Beautiful

What is beauty? It isn’t the external beauty that matters it is the internal. True beauty comes from God. Psalms 50:2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth.

Jesus is beautiful because He shines with God’s perfect beauty. And even though beauty is found in Jesus it is not found in any other man. Although many people may seem to us to be beautiful on the outside, inside we are all filthy, ugly and evil. 1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” No matter how hard we may try we can never achieve perfection, therefore there is only moral deformity.

You may say that there are “good” people. What about Peace Corp, Modest Needs, etc.? Those are not religious charities yet they do a lot of good. Isaiah 64:6 tells us “But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.” No one is good but One, that is, God. (Mark 10:18) The only reason we has desire to do good is because we were created to be like God; we were made in His image. Genesis 1:27 says “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” There is nothing beautiful in our flesh. In Christ alone is true beauty.

The only way to be made truly beautiful is to have forgiveness of sin which only comes from the blood of Jesus. If we continually turn our lives to Him through worship (Psalms 29:2b Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.) the Holy Spirit will continue to make our hearts beautiful. We need to stay close to God so that He can stay close to us. Psalms 90:17a And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us.

Proverbs 31:30 says, “Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.” Physical beauty will not last forever. Continue to grow in the Lord and you will grow more and more beautiful, and it will shine from the inside out!

~Ashlin