Gwen Lara

May 16, 2020

Ideal Body Weight

The body is amazingly made; you are amazingly made. God designed all of us in His image, but each body is quite unique. Again, what the ideal body weight is for one person is not the ideal body weight for another...
May 12, 2020

Transferring Your Concern to the Right Body

We are to take care of our body, and it should not be abused. We must do the best we can. We are to glorify God with what we have been given just as all the animals do. However, we are not to obsess over looks. Do your best, and then forget your looks and show concern for others...
May 11, 2020

How to Let Go of Worry

The world may applaud outward beauty, but they are attracted to righteous people who are a light in this dark world. Jesus had no appearance that men would desire (Isaiah 53:2b), however, look at how the world has flocked to him and his teachings. Jesus taught the love of God first, and then love of man, in that order. It is not about how you look but what you give back - your response to the love you have been given...
May 10, 2020

A Misplaced Focus on the Body

People focusing on their own looks often claim they hate their body. But Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:28-29: “In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church...”
May 9, 2020

How to be Free from Obsessive Body Focus

Focused on taking care of the body and body focus are two different things. There are many different degrees of body focus that I have run into over the years of counseling. This obsession can lead to many kinds of strongholds: narcissism, exercise-aholism, anorexia, bulimia, chronic control. All these people have this in common: their mind is on themselves in almost any and every circumstance...
May 8, 2020

You are Not a Failure

You are not a failure—no one can maintain man-made rules for any length of time because they run against the body’s natural eating, and underneath they are increasing the self-focus and greed. It is inevitable that you will eat more and gain more in the end...
May 7, 2020

Something to Read Daily

Colossians 2 taught us that man-made rules do not work, and the following passage from Colossians 3 teaches us what God’s rules are and then backs up how quickly we can choose to stop indulging. I recommend—and I have seen it work wonders—to read this chapter every day until you have it memorized in your heart...
May 6, 2020

The Temptation to Diet

It is tempting to diet because you instinctively know that SELF can control your day instead of God. It is tempting to diet, for instinctively you know that you still do not have to surrender to the internal guiding hand of God—SELF can rule...
May 5, 2020

Taking Care of the Body

We can choose many things in this world to focus on that will wind up corrupting the soul. One such focus is an extreme focus on our bodies. We are simply not to be body focused—comparing ourselves to others.