>>>>>Zeal, would you consider sending your daughter to Weimar or Wildwood to learn cooking to reverse type 2 diabetes, and put her in a owner-op catering truck / Medical Missionary / Bible Worker self employed - type situation?<<<<<Well, neither Weimar nor Wildwood were "equipped to deal an autistic person" just like everyone else. But anything else she would need me or someone else to help her. She could work on a catering truck but could never drive one or operate a business on her own. Truthfully, and sadly, there has never been a single SDA organization that has ever stepped up to the plate where she is concerned. In fact, outside of a place to worship and serve, the Adventist Church has done exactly zero for me as a person or for my family in any way. I guess that is how God wants it or He would put it in their hearts.
My convictions of duty on this point have been greatly strengthened by the following dream: {1T 631.3} A grove of evergreens was presented before me. Several, including myself, were laboring among them. I was bidden to closely inspect the trees and see if they were in a flourishing condition. I observed that some were being bent and deformed by the wind, and needed to be supported by stakes. I was carefully removing the dirt from the feeble and dying trees to ascertain the cause of their condition. I discovered worms at the roots of some. Others had not been watered properly and were dying from drought. The roots of others had been crowded together to their injury. My work was to explain to the workmen the different reasons why these trees did not prosper. This was necessary from the fact that trees in other grounds were liable to be affected as these had been, and the cause of their not flourishing and how they should be cultivated and treated must be made known. {1T 632.1} In this testimony I speak freely of the case of Sister Hannah More, not from a willingness to grieve the Battle Creek church, but from a sense of duty. I love that church notwithstanding their faults. I know of no church that in acts of benevolence and general duty do so well. I present the frightful facts in this case to arouse our people everywhere to a sense of their duty. Not one in twenty of those who have a good standing with Seventh-day Adventists is living out the self-sacrificing principles of the word of God. But let not their enemies, who are destitute of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, take advantage of the fact that they are reproved. This is evidence that they are the children of the Lord. Those who are without chastisement, says the apostle, are bastards and not sons. Then let not these illegitimate children boast over the lawful sons and daughters of the Almighty. {1T 632.2}
"If this world was so great and if the church was so helpful we would not long for the second coming of Christ."Amen!I have to constantly remember not to look to people, but to Jesus. People will let you down much of the time. When I think how many times I have let people down--and am presently letting people down--I am humbled to the dust.
God's original purpose in the creation of the earth is fulfilled as it is made the eternal abode of the redeemed. "The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever." The time has come to which holy men have looked with longing since the flaming sword barred the first pair from Eden--the time for "the redemption of the purchased possession." The earth originally given to man as his kingdom, betrayed by him into the hands of Satan, and so long held by the mighty foe, has been brought back by the great plan of redemption. {AH 540.1} All that was lost by the first Adam will be restored by the second. The prophet says, "O Tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto Thee shall it come, even the first dominion." And Paul points forward to the "redemption of the purchased possession." {AH 540.2} God created the earth to be the abode of holy, happy beings. That purpose will be fulfilled when, renewed by the power of God and freed from sin and sorrow, it shall become the eternal home of the redeemed. {AH 540.3} "When the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come."Mark 4:29 Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own. {COL 69.1} It is the privilege of every Christian not only to look for but to hasten the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, (2 Peter 3:12, margin). Were all who profess His name bearing fruit to His glory, how quickly the whole world would be sown with the seed of the gospel. Quickly the last great harvest would be ripened, and Christ would come to gather the precious grain. {COL 69.2}
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
The world needs today what it needed nineteen hundred years ago--a revelation of Christ. A great work of reform is demanded, and it is only through the grace of Christ that the work of restoration, physical, mental, and spiritual, can be accomplished.
It is a universal principle that whenever one refuses to use his God-given powers, these powers decay and perish. Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue.--The Acts of the Apostles, p. 206. {ChS 97.4} Nothing will give bone and sinew to your piety like working to advance the cause you profess to love, instead of binding it.--Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 236. {ChS 98.1} Those who endeavor to maintain Christian life by passively accepting the blessings that come through the means of grace, and doing nothing for Christ, are simply trying to live by eating without working. And in the spiritual as in the natural world, this always results in degeneration and decay.--Steps to Christ, pp. 80, 81. {ChS 98.2}
