Week 9—Monday 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
“THE BODY IS FOR THE LORD;
AND THE LORD IS FOR THE BODY”
We mentioned the falling out of Roger Maris’ hair during the tensions brought on by trying to break the home run record of Babe Ruth. A Japanese beauty parlor operator told me the same thing in Honolulu. She is an ardent Christian and begins to preach the gospel when she sees a bald spot. She asks what the patient is doing for it and is told the physical remedies being used. Then she says the spiritual remedies are the most important, for most falling hair and dandruff come from inner conflicts and tensions. She tells of a woman who lost her hair in one week. She had been divorced several times. She surrendered her resentments and hate and her hair came back. A child of ten lost her hair and had to wear a skull cap. Her mother was hating her relatives. The mother surrendered her hates, and the child’s hair came back. Sister Lila, a nun and a saint in a Greek Orthodox convent in Jerusalem, was upset and filled with resentments against the police who harried a member of our team unjustly and undeservedly. She immediately got a violent headache. She surrendered her resentments to God, and her headache left her immediately.
When the Scripture says, “The body is . . . for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body” (1 Cor. 6:13, KJV), life is a verification of that. The body is for the Lord, and when it works in his Way it works well, and when it works some other way it works badly. The good is good for us and the bad is bad for us. And the Lord is for the body—he made it and he remakes it whenever it is surrendered to his Will. A YMCA secretary was afflicted with blisters on his hands. Long and varied treatments failed to cure him. I asked, “Are you worrying?” He confessed he was tense and anxious. That was causing this skin affliction. He surrendered himself and his worries to God and was well. For that is what happens to the individual—we live in him, outside him we perish. “The Lord is for the body”—in him it is at its best.
O Lord Jesus, you are for my body and it is rhythmical and harmonious and alive when I walk your ways. When I get out of your ways, I limp along a rugged way. All things betray me when I betray you. I’m grateful that you are for my body. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If the Lord is for the body and the body is for the Lord, then they are not alien, but affinities.