AMEN 2010: Christ - Patient Restorer

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

AMEN 2010 Plenary Sessions

Allen Lloyd

From Fractured to Whole

Nebblett Family

Wholeness with God

David DeRose

Holistic Medicine in the US - Passing Fad or Permanent Fixture?

P. William Dysinger

Historical Perspectives on Adventist Medicine

Phil Mills

Restorer’s

Edwin Nebblett

Maria Nebblett

Wholeness with Your Spouse

Nicolae Dan

Is This the Time?

Raja Tooma

Going All Out with Witnessing: Is that Your Heartbeat Doctor?

Mark Finley

To Make Man Whole - Christ the Patient Restorer

Challenge to the students at AMEN conference 2010

Naren James

Why Media? Introducing the Life & Health Network

Wholeness with Your Family

I've asked my family to join me this morning for it is better to hear how this living experience that we want to share with you today works practically for everyone that is in the family.

As Elf-care practitioners, have you ever encountered individuals who have had dark experiences in their life?

What do you have to offer those who are stressed with everyday life?

Does your personal walk with God help you to provide encouragement for these hurting ones?

Are we filled with the Holy Spirit so that we can be a source of blessing to those that we have opportunity to care for?

Do we have a living experience with God that prepares us to go through our own trials?

A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs.

To seek this should be our first work." That's Selected Messages, Volume 1, page 121.

You know, when someone is filled with the Holy Spirit, They immediately start having an influence.

When churches are revived, it is because some individual seeks earnestly for the blessing of God.

He hungers and thirsts after God and asks in faith and receives accordingly.

He goes to work in earnest and feeling his great dependence upon the Lord, souls are aroused to seek a like blessing and a season of refreshing falls on the hearts of men.

We want to share with you this morning how the blessing of that living connection with God produces godliness which is profitable unto all things, 1 Timothy 4, chapter 4, verse 8.

We want to encourage you that if you are not already doing this, that you start right now while you are here at the AMEN conference.

And if you are already doing this, that you go deeper in your experience.

It takes time and intentionality to nurture a deep, intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we live in an age where it seems that everyone is pressed for time.

Technology has provided us with more so-called time-saving devices than ever before in the history of mankind and yet It seems that we have never been more stressed.

Friends, this condition we believe is not by accident, but by design of an enemy of our souls who knows that busyness can easily lead to a lack of intimacy, resulting in stress, emptiness, and anxiety.

1 pastor states, we have become a body of people that looks more like a herd of cattle in a stampede than a flock of God by living by green pastures and living waters.

The Lord Jesus was the busiest person who ever walked the face of this earth.

The problem arises when Our busyness is not regularly interrupted by quiet seasons of solitude for communion with God and reflection that refresh the soul, that help recover our spiritual strength, that deepen our awareness of the presence of God in our lives and that reveal his will for us in the present.

So what does it take to escape this trap of modern life?

Well, we can tell you from personal experience that it takes determined and sometimes even painful ongoing effort.

Sometimes it calls for difficult decisions that may not be understood.

It requires that we take inventory on a regular basis of our lives and reevaluate our priorities.

It calls for a relentless commitment to please God rather than man and a willingness to abandon a myriad of good pursuits in favor of taking up those spirit-led pursuits.

It requires a daily deliberate interruption of our busyness to refresh our living connection with our master that we like Jesus will be able, enabled to discern God's plans for us each day.

Jesus did not consider every single pressing need before him as the father's mission for him.

He was intimately acquainted with the father and with his will for him each day, and he could be at peace with delaying his visit to Bethany, For instance, when Lazarus was deathly ill and Mary and Martha sent an urgent message to him.

What do we do when we encounter pressing needs or encounter opportunities that we feel compelled to take advantage of in the moment?

And a lady approached me to invite me to become a part of a support group for ladies that are engaged in caretaking of their aging parents.

I am not feeling especially in need of support because I have an extremely supportive family that helps me with this.

But because of our ongoing outreach efforts in our community, my first thought was this is another opportunity to connect with these women from our community on a personal level that I should not pass up.

The question needs to be placed before God.

Lord, is this, attending the support group meetings, 1 of your assignments for me?

Or is my life already so filled with the priorities that you have placed before me that this will cause me to neglect 1 of those?

It is in my quiet seasons with God that he has brought into sharp focus what his priorities, his highest priorities are for me in this season of life.

And they include first and foremost daily nurturing that relationship with my master.

Secondly, fulfilling my calling to be an excellent, loving, faithful, efficient wife and helper to my husband, who is able to create in our home a lovely, orderly, restful, peaceful, inviting place for him and for the rest of our family and for all those who enter our home.

