Section 9—Interrelationship of Body and Mind
Chapter 43—Mind and Spiritual Health (Part 3)
Truth Has Soothing Power—The soothing power of pure truth seen, acted, and maintained in all its bearings is of a value no language can express to people who are suffering with disease. Keep ever before the suffering sick the compassion and tenderness of Christ, and awaken their conscience to a belief in His power to relieve suffering, and lead them to faith and trust in Him, the Great Healer, and you have gained a soul and ofttimes a life.—Letter 69, 1898. (Medical Ministry, 234, 235).
True Religion Aids Restoration to Health (words directed to sanitarium guests attending the local church service)—Christ is our Great Physician. Many men and women come to this medical institution [St. Helena Sanitarium] with the hope of receiving treatment that will prolong their lives. They take considerable pains to come here.
Why cannot everyone who comes to the sanitarium for physical help come to Christ for spiritual help? Why cannot you, my brother, my sister, entertain the hope that if you accept Christ, He will add His blessing to the agencies employed for your restoration to health? Why cannot you have faith to believe that He will cooperate with your efforts to recover, because He wants you to get well? He wants you to have a clear brain so that you can appreciate eternal realities; He wants you to have healthful sinews and muscles so that you can glorify His name by using your strength in His service.—Manuscript 80, 1903.
Counsel to One Prone to Melancholy Feelings—It is your duty to war against oppressive thoughts and melancholy feelings, just as much as it is your duty to pray. It is your duty to counterwork the agencies of the enemy, to place a firm hold upon the bridle of your tongue as well as your thoughts. Of all the times in your life when you need a supply of grace, it is when the sensitive, inflamed digestive organs are at work and you are worried and tired out.
You may look surprised at this, but it is a species of swearing to be constantly irritated and irritating others by your faultfinding and gloomy reflections. These fits of indigestion are trying, but hold fast to the bridle that you will not swear to those who are your best friends or to those who are your enemies.—Letter 11, 1897.
Assurance of God’s Approval—The assurance of God’s approval will promote physical health. It fortifies the soul against doubt, perplexity, and excessive grief that so often sap the vital forces and induce nervous diseases of a most debilitating and distressing character. The Lord has pledged His unfailing word that His eye shall be over the righteous and His ear open to their prayer.—Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 270, 271 (1915).
Connection Between Sin and Disease—There is a divinely appointed connection between sin and disease. No physician can practice for a month without seeing this illustrated. He may ignore the fact; his mind may be so occupied with other matters that his attention will not be called to it; but if he will be observing and honest, he cannot help acknowledging that sin and disease bear to each other the relationship of cause and effect. The physician should be quick to see this and to act accordingly.
When he has gained the confidence of the afflicted by relieving their sufferings and bringing them back from the verge of the grave he may teach them that disease is the result of sin and that it is the fallen foe who seeks to allure them to health-and-soul-destroying practices. He may impress their minds with the necessity of denying self and obeying the laws of life and health. In the minds of the young especially he may instill right principles.
God loves His creatures with a love that is both tender and strong. He has established the laws of nature, but His laws are not arbitrary exactions. Every “Thou shalt not,” whether in physical or moral law, contains or implies a promise. If it is obeyed, blessings will attend our steps; if it is disobeyed, the result is danger and unhappiness. The laws of God are designed to bring His people closer to Himself. He will save them from the evil and lead them to the good if they will be led, but force them He never will. We cannot discern God’s plans, but we must trust Him and show our faith by our works.—Testimonies for the Church 5:444, 445 (1885).
https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/78.180#209
Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for teaching us how intimately connected is the body and mind. Please bless us to follow Your guidance in their harmonious development that we may steadfastly resist temptation to sin in thought or act and be truly transformed to share Your love to those around us. With the right motives, we can be used of Your Holy Spirit to be a blessing, even to heal others by our expression of divine love. Thank You for the privilege of prayer and for knowing that through the name of Your Son we may expect what we ask, because we ask according to Your will and to be in communion with Jesus. Please bless us to commit to doing right with the motive of divine love: overcoming every tendency to sin against You. Please grant to us a pure, wholesome, consistent Christian life, which is obtained by daily studying Your Word, the Holy Bible, under the guidance of Your Holy Spirit, to behold and reflect the character of Jesus to each other first and to the world. Like Jesus, please bless us to not be conformed to this world, but to be truly transformed into the persons You would have us be, working fully in the service of King Jesus. Please bless us truly to contemplate the life of Christ and to allow Your Word to develop within us that true religion, borne of love, which ennobles the mind, refines the taste, sanctifies the judgment, and makes us patient partakers of the vibrant health, purity, and holiness of Heaven. Because we ask all these in the Awesome name of Your Son, Almighty Jesus the Christ, our Savior, we say Thank You and Amen.
******
DID YOU KNOW THIS…?
And they departed, and went through the towns, preaching the gospel, and healing every where.—Luke 9:6 KJV —The WORD OF GOD—It’s the only flesh that is safe to eat (meditate on) to live forever!]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Do you feel sorrowful, disconnected—without a place to feel at home or useful? I pray this might show you the way forward. Watch…
https://www.youtube.com/live/2QB6fcwVuws?si=fsEvZU-rkI-BngfD
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
FREE HEALTH TALK* open to the public Thursdays at 5pm at Country Life Natural Foods Store and Vegan/Vegetarian Restaurant, 1217 Eberhart Avenue, Columbus, GA.
Thursday, Aug. 27: “Be Smart! Pack a Lunch” Cooking Class
*Exception: $10 for any cooking class
****
WHGR 91.5 FM went LIVE noon on Thanksgiving Day 2025, for Hurtsboro (my childhood home town) and surrounding areas, including Tuskegee, Alabama.
If you want to support Christian radio programming for these final days, please visit
https://www.ucheepines.org/radio
Thank you!!!
****
I coordinate wonderful health and worship 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 event details, visit https://www.ucheepines.org/events
JOIN US on YouTube at 7pm Eastern TONIGHT!
Dr. John Kelly, founding president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, will present “Lifestyle Medicine, Prophecy, and Present Truth.”
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/UcheePinesInstitute
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 (once again when I am able to find the time to successfully rebuild it).
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.
