In 1996, I was extremely ill—barely hanging onto life by a thread—and was willing to go to any public or private hospital, despite their reliance on conventional medical practice often based on spiritualistic traditions. Providentially, I ended up at a health institution whose lights were on for access day and night. There I ended up staying for more than a year.

At this institution, the recommended road to recovery as practiced was different than I had expected. For the first few months, the prescription was to eat raw food, study the word of God, and listen to lectures. Nearly half a year later, only after the staff had first focused on the healing of my soul did the physiological healing eventually come which addressed the two main problems that had led me to this institution in the first place.

I was there at the same time as a young patient who was accompanied by her grandmother. Her medical condition was horrific. She was in a critical state, unable to move or care for herself, requiring constant attention. In the final days of her life, the young woman remained bedridden, receiving care and support as she endured extremely severe health complications.

Her grandmother, who was a very prayerful person, wept in her granddaughter’s lap. The young woman had apparently sought help at nearly all the major hospitals and had taken every remedy available, but she still could not overcome the condition she was facing. As a last resort, the grandmother now strongly insisted to the young woman that she needed to confess her sins to God, desperately reasoning in accordance with the biblical proverb that “the curse causeless shall not come” (Proverbs 26:2, last part).

“Satan is the originator of disease; and the physician is warring against his work and power. Sickness of the mind prevails everywhere. Nine tenths of the diseases from which men suffer have their foundation here. Perhaps some living home trouble is, like a canker, eating to the very soul and weakening the life forces. Remorse for sin sometimes undermines the constitution and unbalances the mind.”2

The earnest appeal of the devoted grandmother evidently struck an answering chord in the young woman’s heart. Suddenly, to the shock of all, the patient candidly blurted out a description of a very egregious practice she had committed in her life that had been in blatant defiance of God. As a result of that behavior in her youth, she had felt as if she was suffering under a great curse that ended up manifesting itself in this physical ailment. For quite some time, she had hoped to be cured by medicine, but her condition had only gotten worse.

Now the young woman felt the need to face the truth about the iniquity which had long troubled her soul—acknowledging her great need for Christ, the only Saviour of sinners. At this moment, those who heard her tragic history fervently prayed in her behalf.

There is a lesson that can be gleaned from this experience:

“The physician needs more than human wisdom and power that he may know how to minister to the many perplexing cases of disease of the mind and heart with which he is called to deal. If he is ignorant of the power of divine grace he cannot help the afflicted one, but will aggravate the difficulty; but if he has a firm hold upon God he will be able to help the diseased, distracted mind. He will be able to point his patients to Christ and teach them to carry all their cares and perplexities to the great Burden Bearer.

“There is a divinely appointed connection between sin and disease. No physician can practice for a month without seeing this illustrated. He may ignore the fact; his mind may be so occupied with other matters that his attention will not be called to it; but if he will be observing and honest he cannot help acknowledging that sin and disease bear to each other the relationship of cause and effect. The physician should be quick to see this and to act accordingly. When he has gained the confidence of the afflicted by relieving their sufferings and bringing them back from the verge of the grave, he may teach them that disease is the result of sin and that it is the fallen foe who seeks to allure them to health-and-soul-destroying practices. He may impress their minds with the necessity of denying self and obeying the laws of life and health. In the minds of the young especially he may instill right principles. God loves His creatures with a love that is both tender and strong. He has established the laws of nature, but His laws are not arbitrary exactions. Every ‘Thou shalt not,’ whether in physical or moral law, contains or implies a promise.”3

After the young woman at the institution confessed her sins to God, you could see deep peace on her face. We all realized that this peace did not come from within her. It came through that heavenly peace found only in Jesus Christ.

Yes, after some time, the more grievous symptoms in her physical condition started to diminish, but by then she said: “Now I need to rest. Please, I need to rest. I need to rest.” She viewed all the suffering she had endured as simply a consequence of that rebellious lifestyle, yet she now recognized the beauty and eternal wisdom of the Almighty One in whose loving care she now rested. It was not long before she passed away—peacefully, and in His tender mercy.

Christ is eager to inspire hope in the afflicted and show that faith in Him brings healing and restoration of soul and body.

All over the planet, millions of people need assistance, from the simplest to the most complex cases. What is the biggest problem? The psalmist acknowledges to God the spiritual dimension: “There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin” (Psalm 38:3).

Most are aware that it is important to follow a healthy diet based on fruit, vegetables, and pure water, to exercise, rest, sunbathe, breathe plenty of fresh air, etc. Yet perhaps most important of all is mental and spiritual health, which we all tend to neglect.

There are many who follow a restrictive diet, religiously selecting their food and in many cases adding nutritional supplements. Others wake up rigorously in the morning—and many even before going to bed—to do exercise. Nonetheless they feed on pride, vanity, lust, indifference, and contempt for others, neglecting the best physical exercise in the world (missionary work—the gospel with our feet on the ground—walking, walking fast, running to carry the gospel.)

And there are still those who worry about going to bed early to take care of their bodies and their emotional well-being, which, of course, is right and not wrong. Yet amid their work, business, or study, all that intellectual activity may indeed be motivated by a selfish, greedy ambition for gain and pleasure in this passing world. They are not willing to make the same sacrifices when it comes to missionary work, supporting the disabled, the sick, and those affected by the pain of death or disasters. With such habits, in many irreversible cases, they often acquire—both in the short and long term—pain, as well as physical, mental, and spiritual illnesses for themselves.

