Missing God’s Beauty
10/29/16
When we think of beauty it is usually confined to the physical atmosphere that our eyes routinely witness. While there are many objects that are easy to look upon it is well known that it is the innermost portions of an object that should be the true reflection of the physical aspects of Creation. Humans have this rare form of inner beauty that we often miss recognizing and it is this inner beauty that not only defines our life but God’s spectacular Creation as well. The question must be asked of how often we miss the inner beauty of God’s Word in the same manner as the inner qualities of our lives, thus missing out of God’s true beauty of His Heart.
I cannot deny the fact that I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Fall is upon us and this time of the year it is a specialty to have the opportunity to take a drive up in the mountains and spend hours just observing the colors of the leaves on the trees. I also have to admit that in my 25 years here I have missed several opportunities to witness such beauty because I deemed other issues more important. I cannot take those opportunities back and replay them, so my mind has to wonder about what I missed. While these missed scenes may haunt me and make future settings more reveled, they continue to run past my mind when people talk about how much they enjoyed looking at the colors each year. It is through this gift from God that I miss when I forego an opportunity to witness just divine greatness, but I also understand that it is through this process that I should realize just how important the messages that God’s Word gives as well.
While the fall color season lasts only a short time I look forward into trying my best to watch this process when the next cycle returns. I cannot hold the future nor can I see what may lie for me tomorrow much less next year. After the fall colors leave and the mountain turns brown and then white, I often look at the side of that big rock and remember the recent past when the mountain was in full bloom and it looked like a fire was racing up the hill. I am always amazed at the beauty that God made for us and continually marvel at the changing site of the mountain each day that I look at its offerings. As stated above I cannot go back and change time to suit my selfish wants but I have to trust in God that I will be around the next time that the fall colors arrive.
This year I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to see the fall colors on the mountains around us. We took a drive and spent a few hours just standing, sitting and walking amongst the trees and leaves. As we were driving back down the hill we passed a small grove where the wind was blowing just enough and in the right direction to have the leaves fall on the road. We drove right through the leaves as they fell and it was just a magnificent setting. To some, this may not be exciting or invigorating but to my family, there is no better setting that we could witness. All of us were glad that we had overcome our petty reasons for not being in this setting and left with nothing but glad tidings. At the time of our departure, I had no idea that God was going to work His wonderful Word into a message that goes straight to my heart as it should yours.
As a Church, we have become so engrossed about the knowledge and how much knowledge we have when it comes to the Bible. How often do we use God’s Word to advance our positions in life while we have no idea of what His Word actually means? How many times have we quoted Scripture in a church setting strictly out of love but do not understand exactly what God’s heart is trying to say? Or, how many times have we read and studied His Word and not even recognized that His Word IS His heart? I must admit upfront that I have fallen into this category for most of my life and I am ashamed to say but I have missed this truth about the Bible. For decades, I have concluded that while God’s Word is authoritative in its content I have categorized it in such a manner that all I did was place His Word into a box and conformed it to my image and not His. It always amazes me that I return back to Genesis in the messages that God gives me and this is for a reason; it is God’s desire for me to know His heart, as much as my heart can comprehend.
We must ask ourselves how personable our daily walk with God actually is and what it represents to our hearts as we study His Word. Many of us claim to read the Bible every day but do we really understand and recognize what God is trying to convey to our hearts? It is no secret that God looks at our hearts when He references our lives and He can do this by the “words” that we say as we go about our daily activities. Why would God be any different than what He has given us as a standard for our daily walk in life? God shall judge us by the contents of His heart which He personally placed the same characteristics into our hearts and since His Word is His heart it is a fact that we shall be judged according to His Word. This truth proclaims that His Word is not a book of dos and don’ts but a guideline in how to live our lives through His Covenant and Ways. God has never once forced His children to accept Him, it has always been our choice to do so.
Romans 3:23 states that every single human being has fallen and come short of the glory of God, and through this verse, proves itself as a living fact and a well-documented truth when it comes to a description of our lives. This verse also claims that I have missed several things about God’s heart as I skim over portions of His Word or try to interpret them according to my feelings and not recognizing them as God’s heart being spoken in a way that my finite heart can understand. Now, that changes everything concerning how we should study the Bible and how we revere God’s Word. This feeling and belief of ours also provides a statement that we have not fully comprehended what God is saying to us and when we place His words on a component measure rather than an eternal statement we have successfully incorporated Satan’s tactic against Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden into our lives. When we realize that God’s Word is His heart, Romans 3:23 should bring us to our knees and repent for not seeing His inner beauty that He has so lovingly given. It is this beauty that God shares with us His Creation and it is this beauty of His Word that gives us life abundantly. When we look at God’s Word as Him speaking from His heart directly to ours, we cannot honestly place our selfish reasoning in front of this truth. If we do then we have believed for one of the oldest and simplest lies from Satan.
