The Ministry Of Healing Order Printed Copy

Author: Ellen White
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About the Book

"The Ministry of Healing" by Ellen White is a comprehensive guide for anyone seeking physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. It explores the principles of true health and healing, emphasizing the importance of a balanced lifestyle, proper nutrition, and faith in the healing power of God. The book provides practical advice on maintaining physical health through proper diet, exercise, and rest, as well as addressing mental and emotional well-being. Overall, it offers a holistic approach to health and wellness that encompasses the whole person.

Charles Wesley

"O for a thousand tongues to sing / My dear Redeemer's praise / The glories of my God and King, / The triumphs of his grace!" He was said to have averaged 10 poetic lines a day for 50 years. He wrote 8,989 hymns, 10 times the volume composed by the only other candidate (Isaac Watts) who could conceivably claim to be the world's greatest hymn writer. He composed some of the most memorable and lasting hymns of the church: "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "And Can It Be," "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing," "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling," "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today," "Soldiers of Christ, Arise," and "Rejoice! the Lord Is King!" And yet he is often referred to as the "forgotten Wesley." His brother John is considered the organizational genius behind the founding of Methodism. But without the hymns of Charles, the Methodist movement may have gone nowhere. As one historian put it, "The early Methodists were taught and led as much through [Charles's] hymns as through sermons and [John] Wesley's pamphlets." Language scholar Charles Wesley was the eighteenth of Samuel and Susannah Wesley's nineteen children (only 10 lived to maturity). He was born prematurely in December 1707 and appeared dead. He lay silent, wrapped in wool, for weeks. When older, Charles joined his siblings as each day his mother, Susannah, who knew Greek, Latin, and French, methodically taught them for six hours. Charles then spent 13 years at Westminster School, where the only language allowed in public was Latin. He added nine years at Oxford, where he received his master's degree. It was said that he could reel off the Latin poet Virgil by the half hour. It was off to Oxford University next, and to counteract the spiritual tepidity of the school, Charles formed the Holy Club, and with two or three others celebrated Communion weekly and observed a strict regimen of spiritual study. Because of the group's religious regimen, which later included early rising, Bible study, and prison ministry, members were called "methodists." In 1735 Charles joined his brother John (they were now both ordained), to become a missionary in the colony of Georgia—John as chaplain of the rough outpost and Charles as secretary to Governor Oglethorpe. Shot at, slandered, suffering sickness, shunned even by Oglethorpe, Charles could have echoed brother John's sentiments as they dejectedly returned to England the following year: "I went to America to convert the Indians, but, oh, who will convert me?" It turned out to be the Moravians. After returning to England, Charles taught English to Moravian Peter Böhler, who prompted Charles to look at the state of his soul more deeply. During May 1738, Charles began reading Martin Luther's volume on Galatians while ill. He wrote in his diary, "I labored, waited, and prayed to feel 'who loved me, and gave himself for me.'" He shortly found himself convinced, and journaled, "I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoice in hope of loving Christ." Two days later he began writing a hymn celebrating his conversion. Evangelistic preacher At evangelist George Whitefield's instigation, John and Charles eventually submitted to "be more vile" and do the unthinkable: preach outside of church buildings. In his journal entries from 1739 to 1743, Charles computed the number of those to whom he had preached. Of only those crowds for whom he stated a figure, the total during these five years comes to 149,400. From June 24 through July 8, 1738, Charles reported preaching twice to crowds of ten thousand at Moorfields, once called "that Coney Island of the eighteenth century." He preached to 20,000 at Kennington Common plus gave a sermon on justification before the University of Oxford. On a trip to Wales in 1747, the adventurous evangelist, now 40 years old, met 20-year-old Sally Gwynne, whom he soon married. By all accounts, their marriage was a happy one. Charles continued to travel and preach, sometimes creating tension with John, who complained that "I do not even know when and where you intend to go." His last nationwide trip was in 1756. After that, his health led him gradually to withdraw from itinerant ministry. He spent the remainder of his life in Bristol and London, preaching at Methodist chapels. Magnificent obsession Throughout his adult life, Charles wrote verse, predominantly hymns for use in Methodist meetings. He produced 56 volumes of hymns in 53 years, producing in his lyrics what brother John called a "distinct and full account of scriptural Christianity." The Methodists became known (and sometimes mocked) for their exuberant singing of Charles's hymns. A contemporary observer recorded, "The song of the Methodists is the most beautiful I ever heard … They sing in a proper way, with devotion, serene mind and charm." Charles Wesley quickly earned admiration for his ability to capture universal Christian experience in memorable verse. In the following century, Henry Ward Beecher declared, "I would rather have written that hymn of Wesley's, 'Jesus, Lover of My Soul,' than to have the fame of all the kings that ever sat on the earth." The compiler of the massive Dictionary of Hymnology, John Julian, concluded that "perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration, [Charles Wesley was] the greatest hymn-writer of all ages."