The true source of physical, mental, and spiritual health is God, the loving Father, and Jesus, the great Physician. The connection of the human mind with the mind of Christ that brings vigor to the mind, the soul, the neurons, and vital organs, also gives vitality to the whole body—thus preventing disease and healing sick bodies.

As a colporteur, I was invited to give a talk at the printing center of a large national bank. I presented our books to them, including the book, Steps to Christ. At the end of the talk, the departmental director took me to his office and introduced me to a skinny, anemic young man with long hair, a disfigured face, and a tumor on his knee—limping and moving around with a lot of discomfort. He was suffering from chest pains and back pains.

I asked him why he was in this condition, and he told me that he had been living with his father and mother and his three little brothers. Then, when his father became seriously ill and eventually died, one of the father’s best friends bribed the authorities and falsified the documentation for the house where their family lived in the city center, claiming to the court that the house belonged to him. The court agreed and they evicted the whole family onto the street.

This unfortunate family now had nowhere to go, and even their relatives did not care to know about them any longer. Eventually, a man came along when they least expected it and found them an old shack next to a market, where they began to live the pauper’s life.

This frustrating experience triggered a feeling of angry resentment in the young man. His three brothers had to abandon their studies due to a lack of finances; his mother suffered a psychological crisis, hypertensive crisis, and loss of sight—plus, due to this trauma, one brother suffered epilepsy. Now, although this young man, too, was ill, he was the only one who could give his family even the slightest support. With his weakened health, he had had to leave the university and no company would employ him.

Then the bank manager, a compassionate gentleman with a kind heart, invited him to work with him in his department—to tidy up the paperwork and boxes and to take care of the rubbish. At the end of the month, every time the manager received his salary, he gave a little to this young man. The young man said that he was waiting for surgery on his knee, perhaps to amputate his leg, but that day would never come, due to lack of resources. That’s how I introduced him to Jesus Christ, the Lord who heals the soul. He was grateful and took the book to read. A week later, I introduced him to Christ’s forgiveness, and with tears in his eyes, he accepted it naturally. I then asked him to forgive the man who had disgraced his family.

“How can I forgive someone who has brought so much misfortune to me, my mother and my brothers?” he asked. I begged him to let God act in his heart and to leave this battle with the Lord.

After some time, he finally agreed to forgive. I went home and told my wife, who was studying medicine at the time. She got a bucket, prepared some clay to bring, plus more bags of dry clay and some cabbage and onions. We took all this to the young man’s house. She began to put clay on the young man’s knee and gave him instructions from the Spirit of Prophecy regarding abstinence from harmful foods and the abundant use of fresh, natural, plant-based food. At the same time, we were giving medicine to his brother and mother.

Yes, the Lord uses the natural remedies as healing agencies, but a key element in the restoration process is often to realize the following as well:

“One of the most common sins, and one that is attended with most pernicious results, is the indulgence of an unforgiving spirit. How many will cherish animosity or revenge and then bow before God and ask to be forgiven as they forgive. Surely they can have no true sense of the import of this prayer or they would not dare to take it upon their lips. We are dependent upon the pardoning mercy of God every day and every hour; how then can we cherish bitterness and malice toward our fellow sinners!”4

We are the most privileged people in the history of the world. We live in a time of the greatest divine light with the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. We really enjoy a unique privilege in being rewarded with the teachings contained in the Spirit of Prophecy. In it, the Lord clearly describes how we should eat, dress, relate, and manage our businesses. It contains the best emotional and spiritual support. We need to be rigorous workers to expose these teachings to everyone, discourage the use of sophisticated, ultra-processed foods, and avoid the rudiments of the world and scientific claims that are not supported by the Word of God and the Spirit of Prophecy. We must seek a deep relationship with God, the only absolute Guarantor of our physical and psycho-emotional well-being.

“The Saviour in His miracles revealed the power that is continually at work in man’s behalf, to sustain and to heal him. Through the agencies of nature, God is working, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, to keep us alive, to build up and restore us. When any part of the body sustains injury, a healing process is at once begun; nature’s agencies are set at work to restore soundness. But the power working through these agencies is the power of God. All life-giving power is from Him. When one recovers from disease, it is God who restores him.

“Sickness, suffering, and death are work of an antagonistic power. Satan is the destroyer; God is the restorer.

“The words spoken to Israel are true today of those who recover health of body or health of soul. ‘I am the Lord that healeth thee.’ Exodus 15:26.

“The desire of God for every human being is expressed in the words, ‘Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.’ 3 John 2.

"He it is who ‘forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies.’ Psalm 103:3, 4.”5

In these stories and passages, we see a clear truth: Spiritual healing can often make a big difference in promoting physical healing. Faith and repentance have power to fortify the body in a unique way. The woman who touched Jesus’ garment was healed because of her faith, showing us that we need to come to Him, too. As we thus open our sin-sick, broken hearts to receive His mercy, we experience the reality that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3).

What might be holding you back from enjoying the great peace God has to offer? Have you searched your heart to see if there could be some sin you have not recognized or a burden you’re still carrying? Maybe pride is keeping you from fully experiencing His grace. Think about this: What do you need to let go of to be made whole? What hidden struggle might be preventing you from finding peace? God sees it all, and His healing mercy is available to whosoever will approach Him with humility.

Turn to Christ, the One who heals both souls and bodies. Confess your sins, let go of things that hinder your healing, trust in His limitless power, and you will find peace and full restoration. He has promised, “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26), and His word never fails. Seek the healing of the soul first through Him who took upon Himself our pain and sorrows, and everything else will fall into place according to His will. Amen!