Making Peace With My Body

I was talking to a friend who recently lost a lot of weight.  She looks great now.  She said one thing she desired was for her husband to love her unconditionally despite her outward appearance.   So, even though she had lost the weight and looked great, it wasn't enough.  She knew there was always a chance she could gain it back.

I thought about it and I believe the way we feel about our bodies is directly related to our desire to be loved and accepted.  My friend's husband may never be able to love her completely in that unconditional way, but we all have access to someone who does love us that way.
The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. (Jeremiah 31:3 NIV)

For me, making peace with my body happens because of two truths.
God loves me unconditionally
God made me and what he makes is good.  
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. (Genesis 1:31 NIV)

So making peace with my body is strongly related to my relationship to God.  Now, I know what I'm going to say next is very familiar to a lot of you... after all this is a Bible study.  But since there are over 43,000 of us, I am going to go out on a limb and say that there may be some of you in this group who have either never heard this or if you did, it never sunk in before.  If you are in this category, you may be struggling with this Bible Study.

A lot of what we have been reading has been promises that God makes to His children.  We have been talking about crying out to God to help us in this quest to become healthier.  But what if you don't have that kind of a relationship with God?  What if He doesn't talk to you or you don't feel his presence?  If that is true, this weight loss/ Bible study journey might be getting pretty discouraging.  You may be reading comments from people who say they prayed and God immediately answered their prayer, or God told them to do such and such a thing.

If you are in that category, here is a short description of how you can have a personal relationship with God.
1.  God loves you and wants to have a personal relationship with you.

2.  We have all sinned:  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23 NIV)

3.  Since we all have sinned, we cannot attain eternal life on our own:  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NIV

4.  Jesus died to pay for our sins:  For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4 NIV)

5.  Becoming a Christian (being saved, being born again, having a personal relationship with Christ) takes an act of our will.  We must repent of our sin, accept Jesus death on the cross as payment for our sin, and ask him to become Lord of our life.  You can do this right now by praying... Telling God of your decision.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John 3:16-18 NIV)

6.  Once we ask Jesus into our life, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside us:  Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20 NIV)

If you have never done this, I pray that you will seriously consider doing it.  God is real, God personally loves each one of us unconditionally and He is the only way for us to find peace.