God Always Sets the Table

Perhaps no act of divine provision comes and goes so quietly, so predictably, so almost imperceptibly, like our next meal. Now, for millions of people around the world, the weighty miracle is felt and revered. Unlike many of us, when they pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), they truly do not know if and how that bread will come. They wait for food like many of us never have. When they lie down at night, having eaten enough to quiet their aching stomachs, they marvel that they did not starve today — that God fed them enough to sustain them for another 24 long hours. How slow the rest of us can be to marvel while we eat. We forget to eat. We sometimes think of meals as interruptions to an otherwise productive day. We miss the wonder, like watching three blazing sunrises every day, that the God of heaven and earth feeds us. He Brings Forth Food Psalm 104 does not miss the dumbfounding beauty of daily bread: You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart. (Psalm 104:14–15) You, O God, stretch out the infinite heavens as if it were just a tent (Psalm 104:2). You set the layers of the earth on its foundations, carefully wrapping core with mantle, and mantle with 25,000 miles of crust (Psalm 104:5). You lift the mountains with your hands, some of them 20,000 feet high, and you carve out the depths and crevices of all the valleys (Psalm 104:8). And you feed us. Our next meal stands there right alongside Mount Everest, the Grand Canyon, and the Andromeda Galaxy, among the most breathtaking wonders anywhere in creation. Have you, like me, missed the spectacular mystery laid on the plate before you? Food Is No Footnote Jesus sees what the psalmist saw, the God-sized wonder baked into life-sustaining bread. When he teaches his disciples to pray, he says, Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread . . .” (Matthew 6:9–11) Our Lord moves seamlessly from the reaches of heaven, and the ends of the earth, to the wheat on our plate. The transition is not jarring from the cosmos to the kitchen, even in his extremely concise prayer, because he sees how powerfully God must act in both. “God bakes something of himself — his worth, his mouthwatering glory — into everything we eat.” When we pause to pray and give thanks for the food before us, we have to resist thinking that these moments are trivial, peripheral, forgettable. Every meal, God sets the table. He is hallowing his name, extending his kingdom, and doing his will (among other ways) by providing his people with food. What we eat is not a footnote or afterthought for Jesus. Because he wants his Father to be glorified, he does not take his (or our) daily bread for granted. Two Great Ingredients God mixes at least two great ingredients into mealtime worship: First, he bakes something of himself — his worth, his mouthwatering glory — into everything we eat. Nothing we consume is silent about God. Every bite beckons us to enjoy something sweeter, more satisfying, more soul-sustaining: him. “The creation of food, tongues, and the human digestive system is the product of infinite wisdom knitting the world together in a harmonious whole,” writes Joe Rigney. “The variety of tastes creates categories and gives us edible images of divine things” ( The Things of Earth , 81). Second, when God prepares our food for us, he nourishes and strengthens us to do his will — to eat or drink, or whatever we do, to his glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). Man does not live by bread alone, but he will not live long without bread. God chooses us from among all the people of the earth, despite how little we deserved his love, and makes us his witnesses to the ends of the earth, and — wonder of wonders — he sustains us each and every day, hour by hour, by bringing food forth from the earth. As Rigney goes on to say, “Yes, food is given to us for our enjoyment, to enlarge our categories for knowing God. But food is also God’s way of providing us with energy and strength for the work” (85). If you have lost your sense of the mystery of your meals, remember that this food did not come ultimately from the pantry or the fridge, the grocery store or the farmer’s market, from the butcher or the harvest, but from the mind and heart of God. And he did not entrust us with mouths and meals simply to survive. He wants us to eat for more of him — to experience and enjoy more of him ourselves, and to share more of him in and for the world. My Portion Forever We will not truly wonder at our daily supply of food if we do not treasure God more than food. “My flesh and my heart may fail” — my water may dry up and my bread may not come — “but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalms 73:26). He is my portion — three full meals (and more) for hundreds of thousands of years (and more). Rigney writes, Our sense of hunger and thirst are divinely designed to highlight the soul’s hunger for spiritual food. . . . Apart from our experience of empty stomachs and parched throats, of full bellies, quenched thirsts, and the incredible variety of taste, our spiritual lives would be impoverished, and we would have no real vocabulary for spiritual desire, no mental and emotional framework for engaging with God. (81) God wants what we eat to make us hungry for him . We often eat just to make our hunger go away. What if we ate, instead, to try to taste and see and enjoy the God who feeds us? “Slow down and savor the majesty in your next meal.” Our God came, took on our flesh, and ate among us, saying, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Then the bread of life was broken on the cross, spilling the wine of his precious blood for us — the hungry, the ungrateful, the wandering — to bring us into his new covenant (1 Corinthians 11:24–26), and secure a seat for us at “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). Slow down and savor the majesty in your next meal. However incidental it may feel, the food is pointing to the Provider, telling his story, and anticipating the forever feast we will enjoy with him.