HOW DO YOU LOOK AT YOURSELF?

Who you are is from within but we are often defined by how we look physically. If you have beautiful eyes and nice smile and all the physical things you are called amongst the most beautiful people ever. What about your heart? Have you ever thought of how your heart destroys even that beautiful face you got? If you are physically beautiful and have a cruel heart you realize that what people now say about you is that your beauty is fading. Beauty to me emanates from the inside of you and spreads for everyone to see. I remember some years ago a man visited our home and while he was looking at the pictures he called a girl in those pictures virtuous. I asked him why he called her virtuous and he said that’s what he saw when he looked at that picture. He saw a woman full of virtue even though she’s physically beautiful Christ shone through her physique for everyone to see. Genesis 1:26-27 says: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.”  It wasn’t physical it was spiritual. God created another spirit like His during creation and gave it dominion over the whole earth. Your spirit is you, it is who you are. Look at Genesis 2:4-5 carefully,” These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, there was not a man to till the ground. Take note of that…”not a man” so where was man? In spirit; man was in the Spirit of God our Creator. (Read up to verse 7)

You are a product of God and you therefore carry His Spirit in you. When the Psalmist said in Psalm 139: 14 that “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well” it was because he caught a glimpse of who man is. He wasn’t defining physical beauty, he was defining what we are made of inwardly and his soul which is inward too knows that He has the Spirit of God in him. Proverbs 31:30-31 puts it in a perfect way “Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. 30. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain but a woman that fears God, she shall be praised.  Our physique doesn’t define who we are because our identity is found only in Jesus Christ. Out of Christ we are nothing and we will always be filled with a sense of insecurity and emptiness. Not because we are ugly or because people called us ugly but because we are not branches of the tree where our beauty is. I can honestly  attest to this, when I wasn’t in Christ I felt so insecure; when I go to a gathering of people my age I was very concerned about what I was wearing and how I looked. I felt like I needed always to be perfectly dressed for people to see that I’m beautiful. That was a vain way to look at myself. I was always concerned about how people treat me and what they say about me or to me. Thank God for His awesome grace that has taught me to define myself first in Him and then see what I get.

 How do you look at yourself beloved? Do you believe your beauty is what defines you? Do you know you are most beautiful in Christ alone? The light of God shines through you and brings out the beauty of your heart and soul. It’s also our duty to take extreme care of our bodies because it is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God in you gives you confidence to go anywhere and talk boldly about Christ. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world and always remember that God’s banner of love is over you. Because God was with Esther she found favor before everyone that looked at her; it wasn’t because of her outward adornments but because of whose she was. She was the daughter of the Most High God. Dress modestly and clean but don’t look at it as what defines you for Christ in you is your only life.

Be Blessed In Jesus Name!!!