Week 9—Thursday Hebrews 12:14-17
Week 9—THURSDAY
“IN MY MOUTH SWEET AS HONEY”
We are studying the fact that “the body is for the Lord and the Lord is for the body.” So the flesh is his own; when the Word became flesh, Jesus entered his own. This version puts it: “He entered his own realm, and his own would not receive him” (John 1:11, NEB). “He entered his own realm”—so the flesh was “his own realm.” And when “the flesh” is in him, it is in its “own realm,” as a fish is in its own realm when in the water. A fish out of water is gasping for life, so persons outside Christ gasp for life and do not know they are gasping for Life. There is not a single situation that is not “his own realm” and is at home when in him and out of home when out of him.
To put the matter another way: “In my mouth it did taste sweet as honey; but when I swallowed it my stomach turned sour” (Rev. 10:10, NEB). Evil does taste sweet as honey in the mouth, but when you swallow evil and try to assimilate it, the system turns sour. The system rejects it as alien. A woman came to our Ashram with very great skin eruptions on her arms. She had to wear very long sleeves. She had deep resentments against her bullying employer and was worrying over a court case because of an accident. She surrendered her resentments and her worry, and the eruptions cleared up completely. A woman said the doctors had found she had thirty-five allergies, things she couldn’t touch or eat. She surrendered to God her resentments against her family, and every one of the allergies dropped away. “Ragweed?” she says, “I can go to bed with it. Peaches? I used to think the acid was in the peaches, then I found out that the acid was in me. Strawberries? I can eat them by the quart.” A Japanese doctor in Hiroshima, Japan, said: “The first place wrong emotions and attitudes hit is the stomach. Along about twenty years of age, examinations and uncertainty about the future upset the stomach, and then again about forty—these are the upset ages.” On this trip I’ve eaten in one day squid, octopus, raw fish, two birds, raw egg, and anything else set before me. My digestion will handle almost anything if I am Christian in my attitudes.
O Master of my life, I thank you for this freedom in you. We are made to live in your world. And we are at home in it when we are at one with you. We find you and find life. And we love life when we love you. We are no longer soured with life. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Life is all that it can be expected to be—with Jesus.