Spiritual Factors

When you read "diet" literature, they talk about the different factors that you have to take into account to be successful in loosing weight:

• There are the "physiological factors"--thinks like how many calories you eat, what the nutritional balance of your food is, how much exercise you get, etc.
• There are also what the call "psychological factors," which covers things like your motivation, your self-image and how you feel about yourself, emotional eating, the effects of stress and boredom on your eating, etc.
• There are also "practical factors," such as how good of a job have you done in setting up your environment to give yourself a good chance to succeed. That includes things like having a diet plan and eating strategy in place, clearing away the "big temptation" and "forbidden foods" out of the house, having the food you need readily available (like carrying diet approved snacks with you, shopping frequently and not running out of what you need). It also includes things like taking advantage of diet-related tools and aids such as logging what you eat, meal planning, using nutritional analysis tools, etc).

These spiritual factors fall into two different categories. You need to

1. Remove The Influence of Negative Spiritual Factors That Hinder You, and
2. Increase the Positive Spiritual Factors That Assist You.

I hope to do a much more in-depth teaching on this at some future time, but let me give you a quick overview here, so that you have a sense of what I am talking about.

Negative Spiritual Factors

There are negative spiritual influences that operate against us in many aspects of our lives, and they can effect our ability to diet, loose weight or remain healthy. There are times when these spiritual forces work against us so strongly that we have to deal with them before we can be successful in putting our eating under God's Lordship, and leaving it there.

So how do you know if negative spiritual forces are interfering with your ability to eat right and loose weight? Spiritual discernment can help, of course, but there is also a practical guideline you can follow. If you are dealing with the other factors (the physiological ones, the psychological ones and the practical ones) and you are not making much progress, then there are probably some spiritual factors that you need to address. And most of us with weight problems do have some of them operating against us.

So what are they? This is not an exhaustive list, but the more common ones include:

• Unforgiveness - Holding onto unforgiveness and/or bitterness is a very bad idea, because it can give the enemy a legal right to torment you. The torment can take many forms: problems in relationships, financial problems, health problems or even weight problems. The only way that you can get out from the enemy's unforgiveness-related torment is to deal with the hurt and to begin to release forgiveness. If you don't do that, it gives the enemy an excuse to torment you and to empower curses against you, including weight gain types of problems and curses.

• Curses - These are negative things spoken over you by others (or by yourself) that the devil empowers against you as problems and struggles in your life. In the context of dieting, it can be as simple as someone calling you "fat" or "ugly." Or they may say things like, "you just don't have very good will power," and then sure enough, you will power begins to wane. By the way, you have to be very careful that you don't speak these things over yourself either, because the enemy of your soul just might decide to empower those words against you. I should also mention that there are some 'chain letters' out there that threaten you will gain weight if you break the chain and don't forward it to some number of other people. This type of thing can also empower a curse against you...whether or not you forward it to others. The way to deal with curses is to break them through the power of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

• Generational Spirits - Generational Spirits are demonic sprits that pass down the family lines and have a right of access to you because of your family lines (or because of sin in past generations). They can cause health and weight problems and interfere with weight loss. They way to deal with generational spirits is to use the authority of Jesus to cut off their access to you and control of you. It is possible to deal with them yourself, but most people find this very difficult to do on their own, and most of us require prayer from someone who understands power ministry.

• Enemy Strongholds - the enemy tries to build unrighteous strongholds in your life (just like God tries to build godly ones). Some of those strongholds are built out of past sin and some out of bad habits. They get to the point where it is very difficult to break. Some diet-related strongholds would include things like comfort eating, compulsive eating, sugar addictions (or any specific food addictions), unhealthy cravings, etc. It is almost impossible to break these strongholds without recognizing the sin that caused them and repenting (turning away from it). Once there is repentance, it will still be a bit of a struggle to "break" the stronghold and the most effective way is to actively work with the Lord to develop a new godly stronghold to take it's place.

• Enemy Oppressions - sometimes demons act like "big bullies," who pick on you for no particular reason and oppress you. They can (and do) cause eating problems, weight related health-complications and difficulty loosing weight as part of that unmerited harassment. In that type of case, they will keep on doing it until someone bigger and stronger comes along and makes Him stop (e.g., authority prayer to cut off their access to you.) If you are one who is experienced in authority prayer, you might be able to break enemy opposition on your own, but most of the time it requires getting someone to pray for you, and it can take more than a single prayer session.

• Spiritual Warfare and Counter Attack - where the enemy manipulates circumstances against you in retaliation for your walk with the Lord (or maybe something God had you do with Him to advance His kingdom). This could include physical things like increased hunger, cravings, water retention. It could also include discouragement or emotional attack to get you to feel bad/upset so that you want to eat "for comfort." It can also include a lot of things coming at you and making you feel so overwhelmed that you "just can't think about what foods you are putting into your mouth." It can also include a series of strong temptations for "disallowed" foods, along with a spirit of commendation whispering in your ear each time you partake of it. Likewise, the enemy may try to make you feel condemned just for being tempted, even if you find the inner strength to resist the temptation.

  Most of the time, the way to deal with spiritual warfare is to resist the devil, but also to get the prayer support from friends and prayer warriors. It is good to have people who pray for you on a regular basis, especially when you start working on putting an area of your life under His lordship. It is also a very good idea to bring the situation to the Lord and ask Him to help you and to make His will and His direction very clear to you, so that you will not be mislead as the enemy works against you.

• "Witchcraft Prayers" Against You - This is where someone who disagrees with you (and who is trying to manipulate you) tells you "I will pray for you," in a way where you know they do not have your best interest at heart. The same thing can occur when someone who is emotionally and spiritually immature "dislikes" you says that they are "praying for you." Their "prayers" tend to be negative, asking God to manipulate you for their behalf. An example might be if someone asks you to do something for them and you say that you cannot help them, and they say you are "uncharitable" or "selfish" and then say they will pray for you. Their manipulation prayers, if not broken, can be empowered against you in the same way that curses are--to hinder you or hold you back. For example, they may pray something like, "Lord don't let ____ be successful in anything else until they get this area of their life straightened out, so that they will be forced to work on it." Suddenly you find that things which were previously easy for you are much more difficult. In the diet realm, it can translate to things like this: It used to be easy to say "no" to high calorie desserts, and suddenly you can't resist them anymore, and they sabotage your weight loss.

  You deal with "witchcraft prayers" the same way that you deal with curses, except that you may have to do this on a regular basis instead of just once, until the person stops "praying" for you. Several spiritual leaders in "high visibility" types of ministries make it a habit to routinely break "any witchcraft prayers" against them on a weekly or daily basis. You might want to start doing the same thing (for a season). Witchcraft prayers are not difficult to break, but if you don't deal with them, then they can be empowered against you to cause problems or interfere with your eating and weight loss.

Positive Spiritual Factors

Positive spiritual factors are things that release God's blessing, empowerment, and help in your life. They are things that give you divine favor in certain areas. Basically, the more you draw close to God and the more you make a commitment to His lordship and choose to obey Him, the more of His blessing and empowerment you will enjoy in your life. This is not to say that you won't have struggles, but that you will be better situated to successfully overcome those struggles, and to rely on the Lord's strength and encouragement as you deal with them.

Also, the Lord will begin to build godly strongholds (good habits) in your life to replace ungodly ones. For instance, He might tear down the "stronghold" of "eating for comfort" with a stronghold of "discussing the problem with Him and prayerfully journaling."