Wednesday

Where is Beauty? - A Dose of Encouragement



When I want to study about something from the Bible I more often than not tend toward the Question Words

What, When, Where, Why, Who and How   


So for this study on Beauty I have partly used this method once again.

Previously in the blog post WHAT IS BEAUTY we looked at the real beauty we need to have and it was not physical.  
If you haven't read that post click on through to it and read it and then come back and continue here.






So, having already looked at what Beauty is let's now consider


WHERE IS BEAUTY?

No questionnaire to start this time and no sayings.

But perhaps we could consider this section as an illustration.


IT'S WHAT 'S INSIDE THAT COUNTS

Imagine two large Tesco Long life carrier bags that were popular a few years ago.

Well actually you don't have to imagine just take a look at this picture




2 Bags 

1st. containing garbage & broken things

2nd. containing pictures & items

 

1. If we take out each piece and decide whether it’s ugly or beautiful

  • a plastic wrapper from raw meat  
  • a clump of dusty, hair and dirt
  • a note containing a nasty comment about a person

 

2. If we take out each piece and decide whether it’s ugly or beautiful

  • a drawing made by our children/grandchildren
  • a family photo with happy smiling faces
  • a momento from a special holiday


We could probably all agree that the first bag contained things that were ugly or not worth keeping.

The second bag however contains things that are beautiful to us because of the special reasons that caused us to kept them. 

For example when we did this at our women's meeting all the ladies could understand that 

  • a picture of me from long ago was beautiful to me because it was my husband's favourite picture of me - a good memory and the love of my husband



SO WHAT'S INSIDE US?

Is it Godly beauty and if so will it ever change?

 


 

Beauty is in Goodness    

We discovered in the previous blog post that Beauty was Goodness

We saw this from creation last time when after everything was created God said: 

Genesis 1 v 31

Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.  



 

Yes the Bible tells us that God said it was GOOD.

God did not say it is beautiful and we know He would not have created something that wasn’t beautiful in His eyes but it was more important for Him to say it is good so we discovered something of what beauty is to God.

So Beauty is in goodness


From this we know 

that with the beauty/goodness of God upon us

 we will be more like Him in all ways.

 

  

Where else is Beauty?  


Let’s take a look at  Psalm 96  yes the whole Psalm

And look out for the word beauty.

 

Psalm 96


1Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!
Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, bless His name;
Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.
Declare His glory among the 
nations,
His wonders among all peoples.

For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised;
He is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
But the Lord made the heavens.
Honour and majesty are before Him;
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
Give to the Lord glory and strength.
8
Give to the Lord the glory due His name;
Bring an offering, and come into His courts.
Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!
Tremble before Him, all the earth.

10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns;
The world also is firmly established,
It shall not be 
moved;
He shall judge the peoples righteously.”

11 Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and 
all its fullness;
12 Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice
13 
    before the Lord.
For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth.
He shall judge the world with righteousness,
And the peoples with His truth.

 

A great Psalm starting with praise of 

God's salvation and His greatness


Look again at Verse 6

"Honour and majesty are before Him;
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary."

 

Where is Beauty?   -    Beauty is in the sanctuary of God

What is the sanctuary of God?   -    The Holy Place.

So Beauty is in the Holy Place - The place of God's presence and greatness


What other word does the word sanctuary remind you of?  

  Sanctification.

 Definition of Sanctification:  

the action or process of being freed from sin or purified

the action of making or declaring something holy


So Beauty is a result of God’s sanctification of us, sinless, pure, holy

 

Look again at Verse 9


"Oh worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness"




 Holiness is Beautiful

So beauty is in the holiness in our lives 

 

From this we know 

that with the beauty/holiness of God upon us 

we will be more like Him in all ways.

 


 
 

 

Start - Work in progress - End   

 

One of the girls in our church is studying Art at University and for a project she was working with textiles.

She had to plan out her work, dye fabrics, find different textures of fabrics and a lot of this involved research even before she started into any of the artistic and practical work.

When Eden shared her project with the ladies we could see and understand that her work was unique to her  – no one else has produced an identical piece of Art.

We thought there was great beauty in her final result but along the way we could see times where we wondered how it would turn out.

From this we could clearly see that Eden had a start, a time of work in progress and an end product which was unique to her.


God has made us unique and treats us uniquely so each of us will have a unique Christian Walk.

God gave us new life – Salvation

Our Christian Walk is a progression, growth towards holiness as we walk and learn in Him.

 

But there is a difference between this and the example of beauty in Eden’s work

Eden’s beautiful project came to an end.

Godly beauty will not come to an end.

Instead it is results in something full of goodness & holiness 

that we could never imagine.

     Eternal Life