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Key Verse: "Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside … and then the outside will also be clean" (Matt. 23:26).

God created our bodies and He cares how we treat them. We need to view obesity and health from a new perspective. Obesity is not just a physical problem; it's a spiritual problem that has physical effects. Jesus' warning to the Pharisees in Matthew 23 is helpful here. Jesus was upset that the Pharisees were focusing on an external set of rules and regulations rather than people's hearts. But His teaching also applies to obesity and other matters of physical health.

If you focus on your spirit, it will affect your body. Obesity is just the warning light that something is wrong inside the engine. You don't fix the problem by working on the warning light; you fix it by working on the engine. The main reason diets fail is because they focus on the outside (the effect) and not on the inside (the cause).

Begin your permanent weight loss journey by changing the way you see. Change your looks by changing your outlook. Recognize that your physical health is a spiritual issue.

Key Verse: "Life is more than food" (Luke 12:23).

Why we eat is more important than what we eat. That's a radical idea, a paradigm shift in gaining and maintaining our personal health. Bookstores are full of books about what we should or shouldn't eat. So why do people keep gaining weight and losing their health? Those who lose weight by merely focusing on what they eat usually gain it back. Traditional diets don't work because their focus is the stomach. For most of us who have issues with weight, the more important focus is our mind and heart.

Have you ever noticed that fit people eat the foods all the diet books say you shouldn't? So what's up with that? Perhaps it's because, in most cases, fit people eat for different reasons than fat people do. Fit people focus on why they eat. Fat people focus on what they eat. Fit people eat to fill their stomachs. Fat people eat to fill their souls. Fit people eat to live. Fat people live to eat.

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