The Elijah Prophecy - The Meaning of Grace

Dear Friends:

If you do not know it already, I was the owner of two health food stores for over 25 years. Therefore, I believe I am qualified to give an intelligent opinion on whether or not a person should take vitamins supplements.

I grew up on vitamin pills. My grandmother would put five or six pills in front of me and tell me to swallow them. I especially liked the Vitamin E capsules because they looked like little footballs. My mother took vitamins most of her life and looked very young for her age. My grandmother lived to 100 years old and attributed her good health and longevity to vitamin pills.

On the positive side, I have seen vitamins and minerals help many people. I have seen skin heal, bleeding gums heal, and bruising stopped from customers taking Vitamin C (1,000 mg. or more a day). I have seen blood sugar levels improve from taking chromium picolinate, high blood pressure lowered with garlic pills and magnesium, arthritis pain lessened from glucosamine sulfate and MSM, the sense of smell return from zinc, energy increase from brewer's yeast capsules, and muscles grow from creatine and growth hormone enhancing amino acids. And yes, I used to take handfuls of supplements while I was a bodybuilder.

But even though I still recommend supplements ("to add to something or supply a deficiency") when necessary, I quit taking all those pills once I learned to eat a healthier diet -- one that includes lots of whole plant foods and juices -- which provides all my nutrients. I still take herbs and superfoods, even an occasional vitamin or two made from whole plant foods, but not synthetic nutracueticals if I can help it.

Now I have customers walk into my office at Modern Manna carrying a ziplock, gallon-size bag full of of vitamin bottles and say: "I take all these vitamins and minerals every day and I still feel terrible." "Evidently," I answer, "the pills are not working very well, and adding one more miracle pill that you read about in Prevention
Magazine is not going to fix the problem either."

I do not agree with some enthusiasts who push the idea that a fix for everything that ails you is available in a high-priced bottle, nor do I agree with the natural enthusiasts who argue that you cannot assimilate any of the nutrients in a vitamin pill. If that were true, I would not have seen the dandruff stop from B-Complex vitamins, the cramps stop from magnesium supplements,
and the bleeding gums stop from taking Vitamin C. I do believe that many people, especially the elderly have a hard time digesting calcium and other supplements because of a lack of hydrochloric
acid and digestive enzymes, but that doesn't mean everybody is going to pass their pills with the next bowel movement.

But let me now say that I do believe the best way to get your essential vitamins is to get them from your food. God put all the nutrients we need in plants and He is the Master Designer. Ever since I quit eating the standard American diet of meat, cheese, dairy, refined carbohydrates and sugar and donuts, and started eating fresh fruits and vegetables, whole beans and legumes, drinking fresh juices juices, and following the other health laws, I haven't been sick in 17 years.

Too many people spend loads of money on vitamin pills and this will not end as long as there is a vitamin business. The latest craze is starch and fat-blocking supplements, because so many overweight people want an easy way to lose pounds. The industry will constantly search for new super nutrients like the news-worthy Resveratrol. "One pill equals 1,000 bottles of wine," says the advertisers. Good, maybe it won't encourage more wine drinking but grape eating. Yes, I think Resveratrol, an antioxidant from grapes, is a good thing, but so are pycnogenol from
the white pine and grapeseed extracts from grapes. Get your antioxidants in the selection of different foods. I tell people to eat the whole plant because the nutrients work synergistically. Resveratrol is only one ingredient, and one nutrient may need another to activate its healing potential. Only God knows.

First there were antioxidants like vitamin E, C, beta carotene, zinc, selenium, germanium, but more and more super foods are being discovered and sold for a huge profit. Everyone seems to be looking in the fruits these days and especially the exotic ones. Locate a new phytochemical or antioxidant and bottle and market it and make a million dollars. This will never end. But just because they feed you all the hype and exaggerated claims doesn't mean the nutrient is a cure for all your health problems. You can read Resveratrol as being a cure from diabetes to cancer; just like they said about Noni Juice, Mangosteen, and all the others. And watch out for the multi-level gurus that tack on another $25.00 to pay themselves. Nothing---I repeat, NOTHING is going to substitute good living practices incorporating Gods' eight laws of health!

