Welcome to the Setting Captives Free Weight Loss Bootcamp!
This study will explain why we believers should pursue a healthy weight, and it will support and encourage you through the process of finding the exact approach to a healthy weight that God has designed for you.
My name is Mike Cleveland, and I will be walking with you as we study, learn, and worship together each day in these lessons. I have struggled with my weight my whole life. For years, my weight went up and down like an elevator, but as I write, I'm finally at my ideal weight and maintaining.
In this course, I will share what God has taught me about getting to and maintaining a healthy weight by applying the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'll share it in both writing and short videos before and after the daily lessons. I suggest you watch the first video before your lesson, then come back and watch the last video at the end of your day, if possible.
It's important to know that the gospel changes our hearts and desires, which then enables changes in our actions and habits. It's an "inside-out" change! The gospel is not a diet; it doesn't require us to change by self-effort, but rather it is the power of God (Romans 1:16-17; 1 Corinthians 1:18).
The gospel does its work in our hearts, which provides spiritual power. "Now to Him who is able to carry out His purpose and do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], according to His power that is at work within us" (Ephesians 3:20 AMP). Having this power of God applied to our eating is truly wonderful.
I've discovered the most liberating way to get to and maintain a healthy weight. I don't weigh myself or track what I eat or how much I exercise to maintain an ideal weight, but by God's grace, through the application of the gospel, food no longer masters me.
How has the application of the gospel enabled my weight loss? Let's look at one Scripture, which shows us how to apply the gospel to our desire to lose weight. Paul writes:
"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14).
The cross of Jesus Christ was Paul's only subject of boasting. Paul said that the cross of Christ "crucified the world" to him and him to the world. But what does that mean?
Well, the cross of Christ put to death everything that the world offered Paul, and it empowered him to die to that which tempted his flesh. The good news is that this is true for all those who put their faith in Christ.
As a believer in Jesus, I can say, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which my obsession with food has been crucified to me, and I to it." Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).