When we place God’s Word in His truth concerning His heart we can no longer think that His word is ancient, irrelevant, non-existent or even dead for God’s heart is beating stronger than ever and His Word rings true with every letter in the Bible. God’s Word is alive and well and when one opens their hearts to this truth the true foundation of the Bible can be manifested into your life and prove as to why God says we have life abundantly through Him. It is this phrase alone that gives us the answers that we need in order to have peace, love, and hope but fail to meet because their eyes are stuck on and in the world instead. The world and its ruler promise to meet all our desires through its ways but fail to provide a single one as each day passes with more fragility expressed. We are created better than that and should easily recognize this about our existence.
It is this inner beauty that we have missed as we walk through the trees and fall colors of God’s Word. We have stuck to the surface and skimmed over it with contentment and haughtiness while shoving cotton in our spiritual ears as God’s heart cries out to our spirits for us to understand the truth around us. I now can understand why my father used to say that he loved to hear the leaves turning after he said which passage of Scripture he was going to teach from, it all makes sense to me now. When we grasp the concept that the Bible is God’s heart speaking to us it becomes our responsibility as children of God to listen with our own hearts and to obey its contents. Not to question it in such a manner as to defile its meaning but to accept its loving words within our hearts so that we may understand why God is protecting us from the world and its ruler.
If we figure out that God’s heart is speaking to us we will have no excuse as to missing things that are being fulfilled around us either. God’s Word does not hide anything from us, it is our job to hide His Word in our hearts so that we may understand what has been said and the reason why He said them. Each morning when I do not have the opportunity to spend time with God and His Word and that day ends I can clearly see that while I was walking amongst the trees and leaves, looked on their beauty, I still missed what God was saying to me for that day. As I look back on my life, sadly, I realize that many years ago I had no true sense of God’s inner beauty because I chose not to seek Him first. I see such patterns in the Church today and what concerns God the most is that the Church is not recognizing that this noncommittal pattern to God that she is portraying is being promoted by the world. The Church is bringing the drag of the world on her shoulders by living this proclamation and there will come a time in the near future where God shall take away the beauty of the world and exercise His heart. What is mortifying is this, it is a known conclusion that the world shall miss the truth of the heart action, but the Church shall miss it as well and draw it off as a missed heart condition of God.
This is why it is vital that we place all of our selfish desires away and focus on God’s Word completely. We can never hide anything that God gives us in our hearts if we do not have Him first in our lives; therefore, we can never have the capability to withstand the tricks that our eternal enemy throws at us. Satan will deceive us by saying we can have God 2nd or 15th in our lives but in truth, we cannot, this seems like a simple concept to recognize but if we are not equipped with the correct spiritual weapons we will not even see this simple trick coming right at us. I have countless times missed the beauty of God’s earth even though I was right there in the midst of it, just as I have missed the beauty of God’s heart by not knowing just what the Bible stood for and why God had placed it there for me to use. There is absolutely no way that the Church can be truly looking for her Groom if she does not even understand the words that He has given to her, in reality, she does not even know Him at all.
Each day I watch the curse of physical death swirl around many people, I can hear their cries for a cure and yet the medicine that we give them only prolong their cries and ties them to a fatal routine. Many of them have no clue that their eternity is about to commence without them knowing who God is and what He has provided for them. The laws of the land forbid me to mention God or His name to them unless they initiate the topic which limits God even further. I want to convey God’s heart to them as much as possible but Satan has blinded us so much through his kingdom we no longer recognize a lie from the truth. Through the denial of God’s Word in our lives, we have voluntarily accepted the death kingdom that Satan offers, with a great deal of church members leading the way. We have gazed at the fall colors that God has provided but failed to recognize the inner beauty of those colors, the heart of the matter.
It is no secret that God’s beauty lies all around us and through our eyes we can see this beauty with a turn of the head, but it is the inner beauty of God that we need to recognize so that we may see the glory of His Creation and the direction He desires His Creation to live. We have stated for centuries now that God’s Word is the truth complete, if we mean that we must understand that His Word is His heart and cannot tell any lie or waiver from His heartbeat, even in the Old Testament God announced Himself and showed Himself to be true and faithful, further deepening the concept that His Word is His heart. Repent Church and turn back to God’s heart for it is the ONLY way that we can sustain eternal life and live abundantly.
I pray that I just not get to watch the fall colors turn and miss what God has ordained in my life. This should be the prayer of the Church as well, foregoing ALL contacts with the world and constantly proclaiming that God is the supreme ruler over all things. Knowing God’s heart says that He is not able to commend the world in any form and neither should we. We should love those around us and teach them that they need to be separate from the world as well. If we repent, truly repent God shall begin a beautiful restoration process and while He completes this task He shall show you His heart through His Word. I have made the commitment to not miss the beauty of God’s Word (heart) any longer and I pray every day that this desire of my heart is fulfilled. Church, will you pray this prayer to God as well?
DLB
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