Here is my take on the subject. I believe the Dear Lord gave us all the antioxidants in the garden. Blueberries, strawberries, grapes, oranges, plums, garlic, chard, mangoes, and every plant food contains them. But as long as there is a market for supplements, their will be new claims and discoveries of products that work healing miracles. Take them if you want for they can be beneficial, but they may come with a big price tag. I believe in eating them in their whole form combined and not separated and isolated from each other. God is complex and so is His Farmacy. Keep the foods in their whole form and enjoy them. You may never notice a difference from taking Resveratrol, anyway, but all the hype will convince you that you should take it or die.

There is a good magazine called Life Extension. I read it from time to time and like many of their products. But after you read the magazine you are so convinced that you need everything they are reporting and health cannot be maintained any other way. Save your money and get your nutrients from healthy organic produce. Put your hard-earned dollars into the foods God gave you for building and repairing your bodies. Nothing works better than His whole food. If you would simply eliminate all the processed foods and replace them with organic whole plant food, you will probably need one- tenth of the supplements you are now taking.

If you would exercise, drink pure water, eat organic food and drink organic juices, take a whole food super formula of the most powerful foods on earth like in our SuperManna, and cleanse your elimination organs regularly, you will be a Super American and escape most of the diseases caused by toxicity and deficiency. Don't make the mistake that supplements will take the place of good food or make up for your wrong lifestyle practices. Sooner or later it will catch up with you. But if you cannot change your child's diet, give him a good whole food supplement and grandma a whole food liquid vitamin and mineral supplement. If may be good assurance in this day and age to take a whole food concentrate supplement and extra Vitamin B complex when you are under stress. I will recommend certain supplements for certain conditions to get someone over the hump at times, but I always educate them to follow God's laws of health first. After all, how long do you think it will take science to identify all the phytonutrients God put in the garden? Eat rainbows and a wide variety of organic whole plant foods. They are the best vitamins money can buy. After all, all these miracle products come from the garden anyway.

I want to share a true story with you that happened about twenty years ago. One summer night, I was searching and praying for God to give me a clearer understanding of the word grace. I stayed up all night digging in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy for a more thorough definition of the word since one of the most profound promises in the Bible says: "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God." Eph. 2:8. I wanted to know exactly what grace means since I am saved by it.

The traditional definition of grace is unmerited favor, mercy, pardon, and moral strength. The Bible teaches that it is by Christ's merits alone that we are saved. Grace is a free gift that Christ imparts to undeserving human beings because He loves us. Without the merits of Christ we would all be lost because "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" and "the wages of sin is death." Romans 3:23; 6:23.

In fact, one very interesting statement in the Spirit of Prophecy says: "By disobeying the commands of God, man fell under the condemnation of His law. This fall called for the grace of God to appear in behalf of sinners. We should never have learned the meaning of this word 'grace' had we not fallen. God loves the sinless angels, who do His service, and are obedient to all His commands; but He does not give them grace. These heavenly beings know naught of grace; they have never needed it; for they have never sinned. Grace is an attribute of God shown to undeserving human beings. We did not seek after it, but it was sent in search of us. God rejoices to bestow this grace upon every one who hungers for it. To every one He presents terms of mercy, not because we are worthy, but because we are so utterly unworthy. Our need is the qualification which gives us the assurance that we shall receive this gift." God's Amazing Grace, p. 10.

That summer night, I relentlessly searched to find out more about God's amazing grace. I got out my Bible, Strong's Concordance, the Spirit of Prophecy, and Webster's Dictionary and read for hours every sentence, paragraph and Scripture I could find with the word grace. I read for hours comparing the information I had collected to find a clearer explanation of the word. Then I found in Strong's Concordance one of the best definitions: "Grace is the divine influence in the heart and its reflection in the life." Webster's Dictionary implies the same and says: "The influence or spirit of God operating in man." Isn't that awesome. God's grace comes through the Holy Spirit, and not only cleanses us of our confessed sins, but furnishes the divine strength to fight the battle over self and Satan. Grace operates in us and is reflected in our hearts. ! I love the promise in Isaiah 59:19 that says: "When the enemy [Satan] shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him." God provides His moral strength or grace through the Holy Spirit at the very moment we need it to have victory over the devil.

