A Time of Sweetness

Prayer – Lord Jesus, I find a sweetness in my relationship with You. I feel loved, protected, and accepted—as well as challenged to serve others to serve You.

So I went to the angel and told him to give me the small scroll. "Yes, take it and eat it," he said. "It will be sweet as honey in your mouth, but it will turn sour in your stomach!" So I took the small scroll from the hand of the angel, and I ate it! It was sweet in my mouth, but when I swallowed it, it turned sour in my stomach. Revelation 10:9-10

 

Meditate. Think about the sweetness of Jesus.

 

Have you ever been stung by a bee? Ouch! I have—but gratefully, I am not allergic to them. My younger brother is—and it was a scary thing for our whole family when he had a life-threatening allergic reaction when he was five or six. He turned blue—not breathing, as his throat closed. Our parents hustled us all in the car and we headed to the doctor’s office on a Saturday afternoon when the Doctor was usually at his Seventh Day Adventist Church. Us three other kids sat on the steps waiting when the doctor worked on Joe. By the grace of God, the epinephrine injection worked and Dad carried him out to the car and we headed home. There was a sweetness in that survival.

 

Bees make honey—a nectar sweeter than sugar. When the Israelites left Egypt, where they had been slaves, God promised them a land flowing with milk and honey. It was a land of abundance. Even now the Holy Land, Israel, is considered a land blessed with seven special foods—including honey.

Then the LORD told him (Moses), "I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live.” Exodus 3:7-8

 

It is a land of wheat and barley; of grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates; of olive oil and honey. Deuteronomy 8:8

The time of sweetness continued during the Exodus to the Promised Land when the people were complaining of hunger and God provided the manna that had a taste of honey.

The Israelites called the food manna. It was white like coriander seed, and it tasted like honey wafers. Exodus 16:31

In the book of Revelation, John was handed a scroll to eat…and it tasted like honey. That was a time of sweetness in heaven.

 

Verse of Salvation ~ But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ's triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this? 2 Corinthians 2:14-16

 

© 2023 Text, photos, and illustrations by Mickey M. Hunacek. All rights reserved. 

All scripture quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) unless otherwise noted. 

New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. 

Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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