy Spirit only uses the foretaste to help us in our state of immaturity.

What I am saying is that you don't have to have the gifts of the Spirit before you can demonstrate the power of God.

"Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God." (1Cor 1:24).

Christ is the power of God and as you grow into the fullness of Christ you will definitely demonstrate the power of God whether you have the gifts of the Spirit or not. I wrote a post to differentiate between the gifts of the Spirit and Christ the power of God, the power is titled "Christ Is The Power Of God", if you haven't read it I will advise you read it. There is a difference between the "help" of the Spirit (foretaste) and the expression of maturity (fullness). Anyone can demonstrate the gifts of the Spirit no matter how immature they are, it is a grace, a sovereign act of God given to the undeserving. But to have fullness you must strive and mature.

So we can experience the things of the Spirit either through foretaste or fullness. You can be sovereignly impacted with the gift or you can strive in your walk with God and grow in faith in order to experience that thing. Most of the spiritual experiences I have were gotten through fullness. I was never lucky with gifts of the Spirit, all the Spirit did for me is to push me in my walk with God and teach me to develop my faith, for without faith it is impossible to walk with God and the greater your faith is the deeper you will walk with God. So the Spirit had to develop my faith so that I can experience this deep walk with God and as he develops my faith I began to enter into certain spiritual dimensions. This is fullness, it is not the same as foretaste, it is only gotten in a deep walk with God. You can be deep in sin and yet experience foretaste but it is not so when it comes to fullness.

The inability to distinguish between foretaste and fullness has prevented many Christians from experiencing the things of the Spirit. They think everything is by foretaste, they fast and pray for the Spirit to come upon them and give them certain experiences or abilities. But this same thing can be gotten as you patiently walk with God and develop faith. Although foretaste is a wonderful thing, but God wants fullness for us, we wants us to grow and be mature in Christ.

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