Created Desire #3: BEAUTY Part One

Why focus on Beauty?

We have a culture that is obsessed with beauty.  There is something in the human spirit that detests feeling ugly.  Women spend massive amounts of time and money to fix the things about themselves that they do not consider attractive.  We have a desire to be attractive and beautiful so we primp, powder and comb to look our best and what we can’t make to look good we cover up.  Millions of dollars are spent every day on the pursuit of physical beauty.  We buy the latest hair styling products, get fancy colors and cuts, buy make-up, get gym memberships and exercise equipment, try diet programs and books, some even go so far as to have surgeries in order to attain beauty. 

The problem is that our culture has created an unhealthy, destructive obsession with physical appearance and has exploited this desire.  We have been deceived by airbrushed, computer-generated models in magazines.

Proverbs 31:30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. (ESV)

It’s perfectly acceptable to enhance one’s physical appearance however it’s not acceptable when the attainment of physical beauty becomes an obsession so that we can’t see ourselves the way God sees us.  Striving for physical beauty can be a distraction from striving for what God sees as beautiful.  Beauty itself is not to blame!  God Himself is the source of all true beauty.  A beautiful God created us in such a way that we long to possess beauty but are we trying to possess beauty in the wrong way?

How Does the World Define Beauty?

How does the world define beauty?  What is beautiful in our culture? Our culture defines beauty as being thin, having a small waist, decent sized breasts, a perfect smile, beautiful blonde hair with natural highlights, youthful skin, an hourglass figure, types of clothing, jewelry, thick hair, etc. This message is sold to us every day, it’s hard to escape it 

We don’t measure up

As women, we often feel like we don’t measure up.  We don’t look “right” - the way the world tells us to look. We don’t act “right” - the way the church tells us to act. We don’t feel “right”… we just don’t measure up, we feel like we are an ugly mess inside and what would God want with an ugly mess? Isaiah talks about this using the illustration of ashes. What are ashes? They are the garbage that’s left when wood is burned.  They are useless, a by-product of burning.    

Isaiah 61:1-3 The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor…to give them beauty for ashes. (NKJV)

We are like ashes, we have burned our desires in wrong ways, through sinful choices. Many people our age land up looking back at their lives and think, “What would anyone want with me?  What I have done is so…ugly, I’m so ugly….”  Nobody wants our ashes, nobody that is, except God. And when He takes them, He will trade them for His beauty. HIS BEAUTY, not cheap worldly beauty, but HIS BEAUTY. We have all made choices that reduce our lives to rubble, ashes, to useless, worthless rubbish. God wants to exchange His beauty for your ashes…if you let Him…the choice is up to you. He will answer your created desire for beauty. He will take the mess of your life and trade it for His beauty. When you became a believer you weren’t merely saved from Hell, you were made to be beautiful and to show forth God’s beauty to the rest of creation…forever! Don’t deny your attraction to beauty, don’t be shallow and distracted by worldly beauty. Take on His beauty, it will change your life.

Stay Tuned for Part Two:  What is beautiful to God and how we can be beautiful to Him…

NOTE:  The videos are not to be taken as an endorsement of the dove self-esteem fund.  They are simply there to make a point.  Jesus is the ONLY answer for a world with distorted views on beauty. The answer is to fall in love with Jesus!  He is the Way, the Truth and the Light!