The True Medical Missionary
“To preach good tidings unto the meek;… to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the year of Jehovah’s favor; … to comfort all that mourn.”
Chapter 3—With Nature and With God
The Saviour’s life on earth was a life of communion with nature and with God. In this communion He revealed for us the secret of a life of power.
Jesus was an earnest, constant worker. Never lived there among men another so weighted with responsibilities. Never another carried so heavy a burden of the world’s sorrow and sin. Never another toiled with such self-consuming zeal for the good of men. Yet His was a life of health. Physically as well as spiritually He was represented by the sacrificial lamb, “without blemish and without spot.” 1 Peter 1:19. In body as in soul He was an example of what God designed all humanity to be through obedience to His laws.
As the people looked upon Jesus, they saw a face in which divine compassion was blended with conscious power. He seemed to be surrounded with an atmosphere of spiritual life. While His manners were gentle and unassuming, He impressed men with a sense of power that was hidden, yet could not be wholly concealed.
During His ministry He was continually pursued by crafty and hypocritical men who were seeking His life. Spies were on His track, watching His words, to find some occasion against Him. The keenest and most highly cultured minds of the nation sought to defeat Him in controversy. But never could they gain an advantage. They had to retire from the field, confounded and put to shame by the lowly Teacher from Galilee. Christ’s teaching had a freshness and a power such as men had never before known. Even His enemies were forced to confess, “Never man spake like this Man.” John 7:46.
The childhood of Jesus, spent in poverty, had been uncorrupted by the artificial habits of a corrupt age. Working at the carpenter’s bench, bearing the burdens of home life, learning the lessons of obedience and toil, He found recreation amidst the scenes of nature, gathering knowledge as He sought to understand nature’s mysteries. He studied the word of God, and His hours of greatest happiness were found when He could turn aside from the scene of His labors to go into the fields, to meditate in the quiet valleys, to hold communion with God on the mountainside or amid the trees of the forest. The early morning often found Him in some secluded place, meditating, searching the Scriptures, or in prayer. With the voice of singing He welcomed the morning light. With songs of thanksgiving He cheered His hours of labor and brought heaven’s gladness to the toilworn and disheartened.
During His ministry Jesus lived to a great degree an outdoor life. His journeys from place to place were made on foot, and much of His teaching was given in the open air. In training His disciples He often withdrew from the confusion of the city to the quiet of the fields, as more in harmony with the lessons of simplicity, faith, and self-abnegation He desired to teach them. It was beneath the sheltering trees of the mountainside, but a little distance from the Sea of Galilee, that the Twelve were called to the apostolate and the Sermon on the Mount was given.
Christ loved to gather the people about Him under the blue heavens, on some grassy hillside, or on the beach beside the lake. Here, surrounded by the works of His own creation, He could turn their thoughts from the artificial to the natural. In the growth and development of nature were revealed the principles of His kingdom. As men should lift their eyes to the hills of God and behold the wonderful works of His hand, they could learn precious lessons of divine truth. In future days the lessons of the divine Teacher would thus be repeated to them by the things of nature. The mind would be uplifted and the heart would find rest.
https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/135.198#198
Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for the reassurance and guidance this reading gives for finding solace and ministry in natural settings and song. Please bless us to be forever broken from the chains that bind us from bountifully experiencing what You have promised is possible. Thank You, for we pray in the name of the LifeGiver Himself, Jesus. Your Son and our Savior. Amen.
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I coordinate wonderful health and worshipful events and conferences online and onsite as a gospel medical missionary at Uchee Pines, a total plant-based health retreat, where doctors and practitioners specialize in lifestyle medicine. For more details, visit https://www.ucheepines.org/events
Therefore, if at any time you fail to receive this post as a text, please visit
https://baiom.org/author/audreystovall/
where devotionals are first posted daily (almost without fail). From there devotionals are publicly shared to my page on FB, LinkedIn, and Signal (in My Story), and to a response-restricted group on WhatsApp.
NOTE: These began as daily texts to encourage my academy roommate and dear friend of nearly 50 years, until she suddenly passed March 2023. Now I continue to compile and send them to anyone who will receive them and to her family in honor of their mom.
Lately, I have begun featuring consecutive chapter portions of a select Bible-based book.
If you agree to continue receiving them, then this is my personal gift to you; and in this way, I not only honor God but the memory of a very dear friend whom I desperately miss.
My personal prayer is that God will bless me to find ways to multiply this gift, so that we all may be encouraged to be found faithful in the sight of a Holy God, whenever Christ returns or our eyes are shut in the sleep of death.
It is a prayerful process that leads me to share from my personal study.
So please feel free to forward to your loved ones or to anyone, as God leads you. I’m calling them Barb’s Devotionals.