Healthy Living – Seventh-day Adventist Church

Seventh-day Adventists are called to live healthy lives befitting children of God in both thought and action. As Seventh-day Adventists we are called to keep our lives pure in body and spirit for the service of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is God’s desire that all will come to a full understanding of the precious gift of life He has given us in the bodies we have and how to nurture them for His service. These statements reflect on the Seventh-day understanding of healthy living.

In this document

God’s workmanship
Creations crown
Personal rights
Mind supreme
Christ in man
Service

God’s Workmanship

God is the owner of the whole man. Soul, body, and spirit are his.
God gave his only begotten Son for the body as well as the soul, and our
entire life belongs to God, to be consecrated to his service, that through the
exercise of every faculty he has given, we may glorify him.—The Youth’s
Instructor, September 7, 1893.
From the first dawn of reason the human mind should become
intelligent in regard to the physical structure of the body. Here Jehovah
has given a specimen of himself; for man was made in the image of
God.—Unpublished Testimonies, January 11, 1897.
The living organism is God’s property. It belongs to him by creation
and by redemption; and by a misuse of any of our powers we rob God of
the honor due him.—Unpublished Testimonies, August 30, 1896.
We are God’s workmanship, and his word declares that we are
“fearfully and wonderfully made.” He has prepared this living habitation
for the mind; it is “curiously wrought,” a temple which the Lord himself
has fitted up for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.—Special Testimonies On
Education, 33.
The very flesh in which the soul tabernacles, and through which it works, is the Lord’s—Unpublished Testimonies, October 12, 1896.

Creation’s Crown

Man was the crowning act of the creation of God, made in the image
of God, and designed to be a counterpart of God…. Man is very dear to
God, because he was formed in his own image. This fact should impress us
with the importance of teaching by precept and example the sin of defiling,
by the indulgence of appetite or by any other sinful practice, the body which
is designed to represent God to the world.—The Review and Herald, June
18, 1895.
The wonderful mechanism of the human body does not receive half
the care that is often given to a mere lifeless machine.—Gospel Workers,
175.

Personal Rights

Have I not the right to do as I please with my own body?—No,
you have no moral right, because you are violating the laws of life and
health which God has given you. You are the Lord’s property,—his by
creation and his by redemption. Every human being is under obligation
to preserve the living machinery that is so fearfully and wonderfully
made.—Unpublished Testimonies, May 19, 1897.
The physical organism should have special care, that the powers
of the body may not be dwarfed, but developed to their full extent.—The
Youth’s Instructor, July 27, 1893.
The health should be as sacredly guarded as the character.—Christian
Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 83.
Jesus did not ignore the claims of the body, He had respect for the
physical condition of man, and went about healing the sick, and restoring
their faculties to those suffering from their loss. How incumbent, then, is it upon us to preserve the natural health with which God has endowed us, and to avoid dwarfing or weakening our powers.—The Health Reformer, November 1, 1877.

Mind Supreme

As they more fully understand the human body, the wonderful work
of God’s hand, formed in the image of the divine, they will seek to bring
their bodies into subjection to the noble powers of the mind. The body
will be regarded by them as a wonderful structure, formed by the Infinite
Designer, and given into their charge to be kept in harmonious action.—The
Health Reformer, September 1, 1871.
The obligation we owe to God in presenting to him clean, pure,
healthy bodies is not comprehended.—Unpublished Testimonies, May 19,
1897.

Christ in Man

Christ is to live in his human agents, and work through their
faculties, and act through their capabilities.—Thoughts from the Mount of
Blessing, 128.
When human agents choose the will of God, and are
conformed to the character of Christ, Jesus acts through their organs and
faculties.—Special Testimonies to Ministers and Workers 3:49.
The Spirit of Christ is to take possession of the organs of speech, of
the mental powers, of the physical and moral powers.—Special Testimonies
for Ministers and Workers 6:53.

Service