Today I define grace as God's spiritual energy or power to perform His perfect will in fallen humanity, and this comes through the Holy Spirit and the holy angels. "Through faith, irrespective of feeling, Jesus, the Author of our salvation, the Finisher of our faith, will, by His precious grace, strengthen the moral powers, and the sinner may reckon himself "to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ. Simple faith, with the love of Christ in the soul, unites the believer to God. While toiling in battle as a faithful soldier of Christ, he has the sympathy of the whole loyal universe. The ministering angels are round about him to aid in the conflict, so that he may boldly say, 'The Lord is my helper,' 'the Lord is my strength and my shield'; I shall not be overcome. By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.' ... The infinite wisdom and power of God are exerted in our behalf. The heavenly host are surely fighting our battles for us." Testimonies to Ministers, p. 147, 148. Praise God! We have the "sympathy of the whole loyal universe" which brings God's grace or spiritual strength to aid us in the battle with sin. Furthermore, grace changes us into new creatures and fits us for the courts above.

Another wonderful lesson on grace is in the book Christ Object Lessons by Ellen G. White. In this book there is a short chapter entitled Like Unto Leaven about the parable in Matthew 13:33: "Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." Strong's Concordance gave me the best definition of grace in a single sentence and Christ Object Lessons provides one of the best chapters explaining this miraculous gift of God: "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven [yeast], which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole [loaf of bread] was leavened." Among the Jews leaven was sometimes used as an emblem of sin. At the time of the Passover the people were directed to remove all the leaven from their houses as they were to put away sin from their hearts. Christ warned His disciples, 'Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.' Luke 12:1. And the apostle Paul speaks of the 'leaven of malice and wickedness.' 1 Cor. 5:8. But in the Saviour's parable, leaven is used to represent the kingdom of heaven. It illustrates the quickening, assimilating power of the grace of God. Christ Object Lessons, pp. 95, 96.

Here we see that the inspired writer defines God's grace as "assimilating power." This corroborates perfectly with what we learned above because it happens in us -- the divine influence is assimilated by man which is given as a gift from God. Simply put, it means we will do or perform God's will in our own lives -- in our mortal flesh: "For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh."

Ellen White continues to offer us hope: "None are so vile, none have fallen so low, as to be beyond the working of this power. In all who will submit themselves to the Holy Spirit a new principle of life is to be implanted; the lost image of God is to be restored in humanity.
"But man cannot transform himself by the exercise of his will. He possesses no power by which this change can be effected. The leaven -- something wholly from without -- must be put into the meal before the desired change can be wrought in it. So the grace of God must be received by the sinner before he can be fitted for the kingdom of glory. All the culture and education which the world can give will fail of making a degraded child of sin a child of heaven. The renewing energy must come from God. The change can be made only by the Holy Spirit. All who would be saved, high or low, rich or poor, must submit to the working of this power. Christ Object Lessons, p. 96.

Friends, is your understanding of the word grace becoming clearer? Here E. G. White refers to God's grace as renewing energy -- something we receive wholly from outside because it comes from God and is assimilated in our mortal flesh. How much He must love us to make us partakers of His divine nature.

God's amazing grace pardons and saves us. Grace transforms a sinner into a saint. Yes, the Bible says "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," but it also reassures that we are "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Romans 3:23, 24. Now compare these verses with Romans 5:8-10: "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified [pardoned] by his blood [and grace], we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." By Christ's death and sinless life, He saves us with His perfect righteousness. He imputes and imparts His perfect life to us by His grace. This is the good news of the gospel.
Another point I want to interject now is taken from the book Acts of the Apostles. Many times we think of God being dependent on our human effort. If we try harder, God will make up the deficiency and do His part. In the battle with sin, how big is your effort compared to God's? Let me ask it this way: "Can you lift any part of a mountain?" "Jesus said ... If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." Friends, does this mean if I try real hard I can lift some of the mountain? Maybe 300 lbs. of it while Christ lifts the rest? What I read in Acts of the Apostles tells me something different about human effort. It says the effort may be more about faith than human works. Here is the statement: "At one time, while Paul was telling the people of Christ's work as a healer of the sick and afflicted, he saw among his hearers a cripple whose eyes were fastened on him and who received and believed his words. Paul's heart went out in sympathy toward the afflicted man, in whom he discerned one who had faith to be healed. In the presence of the idolatrous assembly Paul commanded the cripple to stand upright on his feet. Heretofore the sufferer had been able to take a sitting posture only, but now he instantly obeyed Paul's command and for the first time in his life stood on his feet. Strength came with this effort of faith, and he who had been a cripple 'leaped and walked'." AA 181. The man didn't need to put more human strength into standing and walking, he needed to put more effort into believing (in faith) in Christ's power and healing grace. Sometimes, I think the reason I keep failing and falling is that I am not putting enough human effort, as in my own works, in overcoming self. But in reality, I may not be putting enough effort in faith in Christ's strength to fight the battle and gain the victory for me.

