Wellness Plus Institue

Teaching and Promoting Radical Wellness.

RADICAL WELLNESS: GOOD HEALTH, GOOD NEWS!

“The principles of health reform are found in the Word of God. The gospel of health is to be firmly linked with the ministry of the Word. It is the Lord's design that the restoring influence of health reform shall be a part of the last great effort to proclaim the gospel message.” Ellen G. White, Medical Ministry, p. 259.

At its most fundamental level, good health (wellness) and the good news (gospel) have the same basic elements: both are God’s gifts to humanity; both need to be received with gratitude; and both need to be lived out by God’s enabling power and love as a response to His amazing goodness and grace.

Salvation from the guilt, condemnation, power of, and the eternal consequences of sin is a gift to those who with genuine repentance responds to God’s invitation to come back to Him: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” Ephesians 2:8, English Standard Version (ESV).

We receive God’s gift of salvation when we believe and have faith in Jesus the Christ – His vicarious perfect obedience to God’s law, His vicarious death on the cross for our sins, His victorious resurrection, His ongoing and enabling mediation for and in our behalf (Hebrews 4:16), and His soon return to take us home to live with Him forevermore (John 14:1-3).

In the same manner, we may receive the gift of good health. Before humans came to the scene on Planet Earth, God created the cradle and environment for us not only to exist but to thrive. Our whole anatomy and physiology were created and designed by God (Psalm 139:14) to function in perfect health as we embrace with gratitude the support systems He has established in the beginning – clean air, life-enhancing sunshine, refreshing water, nutritious food, productive activities, and wholesome relationships. These are His gifts to us to experience radical wellness.

Like the gospel of salvation, health and wellness are primarily not a status to work out for or attain. Rather, it is a reality - a gift - that we need to accept and receive from God who is the Source, Sustainer, and Healer of our life, health, and happiness. It is a truth to be lived out because of His amazing grace and by the power of the love of Jesus Christ who “[came] that [we] might have life, and that [we] might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

God’s gift of radical wellness is ensconced in what the Apostle Paul exclaimed as God’s “indescribable gift” to us – Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord (2 Corinthians 2:15). Because of His great love for us, God has made us alive together with Him, not because of our works but by His grace, lest anyone should boast (Ephesians 2:1-9). Consequently, we ought to live as a new person, walking in wisdom and living our lives as an expression of thanksgiving and gratitude for the exceedingly abundant life He has gifted us in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:1-6:32). We can live thus because the love of Christ constrains us (2 Corinthians 5:14); He strengthens us to do all things for His glory and for our blessing (Philippians 4:13).

God gives us good gifts because He loves us. Consider this:

“The power of God is manifested in the beating of the heart, in the action of the lungs, and in the living currents that circulate through the thousand different channels of the body. We are indebted to Him for every moment of existence, and for all the comforts of life. The powers and abilities that elevate man above the lower creation, are the endowment of the Creator. He loads us with His benefits. We are indebted to Him for the food we eat, the water we drink, the clothes we wear, the air we breathe. Without His special providence, the air would be filled with pestilence and poison. He is a bountiful benefactor and preserver. The sun which shines upon the earth, and glorifies all nature, the weird solemn radiance of the moon, the glories of the firmament, spangled with brilliant stars, the showers that refresh the land, and cause vegetation to flourish, the precious things of nature in all their varied richness, the lofty trees, the shrubs and plants, the waving grain, the blue sky, the green earth, the changes of day and night, the renewing seasons, all speak to man of his Creator's love. He has linked us to Himself by all these tokens in heaven and in earth.”¹

In the beginning, God gave man the gift of a God-like character and good health. As Dr. Mervyn Hardinge, founding dean of the School of Public Health at Loma Linda University, said: “Health came first; disease is an interloper. It came when sin entered the world when man began to violate moral and spiritual law.”²

In the gift of His Son Jesus Christ, God has offered to give back the gifts that humanity lost when Adam and Eve sinned. Jesus Christ came that we “may have life and may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10. That abundant life will eternally be ours permanently at His second coming (Ephesians 4:1). Meanwhile, we are enjoined “to walk worthy of the calling with which [we] were called” as we tarry here in expectancy and hope for its everlasting fulfillment. Right now, we are still in this war zone of the great controversy between good and evil.

This great controversy is described by the Apostle Paul thus: “. . . we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12, New Living Translation (NLT).

As in any war, some of us may be caught in the crossfire of the contending forces. But even if we become casualties, we have this blessing of “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Titus 2:13.

Radical Wellness proposes a theocentric and gospel-oriented world view of the pursuit of health. God is the Creator of man and the principles by which he can live a life of wellness. Not only that, God continues to sustain human life every moment, every hour of every day. God is the one who heals our sicknesses “through the agencies of nature” that are set at work to restore soundness” to our bodies.³

To consider the centrality of spirituality in better living is to recognize the true nature and purpose of human life. When this is done, the stage is set for a really fulfilling experience. In each of us can then be fulfilled Apostle John’s wish for his friend Gaius when he wrote to him thus: “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” 3 John 2.

As Dr. Lorraine Day aptly wrote: “Simply put, the process of getting well is the process of getting to know God.”⁴

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1 White, E. G. (1983). Sons and daughters of God. Hagerstown, MD: Review & Herald Publishing
Association.
2 Hardinge, M. (1980). A philosophy of health, Loma Linda, California: School of Health, Loma
Linda University.
3 White, E. G. (1903). Education. Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association.
4 Day, L. (1997). You can’t improve on God. Thousand Palms, California: Rockford Press.

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