Basic HTML Version
Body the Temple
143
value of the faculties God has given them. They allow their powers
to wither and decay.
God desires all who believe in Him to feel the necessity of
improvement. Every intrusted faculty is to be improved. Not one is
to be neglected. As God’s husbandry and building, man is under His
supervision in every sense of the word; and the better he becomes
acquainted with his Maker, the more sacred will his life become in
his estimation....
God asks His children to live a pure, holy life. He has given His
Son that we may reach this standard. He has made every provision
necessary to enable man to live, not for animal satisfaction, like the
beasts that perish, but for God and heaven....
God Keeps an Account
—The physical penalty of disregarding
the laws of nature will appear in the form of sickness, ruined consti-
tutions, and even death itself. But a settlement is also to be made,
by and by, with God. He keeps an account of every work, whether it
is good or evil, and in the day of judgment every man will receive
according to his work. Every transgression of the laws of physical
life is a transgression of the laws of God; and punishment must and
will follow every such transgression.
The human house, God’s building, requires close, watchful
guardianship.... The physical life is to be carefully educated, culti-
vated, and developed, that through men and women the divine nature
may be revealed in its fullness. God expects men to use the intellect
He has given them. He expects them to use every reasoning power
for Him. They are to give the conscience the place of supremacy
that has been assigned to it. The mental and physical powers, with
the affections, are to be so cultivated that they can reach the highest
efficiency.—
The Review and Herald, November 6, 1900
.
[144]
When Guided by an Enlightened Conscience
—The apostle
Paul writes: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but
one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man
that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they
do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.”—
The
Signs of the Times, October 2, 1907
.
The apostle Paul here mentions the foot races, with which the
Corinthians were familiar. The contestants in these races were
subjected to the most severe discipline in order to fit them for the