Third, my third highest priority is to be a devoted mother and wise counselor to our 4 young people who happen to be still living at home.

God calls me to help shepherd them through this rich, exciting season of their lives that surely won't last very much longer.

A season that is full of opportunities for them of learning and change and decisions and growth.

Fourth, God has entrusted me the privilege of being a caretaker to my elderly mother with dementia, and I consider that a privilege.

And fifth, there's our family ministry and our ministry to others in our community and abroad.

We are engaged in outreach in our community including holding evenings of Bible study and fellowship and music and food in our home with discussions on practical Christianity and most recently We have introduced the health message.

God is blessing these efforts and people are coming, including 1 of our law enforcement officers who just before this last meeting that we had, he was at the gas station and overheard Edwin giving an invitation to someone else.

He pulled out his appointment book and said, when did you say that was going to happen?

And he wrote it in and he showed up at that next meeting.

We're excited with his children and his brother who is also a law enforcement officer in the next town over.

We're excited about what God has in store as we are building a relationship with people in our community with patients of Edwin's and friends and neighbors and sharing truth with them that is blessing their lives.

Now friends as I've listed all of these things that are God's priorities for me, I don't know if you've noticed but let me tell you if you haven't that these tasks that I have embraced as being part of my primary calling in my life and in the present largely consume my days.

I don't have time for many other things that I might enjoy, for sewing or even for attending weekly support group meetings without compromising the faithful fulfillment of the most important tasks that God has given me to perform.

Now, staying focused on these priorities requires that I regularly re-evaluate and make adjustments to my course to avoid distractions.

I do that in those quiet seasons when my ears are tuned to hear the voice of my master and my heart is fixed on pleasing him.

Are you tuning in to the voice of your Savior?

Are you slowing down enough, interrupting your busyness to take that time with Him?

Or are there so many good things on your agenda that they are crowding out some of God's most important appointments for you?

Like your time with him and your time with your family.

It is when we are thus living our lives, running to and fro, performing a thousand undeniably good tasks, that gross inconsistencies can show up in the life, such as you have 10 Bible studies going on every week and you have gained 15 souls to Christ.

You have won 15 souls to Christ in the past year, but you're estranged from your spouse.

There is tension between you, or you are alienated from your children.

My prayer is, friends, knowing that we have a room full of people here who are very earnest and very committed to Christ but who are very busy people.

My prayer for you this morning is that if you are not first and foremost engaged in this glorious pursuit of intimacy with God that you will take time today to reorder your priorities to make those quiet seasons with him on a daily basis a reality that you can be gifted with wisdom and discernment centered in his will making his agenda for you your highest priority.

Friends I want you to pause and ponder with me for a moment.

How precious is this Word of God that we are privileged to hold in our hands and even more privileged to take into our hearts.

We are told in Hebrews 4, verse 12, that the Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword.

As we take those seasons of quiet communion that my mother was talking about, consistently, on a daily basis, opening up the Word and praying for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our lives, our lives will literally be changed by the grace of God.

I want to read to you a quote from the book Education that says, The creative energy that called the world into existence is in the Word of God.

Every command is a promise, accepted by the will, received into the soul.

It brings with it the life of the infinite 1.

It transforms the nature and recreates the soul in the image of God.

This means that by taking this Bible, this precious word of God written to me and to you and spending time in it consistently, our lives will be changed and we will be empowered to change the lives of those around us by the grace of God.

You know it starts with a commitment to spend that time every single day and I know that our lives are busy.

There are many people who have claims on our time.

We're full of good things, we're wanting to do good things with our lives every single day.

I know that in my own experience, I found that that time with God can be eroded away little by little, that it can be hard to spend more than just a few minutes in the presence of God.

It can be hard to take time to be still before Him and really know Him as our Creator, as our Savior, as our Friend.

Series

AMEN 2010 Plenary Sessions

Wholeness with God

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Experiencing Righteousness Through Faith in Christ

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54m

GYC 2011 Seminar: If I Go, He Will Come

What On Earth Is HE Waiting On, Part 1

1h 50m

Crisis Ahead

1h 15m

Go Forward

57m

Testimony

1h 5m

Born Again - Part 1

1h 9m

Revival Now!

10. Adopt Christ’s Lifestyle

1h

How to Experience Peace During the Final Storm - Part 3

1h 4m

Practical Christianity

02 Practical Christianity: Why Prayer?

29m

WYC 2012 Breakout Sessions

Overcoming As Christ Overcame, Part 2

53m

Sanctuary, Salvation, & Our Savior

Sanctuary, Salvation, & Our Savior - Part 5: Sanctuary Under Siege

1h 12m

ECYC 2012: Plenary Sessions

Messenger Without a Message

1h

Sound Doctrine