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Promote Healthful Living, April 21
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service.
Romans 12:1
.
It is impossible for a man to present his body a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable to God, while continuing to indulge habits that are depriving
him of physical, mental, and moral vigor. Again the apostle says, “Be not
conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will
of God.”
Romans 12:2
.
We are in a world that is opposed to righteousness or purity of character,
and especially to growth in grace. Wherever we look, we see defilement and
corruption, deformity and sin. How opposed is all this to the work that must
be accomplished in us just previous to receiving the gift of immortality!
God’s elect must stand untainted amid the corruptions teeming around them
in these last days. Their bodies must be made holy, their spirits pure. If this
work is to be accomplished, it must be undertaken at once, earnestly and
understandingly. The Spirit of God should have perfect control, influencing
every action.
The health reform is one branch of the great work which is to fit a people
for the coming of the Lord.... Men and women cannot violate natural law
by indulging depraved appetites and lustful passions, without violating the
law of God. Therefore He has permitted the light of health reform to shine
upon us, that we may realize the sinfulness of breaking the laws which He
has established in our very being....
To make natural law plain, and to urge obedience to it, is a work that
accompanies the third angel’s message.... He [God] designs that the subject
shall be agitated, and the public mind deeply stirred to investigate it; for it
is impossible for men and women, while under the power of sinful, health-
destroying, brain-enervating habits, to appreciate sacred truth....
He who cherishes the light which God has given him upon health reform,
has an important aid in the work of becoming sanctified through the truth,
and fitted for immortality.
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