Christ is the only one that has the power, right? Now read Ephesians with me again: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." Let us rather boast in God's grace and power as He performs His good works in us. Then we become His workmanship! (Eph. 2:10). This effort of faith is a common teaching in the Bible. In Titus 3:5 we read: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." Abraham learned to depend on God's grace through faith for in Romans 4 we read: "He [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what He [God] had promised, He [God] was able also to perform [in Abraham]. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also." vss. 20-24.
"Often the question arises, Why, then, are there so many, claiming to believe God's word, in whom there is not seen a reformation in words, in spirit, and in character? Why are there so many who cannot bear opposition to their purposes and plans, who manifest an unholy temper, and whose words are harsh, overbearing, and passionate? There is seen in their lives the same love of self, the same selfish indulgence, the same temper and hasty speech, that is seen in the life of the worldling. There is the same sensitive pride, the same yielding to natural inclination, the same perversity of character, as if the truth were wholly unknown to them. The reason is that they are not converted. They have not hidden the leaven of truth [or grace] in the heart. It has not had opportunity to do its work. Their natural and cultivated tendencies to evil have not been submitted to its transforming power. Their lives reveal the absence of the grace of Christ, an unbelief in His power to transform the character.

"'Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.' Rom. 10:17. The Scriptures are the great agency in the transformation of character. Christ prayed, 'Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth.' John 17:17. If studied and obeyed, the word of God works in the heart, subduing every unholy attribute. The Holy Spirit comes to convict of sin, and the faith that springs up in the heart works by love to Christ, conforming us in body, soul, and spirit to His own image. Then God can use us to do His will. The power given us works from within outwardly, leading us to communicate to others the truth that has been communicated to us. ... Received into the heart, the leaven of truth [God's grace] will regulate the desires, purify the thoughts, and sweeten the disposition. It quickens the faculties of the mind and the energies of the soul. It enlarges the capacity for feeling, for loving. ... The heart of him who receives the grace of God overflows with love for God and for those for whom Christ died. Self is not struggling for recognition. He does not love others because they love and please him, because they appreciate his merits, but because they are Christ's purchased possession. If his motives, words, or actions are misunderstood or misrepresented, he takes no offense, but pursues the even tenor of his way. He is kind and thoughtful, humble in his opinion of himself, yet full of hope, always trusting in the mercy and love of God.
"... The leaven of truth [God's grace] works a change in the whole man, making the coarse refined, the rough gentle, the selfish generous. By it the impure are cleansed, washed in the blood of the Lamb. Through its life-giving power it brings all there is of mind and soul and strength into harmony with the divine life. Man with his human nature becomes a partaker of divinity. Christ is honored in excellence and perfection of character. As these changes are effected, angels break forth in rapturous song, and God and Christ rejoice over souls fashioned after the divine similitude. COL 100-105.

Now I better understand what it means to be saved by grace. There must be a growth in grace as man is fitted for the kingdom of heaven. "The work of transformation from unholiness to holiness is a continuous one. Day by day God labors for man's sanctification, and man is to cooperate with Him, putting forth persevering efforts in the cultivation of right habits. He is to add grace to grace; and as he thus works on the plan of addition, God works for him on the plan of multiplication. Our Saviour is always ready to hear and answer the prayer of the contrite heart, and grace and peace are multiplied to His faithful ones. Gladly He grants them the blessings they need in their struggle against the evils that beset them. . . . Glorious is the hope before the believer as he advances by faith toward the heights of Christian perfection!" MLT 101.

I want you to think of grace in a new way. When someone tells you that you can be saved by grace without obeying God's commandments, as if God's grace gives you a license to sin instead of providing power to have victory over sin, you can share with them what you learned in this lesson -- that God has all the spiritual energy necessary to change our vile hearts and perform His good will in us. You can then quote them the following Scripture: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" Romans 6:1, 2.

His Grace is sufficient for thee,
Danny Vierra