ithout
strain from babyhood to His death on the cross. God accepted the
offering of His total life, and made no distinction between act and act.
"I do always the things that please him," was His brief summary of His
own life as it related to the Father. As He moved among men He was
poised and restful. What pressure and suffering He endured grew out of
His position as the world's sin bearer; they were never the result of
moral uncertainty or spiritual maladjustment.

Paul's exhortation to "do all to the glory of God" is more than pious
idealism. It is an integral part of the sacred revelation and is to be
accepted as the very Word of Truth. It opens before us the possibility
of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of God. Lest we
should be too timid to include everything, Paul mentions specifically
eating and drinking. This humble privilege we share with the beasts that
perish. If these lowly animal acts can be so performed as to honor God,
then it becomes difficult to conceive of one that cannot.

That monkish hatred of the body which figures so prominently in the
works of certain early devotional writers is wholly without support in
the Word of God. Common modesty is found in the Sacred Scriptures, it is
true, but never prudery or a false sense of shame. The New Testament
accepts as a matter of course that in His incarnation our Lord took upon
Him a real human body, and no effort is made to steer around the
downright implications of such a fact. He lived in that body here among
men and never once performed a non-sacred act. His presence in human
flesh sweeps away forever the evil notion that there is about the human
body something innately offensive to the Deity. God created our bodies,
and we do not offend Him by placing the responsibility where it
belongs. He is not ashamed of the work of His own hands.

Perversion, misuse and abuse of our human powers should give us cause
enough to be ashamed. Bodily acts done in sin and contrary to nature can
never honor God. Wherever the human will introduces moral evil we have
no longer our innocent and harmless powers as God made them; we have
instead an abused and twisted thing which can never bring glory to its
Creator.

Let us, however, assume that perversion and abuse are not present. Let
us think of a Christian believer in whose life the twin wonders of
repentance and the new birth have been wrought. He is now living
according to the will of God as he u