BREAKING FREE

The Bible is very clear that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and that you should honor God with your body (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). Self-starvation, induced vomiting, and gluttony are direct violations of that commandment. Yet knowing that these behaviors are sin should not bring condemnation, but hope! You should be encouraged by the promise that Jesus died for your sins so that you may live free from all bondage. The fact that Jesus died for your freedom is evidence that freedom does exist!

You can go from treatment center to treatment center and excel at the ability to “cope” with an eating disorder, or you can pursue the promise of transformation through Jesus Christ.

You can continue living as a victim to your diagnosis, or you can choose to believe what God says about freedom: “Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).

Whatever the root of the eating disorder may be, the solution is far more complex than simply eating balanced meals and keeping the food down. A problem will not go away until the root causes are dealt with. But freedom is possible—freedom does exist for you! Jesus is the only true source of freedom, and He wants nothing more than to see you experiencing it fully.

Imagine yourself sitting in a classroom full of students. The teacher is standing at the front with an envelope of money.

She announces to the class that she has a one-hundred-dollar bill for anyone who is interested. It’s not a trick or a bribe, just a gift from the heart of the teacher to bless the lives of her students. However, in order to receive the gift, there are steps you have to take. You must get out of your chair, walk to the front of the room, and stretch out your hand to receive the gift.

The same is true with the gift of freedom.

Freedom is yours, but there are steps you must take to receive it. The problem is that there are many hindrances in your way: unforgiveness, the lies of the enemy, debris left by past generations, the pain of past hurts, and oppression from the devil himself. To get to the gift, you have to clear the path!

In this chapter we’ll look at how to do that. You don’t want anything slowing you down from receiving all God has for you.

(Excerpt taken from Chapter 2 of STARVED: Mercy for Eating Disorders)