Stephen Arterburn - Lose It For Life: Bible Study Guide and Devotional, Volume 2

LOSE IT for LIFE

STUDY GUIDE AND
DEVOTIONAL JOURNAL

Stephen Arterburn, M.Ed.

Lose It for Life: Study Guide and Devotional Journal

Copyright 2006 by Stephen Arterburn

Published in Nashvillem TN, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc..

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. Copyright 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Produced by The Livingstone Corporation ( www.LivingstoneCorp.com). Contributing writers: Dana Veerman, Dave Veerman, Linda Washington, and Neil Wilson. Designer: Kirk Luttrell. Compositor: Joel Bartlett.

ISBN 10: 1-5914-5275-9
ISBN 13: 978-1-5914-5275-1

Printed in the United States of America

07 08 09 10 11 12 RRD 14 13 12 10 9 8 7

CONTENTS

Congratulations! You are on your way to a new life of freedom and community. Youve taken the first step in your healing and weight-loss process by joining this group, and you will not be disappointed.

This book is part of a package to use in your LIFL group. Youve received the book LoseIt for Life and the accompanying audio CDs by Stephen Arterburn, along with this StudyGuide and Devotional Journal. Over the next eighteen weeks, you will spend time with your group once a week in discussion and prayer.

In each session, you will watch a video from Stephen Arterburn with encouraging stories, scriptural teaching, and helpful insights for your weight-loss journey. After hearing from Steve, you will spend time in your group reading and discussing the material in this study guide. Each week is divided into eight parts:

Introduction

Description of the LIFL Concept for the week

Scripture passage with teaching

Questions to apply the Scripture teaching to life

Case study with questions for individual or group use

A closing thought to challenge you in your journey

Devotional journal space for personal use during the week

Weekly reflection and goals

Each session concludes with a weeks worth of daily Bible passages, devotional thoughts, and journaling space. Then you will find a summary page where you can chart your journey from the past week and set goals for the week to come.

This should be an exciting time for you. Open up and share with your group. Allow God to use this material to show you areas that need healing and change. With Gods help, you really can Lose It for Life.

INTRODUCTION

B lack pants held up with suspenders. Striped shirt. Painted white face. Silently, the mime creates a box around himselfan imaginary box, of course. He looks around and finds walls to his right and left, front and back. Hes trapped. A look of panic crosses his face. How will he get out?

If you have seen a mime perform, you know that he inevitably finds a way out. If not, when the performance ends, he simply walks through the imaginary walls.

But lets say this mime continues to stay trapped in his imaginary box. His panic is real and he begins to scream (silently, of course). What is wrong with him? you wonder. You try to convince him of his illusion, but he continues to push wildly at the imaginary walls. Eventually you give up and leave.

That sounds crazy, but we all do this when we build up walls of misconceptions and rationalizations around us. We may think, for example, Im fat because my parents are fat, Theres nothing I can do, or Its not my fault. We lie to the world and to ourselves so we dont have to take the blame. Like the mime, we build imaginary walls and tell ourselves that we cant escape, were stuck with the way we are, were trapped.

VIDEO 1

Notes from video:

LIFL CONCEPT 1

THE PRISONS AND CHAINS THAT TRAP US
AND KEEP US FROM A LIFE OF FREEDOM ARE
THE ONES WE CREATE FOR OURSELVES.

Rationalizing can become a way of life. We seem to spend most of our lives making excuses. In school, we make up reasons for not finishing our homework. At home, we have excuses about why the plates are still in the sink. At work, we have plenty of circumstances to explain why we are lateagain. Excuses are common, and making them will only lead to trouble. We may think we are fooling others, but they usually see right through the deception. We are only fooling ourselves. And when these excuses, these walls, involve weight, this practice can be deadly.

One excuse or one wrong choice does not make someone fat. Obesity usually involves a series of choices. Every meal offers a number of choiceswhen to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat. Every morning provides the opportunity to choose to exercise or stay in bed. A bad food choice one day wont make a person fat, but consuming bad foods every day and at every meal will.

By continuing to make poor choices and then rationalizing those choices, soon you will be chained to these bad choices and imprisoned by excuses, unable to escape.

How do you become free? The first step is to see that youre in a prison. The second step is to realize who put you there. Heres a clue: Its not your parents, your peers, or compelling marketing by fatty fast food chains. You have put yourself there. You made the wrong choices, and now you are making the excuses.

SCRIPTURE

ROMANS 7:1425

The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. I dont understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I dont do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. But I cant help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things.

I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I cant make myself do right. I want to, but I cant. When I want to do good, I dont. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. But if I am doing what I dont want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it.