Beauty: What It's Really About

Okay, so this is something that God has laid on my heart and I wanted to share it with all of you and go ahead and share it with others as well!

First, I want you all to know whatever I write, I believe, has all been inspired by God, so give Him the glory, not me. 

For sometime now, I have struggled with finding a reading plan and sticking to it, so today I decided I would start from the beginning of the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Today I started with reading Genesis 1, which is always eye opening and honestly hard to fathom.  A couple things really caught my eye.

Firstly after everything God creates the Bible says ‘He saw that it was good’.  Sometimes I really like to look up definitions of words even if I have seen a word a million times.  I looked up the definition for good and this is what I found:

1. morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious   
2. satisfactory in quality
3. of high quality
4. right; proper; fit
5. well-behaved
6. honorable or worthy

And then some synonyms included:

• acceptable
• agreeable
• sound
• super-eminent

But after God had made man, His response was differently:

Genesis 1:31

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

How beautiful, how powerful that after He made humans, He thought everything he made to be very good, not just good, but very good.  And even before this when God was actually creating man the Bible says this:

            Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of god he created him; male and female he created them.

Once again I looked up the word image and this is what I found:

1. A physical likeness or representation of a person, animal, or thing, photographed, painted, sculptured, otherwise made visible
2. Form; appearance; semblance (outward aspect or appearance)

So literally we were made in the likeness of God, whoa.  This idea is crazy to me and I’m still trying to grasp it, but it’s becoming more real to me.  We weren’t just created with no thought or intricacy, but God made us the way we are on purpose and made on in His image.  That’s incredible!  What if we looked at every person we meet as a masterpiece of God, what a difference it would make.  Apart from that looking at ourselves this way too.  Here’s another verse:

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

            Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit

within you, whom you have from God?  You are not your own, for you were bought at a price.  So glorify God in your body.

Once again I looked up the words temple and glorify:

Temple:

1. An edifice (building, especially one of large size or imposing appearance) or place dedicated to the services or worship of a deity or deities
2. An edifice erected as a place of public worship
3. Any place or object in which God dwells, as the body of a Christian

Glorify:

• Acclaim
• Bless
• Boast
• Build Up
• Celebrate
• Commend Exalt

1. To honor with praise, admiration, or worship
2. To praise the glory of God especially as an act of worship

So, are you doing this?  Do you see your body as the temple of the Holy Spirit?  Do you believe you have been created in His image?  Think about these questions and pray if you are having a hard time believing and living this out.  What are the motives behind you striving to be ‘beautiful’ according to the world’s standards?  Are you striving to be healthy to be accepted by the world or to take care of the body God made you?  Lastly I will leave you with this verse.

            1 Samuel 16:7

                        But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the           

                        height of his stature, because I have rejected him.  For the Lord sees

                        not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord

                        looks on the heart.

Wow, I truly believe our perception of beauty is so wrong.  First of all we were all made fearfully and wonderfully (Psalm 139:14), so we are beautiful no matter what we think, no matter what the world tells us, no matter the lies the devil throws at us.   God doesn’t looks at our physical appearance (could mean our physical bodies, behaviors, and circumstances), but He looks at the heart.  So where is your heart?  Are you treating your body like the temple of the Holy Spirit?  Or are you treating it like a thing that you want to continue to change or make better to be more beautiful in the world’s eyes?

I pray that you think about these questions and check your motives behind everything you’re doing that has to do with your body whether that’d be going for a run or eating a carrot or eating some ice cream.  God has made us beautifully in His image.  He made you with the nose you have on purpose, the color hair you have on purpose, and everything about you.  And now we just need to take care of our bodies in a God-glorifying way. 

Lastly this is still something I’m working on, so don’t think I have it mastered.  It’s a process and God is with me and you every step of the way.

Take care,

            Heather Sue