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Control the Appetite Through Christ’s Power, October 15
Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that
times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.
Acts 3:19
,
NKJV.
The power of Christ alone can work the transformation in heart and mind that
all must experience who would partake with Him of the new life in the kingdom of
God.... In order to serve Him aright, we must be born of the divine Spirit. This will
lead to watchfulness. It will purify the heart and renew the mind, and give us a new
capacity for knowing and loving God. It will give us willing obedience to all His
requirements. This is true worship.
God requires continual advancement from His people. They need to learn
that indulged appetite is the greatest hindrance to mental improvement and soul
sanctification. With all our profession of health reform, many of us eat improperly.
Indulgence of appetite is the greatest cause of physical and mental debility, and lies
largely at the foundation of feebleness and premature death. Let the individual who
is seeking to possess purity of spirit bear in mind that in Christ there is power to
control the appetite....
Flesh foods are injurious to the physical well-being, and we should learn to do
without them. Those who are in a position where it is possible to secure a vegetarian
diet, but who choose to follow their own preferences in this matter, eating and
drinking as they please, will gradually grow careless of the instruction the Lord has
given regarding other phases of the present truth, and will lose their perception of
what is truth; they will surely reap as they have sown....
I appeal to old and young and to middle-aged: Deny your appetite of those
things that are doing you injury. Serve the Lord by sacrifice. Let the children have
an intelligent part in this work. We are all members of the Lord’s family, and the
Lord would have His children, young and old, determine to deny appetite, and
to save the means needed for the building of meetinghouses and the support of
missionaries.
I am instructed to say to parents: Place yourselves, soul and spirit, on the Lord’s
side of this question. We need ever to bear in mind that in these days of probation
we are on trial before the Lord of the universe. Will you not give up indulgences
that are doing you injury? Words of profession are cheap; let your acts of self-denial
testify that you will be obedient to the demands that God makes on His peculiar
people.—
The Review and Herald, February 24, 1910
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