Lord Jesus, what do You want to say to me about the way You love Yourself and the way You want me to love myself?
My darling, your culture is in bondage to the fear of death, having no answer for death whatsoever. Your culture believes that to die is to become worm food and then worm poop, nothing more. And since this is a future and an end too hideous to contemplate, your culture responds with denial, and with idolizing and worshipping youth and beauty and strength and health. That is the source of the obsession with dying hair and losing weight and looking young. It comes from a deficient theology of the resurrection.
But you, My dear, are not to be like that. You know the truth: resurrection is as inevitable as death. It is not the end but the beginning. There is no need to cling in fear to the moments of this life. There is no need to fear growing old or older, for that is the fear of death. You have an eternity of health and strength ahead of you, and you can lay your life down fearlessly. You don’t have to fear wasting your life anymore, because it isn’t all that you have. This earthly life is just the first five minutes of your life.
I want you to live fearless, and especially, to be fearless of growing older/old and fearless of your body changing and fearless of gaining weight. These things are not the end of the world. In fact, they aren’t the end of anything at all. You are going to look very young and be very beautiful on the new earth for eternity; you don’t have to fear losing it now.
Your temporary body is a tent. Your future body is a house, your permanent dwelling. “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1). Paul made tents and he saw this metaphor in it. You sleep in the tent while you are traveling to the house. You need to take good care of the tent so that it will take you all the way to the house in as much comfort as possible, but if the tent is destroyed, it’s not the end of the world. Your eternal dwelling has always been the house. You still have the house.
And, my dear, this is the most important point: your worth is never in the condition of your tent! Is your tent old, wrinkled, bloated, tearing? Who cares? You are still you, and you still are worth Jesus dying for, and you still get to live in the house forever. Your culture believes that people are their tents, and your culture believes that there is no such thing as houses. This is a lie and you must not believe it. They do not know any better, but you are My child, and I will hold you accountable to obey and believe the truth.
The truth is that all people have immortal souls that are of equal value to Me, whether the earthly tent of their body weighs 99 pounds or 300. Your culture dares to believe that the person with the smaller tent, or the faster tent, or the stronger tent, or the lighter tent is worth more. You must not believe that. It is slavery, and if you sell yourself into slavery–to a lie, no less!–you will not be able to serve Me.
It is better to be fat than to be disobedient. To think otherwise is to fear other people and your culture more than Me. So what if you gain weight and your culture tells you you are worth less than you used to be? Is that what you care about, the opinion and approval of the deceived? No one has ever gone to hell for being overweight. Ever. There is no weight limit on the entrance to heaven. But lots and lots of people have gone to hell for being disobedient.
If you continue to believe the lie that weighing less makes you worth more, you will have no gospel. No good news. Nothing to set people free. Even if you succeed at maintaining your own weight throughout your whole life at the size you have set at success (which is unlikely), you will have no message of hope for those who have not.
Can you look an obese, grossly overweight person in the eyes and tell them they’re perfect and flawless to Me, that I see the beauty I put inside of them that will last forever? That I was crucified to save them so that we could spend eternity together, and I’d do it all again? That I can’t love them more if they lose weight, I’m not capable of it, because I already love them to the max? That I have a resurrection body prepared for them that will run across galaxies? That the real problem in their life is not being too large but being a sinner condemned to hell and in need of a Savior?
And how can you share all that with them if all you see is your own fear of becoming like them? How can you share it with them if you don’t believe it about yourself? If you don’t have a better message than ‘Jesus is enough for me because I have also maintained a healthy weight’ then you have no message at all. I am enough, period. Your worth is in Me.
Darling, people’s tents will be in all sorts of conditions on the earth, and run into many things beyond their ability to control or even comprehend, but their houses, their eternal dwellings, will all be beautiful.
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