Tuesday 12 July 2016

The beauty of holiness

Give to the Lord the glory due His name;
Bring an offering, and come before Him.
Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! – 1 Chronicles 16.29

Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. That verse even has a lovely sound to it, doesn’t it?

So what is this beauty of holiness?

Let’s look at beauty first. A lot of folks seems super obsessed with beauty. Billions of euro are spent in the pursuit of beauty. Medicines, creams, cosmetics, make-up, hairs care products, and even plastic surgery are ways to try and achieve some type of surface beauty.

The problem with all that though is, that as the old saying goes, most beauty is only skin deep. We can spend a fortune on making the outside beautiful but that can never change the inner person and that is where real beauty dwells.

That is what we read about here – the true beauty of holiness. Holiness produces a beauty that nothing else can. It is a beauty that comes from a pure heart. It is that beauty that is far more than skin deep, that is far more than fleeting, and is beautiful in the eye of every beholder.

That beauty of holiness only comes as I rest in the holiness which is mine in Christ alone. I can’t work up holiness – it is imputed to me in Christ. But I can strive to live in holiness.

What if we strove after the beauty of holiness with the same intensity that we strive after outward beauty? Of course we should not neglect personal care, but we need to ask ourselves where our priority is. We must look on others not for their physical beauty but the beauty of holiness in their lives.

What kind of beauty are we striving for today?

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