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| "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him."
Isaiah 53:2b
As I've meditated on this verse this past month, I think for the first time my mind has began to realize what true beauty is. I've grown up with the concept that true beauty comes from the inside, but I feel it is even more than the personality factor that many attribute it, too. True beauty goes even deeper and is found way down in one's soul.
As I looked at this verse one realizes that Jesus probably wasn't the clean-cut beard, bright blue eyes, dark-flowing hair man that we attribute to him in pictures. If he was, than this verse wouldn't be true, because I'm sure such a man would attract many to him by his appearance alone. However, even with this in mind, I doubt many would deny the fact that Christ possessed a beauty within him that compare with no one else, a beauty that no doubt came from within.
One looks at John the Baptist and notices a similar pattern. A man living out in the wilderness, eats locusts and honey, and makes his clothes out of camel hair. Yet still men and women travel distances of around twenty miles on foot to see what he is all about and to be baptized. Can you imagine traveling twenty miles on foot to listen to some "mountain men" give a speech and dunk you in water? Obviously there was something attractive about both John and Christ.
As you look at these two one notices a similar characteristic between them, and that is that both men came to serve. Both of these men were given a calling: John to prepare the way for the Lord and Jesus to serve us by living the perfect life and dying on the cross, and both fulfilled their purpose beautifully.
In order to fulfill one's calling one must fully rely on the power of the God to dwell within them and I think this, more than anything else, was what drew people to John and Jesus. They chose to let the Spirit dwell in their hearts and what flowed from that was a love for people resulting in service to them.
I look at God and all the beautiful things He has created in this world: sunrises and sunsets, waterfalls, starry nights, rainbows, rain forests, etc. All of these things are mere reflection of His glory, his majesty, his beauty. Yet the most beautiful thing about Him to me is His love for me. A love that is so strong that He was willing to send Himself to earth and be a servant to me through Christ dying on the cross.
I think of us in this world and how we strive and strive to make our outward appearance beautiful when really we are most beautiful when we don't strive at all. Just I feel God's beauty is revealed in full through His love for us, so I feel that we are most beautiful when we love others and become servants to them. I feel that true beauty starts from within, deep within, and it's that beauty that makes us beautiful on the outside.
When will we ever believe, and I mean truly believe, not just accept the concept that the only true beauty is found in Christ. That when we stop striving to make ourselves beautiful and simply allow Him to define beauty within us, that is when we will truly shine like stars in the universe. If we become like Christ in this area, we will truly believe that we are beautiful, and we won't need mirrors or magazines to help us. | | |
| As I was sitting at the church yesterday, I happened to glance up on the shelf and notice a book entitled "Extreme Devotion" and began to flip through some of the stories within it. One happened to catch my attention about a guy from America who felt God's call to sell himself into slavery in an African country in order to minister to the slaves there. Within three years of working alongside these men, this guy had brought 13,000 people to Christ!!! The author tied this in with 1 Cor. 9:19-23 which reads:
"19Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
I thought about the verse and the guy's willingness to sacrifice everything to witness to the people he was called to and what that would look like in my own life, specifically the youth in Fairbury, NE. I began to think about what I could be doing to make myself one of them in order to win as many as possible. My mind began to come up with activities and methods focused around creating opportunities for me to get into their lives, hoping that an opportunity would arise for me to share Christ with them. I also took a look at my own devotion to Christ in how much I was reading and praying and pursuing Him.
However, in all of this, one VERY important element was missing. It was focused around what "I" needed to be doing. However, our faith is not one in which anything is focused on us and what we should be doing. It is all about God. In all of this planning I had failed to consider first what God would want me to do. I had started with human plans and had hoped that God would be present within them instead of asking Him what His plans were and praying that I could be a part of it.
As I began to think about this more and more I realized that I would have it no other way. Why would I not want to pursue ministry with any other plans than those that come from someone who knows all the outcomes, knows all the troubles I'll face, knows all the solutions, and who's very name rings of perfection. Why I would want to start with my imperfect plans and try to add perfection instead of starting with perfection itself I have no idea. :)
In the end, I sat at my desk and prayed that God would make me who He wanted me to be, that I might win as many as possible. I left the church yesterday more confident than ever that a tidal wave of Christ's love was rising, ready to engulf the city of Fairbury. I'm so thankful that He has chosen me, an imperfect human, to be part of such a divine and perfect plan. Once again, I'm thankful for His grace. | | |
| Hey everyone...it seems posts on here are few and far between this summer and this one won't be anything profound or anything, but thought I'd give an update. The summer has gone really well up to this point and we just got back from our youth mission trip to S.D. where God faithfully used us abundantly to touch the lives of the native americans living on the reservation! I wish I could put into words how much of a joy it was to watch these young adults minister to the families we were able to meet with, but none would suffice.
During the earlier part of the trip though, we went to a music festival in Rapid City and had the opportunity to listen to the band Storyside B...and I figured I'd share some lyrics from one of their songs, which is pretty sweet and brings an interesting persepective to the sacrifice Christ made and what a difference it should make in our lives. I pray that they would proves as meaningful to you as they have been to me the last few days.
Pin it all on me He said as He turned His head to the sun
I'm the only one who can wash it all away
Take a look at yourself
Do you know when things aren't right?
Are you willing to stand up and fight?
For what you say you're beleiving in?
We all are human we make mistakes but
We were given a choice to make
What do you live for? Is it something to stand for?
Is it everything that you beleive in and more?
A reason to give more, finally you found yours
And it's everything that you beleive and more
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| "To accept that God is full of grace is to believe that you can no more escape the presence of this gift than can you evade the universal One who freely gives it."
"Our voice in deciding whether we are surrounded by His grace is of the same value as that in determining whether the sun rises and falls each day. Just as God alone ordains for the sun to cast its light, so He also chooses to display grace around us."
-Excerpts from "A Graceful Desire"-
To God Be All the Glory,
Matthea L.H.
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| So I just finished conversing with the wise Robin Stoops about God's soveriegnity and His role in sin, and felt the need to clear the idea up from my previous post. In no way, by saying that God ordains sin, do I mean that God is sinful or participates in sinful acts. Instead, I mean that God ordains the circumstances, we make the choice to choose sin. However, He works through those choices for His good.
For example in the Garden of Eden, God created the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and thus creating the possibility for sin to enter the world, but Adam and Eve made the choice to eat of the fruit against God's desire, and thus chose sin. Thus God was not to blame, but Adam and Eve.
The sweet aspect of this, is once again, God is soveriegn and in control of everything. If sin were completely out of his control and in our hands, then He would not be Lord of all. Thankfully, He is in control of it all!
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