Beautiful

“For the name of the LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because He has made you beautiful.” Isaiah 60:9

I love beautiful things. Even as a little girl, I loved things of beauty – my mom’s jewelry and brilliant new shades of her lipsticks, a new dress in my favorite colors, a coloring book page perfectly completed with no crayon marks outside of the lines, books filled with lovely princesses who fell in love with handsome princes who lived in beautiful castles, wildflowers, and my Barbie doll. Beautiful.

I remember as a fourth or fifth grader hearing my pastor read a passage from 1 Peter,

“Do not let your adorning be external – the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear – but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which in God’s sight is very precious.” (1 Peter 3:3, 4)

Wait! What?  Whatever he read or said after – I don’t know – all I heard was – No pretty, No beauty, No hair braids, No jewelry, No pretty clothes – WHAT?  I loved beautiful things – this was tragic. Later my mom explained that true beauty was what was inside of a person – not on the outside. I understood her words, but my heart was reluctant to fully accept that truth.

It’s in our nature. Most of us want to have pretty things, we want to wear pretty things, we want to be seen as beautiful.

As I grew up, my definition of beauty changed and so did its price tag. To my great shame, I became convinced that the more expensive the thing of beauty, the greater the beauty. Pricey hair dos, designer dresses, expensive jewelry, flashy cars, big houses in prestigious neighborhoods, European vacations, works of fine art – all became things of great beauty to me. Expensive beauty that I pursued aggressively for a number of years.

Thank God in His gracious, longsuffering mercy, He broke through the lies that I had told myself and the false promises of worldly beauty that I had believed. He convicted me of the sinful nature and shallow emptiness of all that I was pursuing. I confessed my sin and repented. And God began methodically removing from my life all of those trifles that I claimed were beautiful, precious, and necessary to my happiness. The removal process was difficult, frequently painful, and exposed many areas of my heart and mind that had never been fully surrendered to my LORD and Savior.

In place of those shallow pretties, God began to show me true beauty.

True beauty begins with God. “For how great is His goodness, and how great His beauty!” (Zechariah 9:17)

God is Beautiful. And He is the Author of all things beautiful.

All Scripture radiates the beauty of our God.

From Genesis to Revelation, we see the beauty of our Heavenly Father and His love of beauty.

In Creation’s story, God speaks and separates light from darkness, waters from the skies, and dry land from the seas. He speaks the radiant sun into existence, illuminates the night sky with the glowing moon and scatters millions of sparkling stars across the heavens. Each day of Creation brings beauty upon beauty, culminating on the sixth day with God’s crowning achievement, a creature made in His image – first man, and then woman. Beautiful Creator. Beautiful Creation.

The construction of the Tabernacle (Exodus 24-28) and Solomon’s Temple (2 Chronicles 2-4 and 1 Kings 5-7) both record the amazing beauty and creativity of the mind of God. His creative artistry spills out in every detail: fine woven fabrics; twisted linens of blue, purple, and scarlet; threads of gold woven throughout the fabrics; pure gold lavishly applied to the furnishings, complex carvings, ornate designs, precious stones, and sculptured cherubim.  Of the priests’ clothing, Moses writes, “You shall make them for glory and beauty.” (Exodus 28:40)

The New Jerusalem. In Revelation 21-22, the Apostle John tells us of his vision of a beautiful city coming down out of Heaven from God that will one day be home to Christ followers, “having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” “The city was pure gold, like clear glass” with streets of gold so translucent they also look like glass. The foundations of the city are made with every kind of precious stone and the twelve gates of the royal city are each made from a single pearl. A river of the water of life flows crystal clear from the throne of God and the Lamb down the middle of the great city and on either side of the river the Trees of Life that bear twelve different fruits each in its own time. Beauty beyond our imagination. Mind-blowing beauty.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

We serve a God Who is the originator of all beauty;

It is evidenced in all that He has made;

It is evidenced in all that He does;

It is evidenced in Who He is.

“Your eyes will behold the King in his beauty…”
Isaiah 33:17

“…Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.” Psalm 50:2

We are made in His Image. Created in His Likeness. It is only natural that we crave beauty. We are drawn to beautiful things. We want to be surrounded by beauty. We want to make beautiful things. We want to be beautiful creatures.

But like this world, we are stained by sin: Eden’s beauty has been destroyed. In our sin-damaged state, we cannot participate in all that is the beauty of God. It is only when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and are clothed in His righteousness, then and only then, can we begin to be truly beautiful.

As my mother tried to help me understand many years ago, outward beauty is meaningless, if my heart is ugly and filled with sin.

When I begin to understand and see the beauty of God; when I surrender my heart and my will fully to Him; when God looks at me and sees the beauty of His Son Jesus Christ covering me with His righteousness, then and only then am I truly beautiful.

“I will greatly rejoice in the LORD;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.“

Isaiah 61:10

You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

Isaiah 62:3