The Seven Longings of the Human Heart - Week #4

Chapter Three – The Longing for Beauty

“In every man’s heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty.”

This quote from Rhodes scholar Christopher Morley opens this chapter. Mike Bickle goes on to say, “The heart is a resonance chamber, a God-designed void created to be filled with and to reflect the beauty of God. And the beautiful God made His favorite creations to be beautiful. God’s beauty emanates from His Person and resonates within us. We reflect God’s own beauty.”

Much as we may protest that beauty doesn’t matter, there is a God-given longing to be attractive and beautiful (or striking and engaging), and this reflects God’s genius and His personality. Besides desiring to be attractive ourselves, we also have an innate longing to perceive or gaze on beauty.

“The revelation of God’s beauty has two dimensions to it: first, the beauty of Jesus as the Bridegroom, and second, the beauty of His Bride.” In redemption through Jesus, God imparts His own beauty to His people.

The human longing for beauty impacts how we structure our time and spend our money, and in pursuit of this legitimate longing, “our culture has cultivated an unhealthy, destructive obsession with physical appearance. The secular beauty industry has tapped into this longing in the human spirit and exploited it, creating frustration and self-loathing each step of the way. Advertising executives set the unrealistic standards by which we judge others and ourselves…The obsession with physical beauty is coming to a pinnacle in Western culture…Many sexual and eating disorders are linked to an obsession with natural beauty that goes beyond the protective boundaries of God’s Word.”

Of course, we know that it’s appropriate to enhance our physical beauty but there are healthy boundaries to this since our greatest beauty emanates from within because of our union with Christ. We have all known people who, upon first meeting them, are very attractive or handsome, but when we get to know them, they don’t seem that beautiful and may even seem unattractive if their inner heart and character is ugly. The opposite is true as well; there are people that we meet who may not have great natural attractiveness but who, upon getting to know them, are stunningly beautiful persons because of the radiant beauty of Jesus shining through their being.

There are those Christian believers who believe that to want to be beautiful is shallow or a sin and so they treat this as evil. But again, like the other God-given human longings, that only complicates the issue, driving this desire inward and causing the person to have it fulfilled in ungodly ways.

His Beauty for our Ashes

Isaiah 61 says that by the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus came to give us beauty for ashes. This is an unbelievable exchange. Ashes are good for nothing at all and are the product of our “burning our passions on wrong things. Some believers’ lives are like ash heaps even after they have known the Lord for many years. Most people don’t realize how much they have lost by making sinful choices.”

We settle for the legal benefits of salvation but don’t understand that the cross and the Holy Spirit is for much more than “a cabin on the edge of glory” after a life of living in the ash heap now. We were made to be beautiful even now. The wonder of it all is that no one wants ashes – except the beautiful God!

Manifestations of Inner Beauty

When we realize that our desire for beauty (both to be beautiful and to look on beauty) comes from God and that He is the fulfillment of this longing, then we rightly begin to look to Him, and the psalmist says that those who look to Him are radiant (Psa. 34:5)!

The beauty of God within us is manifest in different ways:
* Our countenance begins to brighten
* Our personality is affected as it is infused and filled with the graciousness of God’s personality
* Even our outward physical appearance improves
* Our overall health is enhanced by the presence and joy of God within us

Moses prayed in Psalm 90:17 that the “beauty of the Lord our God be upon us” (be seen in and through us). Peter also speaks of this inner beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit (I Peter 3:3,4).

The Scriptures indicate that it’s God’s delight to beautify His people (Psa. 149:4). God takes pleasure in you, in me! He takes joy in beautifying us.

By nature we don’t feel beautiful and attractive physically. Some of the most beautiful people have the same struggles that all people have over this, unable to see themselves as lovely and attractive.

Just as in the physical, we don’t feel attractive spiritually before God. We see our sin and failures and weaknesses in contrast with His holiness and beauty, and we automatically assume that He could never see us as attractive. Once we begin to get revelation of His way of looking at His children, it fundamentally changes how we relate to Him and to others. If He says I’m lovely because of the beauty of His Son and because of the "yes" in my spirit, then what others say about me doesn’t matter. (Psalm 45:11; Song of Songs 7:10)

When I began to understand this profound reality in God’s heart as it applied to me personally, it changed my paradigm of how I viewed God and myself and others. I began to gain confidence in my life in God and with others; boldness to love Him unashamedly and to love others grew in my heart. And I see others as beautiful too as I increasingly see them through the eyes of a perfect and loving God. (I’m still growing in this, of course, but have walked enough in it to know the great impact it has made on my life and walk in God.)

This chapter has so much in it, so I’m going to simply give some key quotes from the rest of it:
* God’s beauty in us is a vast subject…Let there be no doubt: the Godhead is he main celestial attraction, but when He unveils His ultimate plan to present a beautiful Bride to Himself, the angels will gather at the balconies of Heaven and shake their heads in wonder. You will be physically, emotionally and spiritually beautiful forever because of Jesus.

* (Jesus’) glorified body was the perfect melding of the spiritual and physical realms, allowing Jesus to partake of the best of both worlds (John 20:26; 21:12-15). He has a body for each of us that is just like His.

* Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world.” (Jesus) was speaking of believers being beacons here in this age, but He was also referring to the future. He was speaking of the day when the saints would be made like Him, the One who lights up the New Jerusalem and the New Earth as well (Rev. 21:23). The people of God in the New Jerusalem will also release God’s light…God will clothe His people with light (Rev. 21:9-11; Daniel 12:2,3; Matt. 13:43).

* Our future bodies will be filled with God’s power and glory…

* We will have supernatural abilities in our five senses…excellent sight at a distance as well as at close range…able to hear at distances…Our taste buds will enjoy food beyond anything we can currently imagine…Our sense of touch will give us the ability to feel perfectly and discern objects with great clarity…Our sense of smell will give us the ability to enjoy and discern what is going on in the environment around us…

The chapter concludes with our corporate identity as the Bride of Christ, which speaks of our corporate beauty as God’s people together. God’s plan for beauty isn’t just for individuals but for all of His people together. He speaks of the Bride as “the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

The Father will present to Jesus a beautiful Bride; this identity speaks of much more than a buddy or girlfriend; it speaks of a level of ownership in relation to everything her bridegroom possesses. This is a staggering truth that, when received and trusted, transforms the way we view God, others and ourselves.

This present life is the time of “beauty preparation.” Just like Esther went through meticulous beauty preparations before appearing before the king, so the Holy Spirit is preparing the Bride of Christ to appear before Him, pure and spotless and like Him someday. As we grow in our capacity to agree with God’s assessment of us and His work of beautifying us, and as we help others grow in this as well, we are all being prepared for His return and the day of the Father’s proud presenting of us to Jesus as His Bride forever.

Come, Holy Spirit, and open our eyes to the beauty of Jesus and His beauty in us. May His light and life emanate out through us as we continually say “yes” to His love and to His work in our lives. Thank You that You delight to do this!

Next week we’ll cover chapter four – The Longing for Greatness. Grace and peace to you this week in the Lord Jesus!