An Undying Beauty

When God forms a child in the womb, He lovingly and meticulously fashions each joint and sinew, each capillary and nerve ending, to perform its part in the whole—a little body which will grow to glorify Him, which indeed already does bring Him glory by its very existence and intricacy.

And if God creates something so temporal as the human body with such care, how much more beautiful has He made the spirit which exists for all of eternity?

When we repented of our former ways and enslaved ourselves to God, we were recreated. We are new creations; old things have passed away; behold, all things are new (2 Corinthians 5:17). We have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24). God created for us a new man in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24). The love of Christ compels us (2 Corinthians 5:14); He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him (2 Corinthians 5:15). We have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer we who live, but Christ lives in us (Galatians 2:20). He has granted us even the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16).

The wages of sin is death, but thanks be to God that He crucified our old selves and raised us again to a new life, as described in Romans 6:

⁴ Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

How beautiful then has God made us on the inside as well! Such mercy is truly humbling.

Some seem to think it is spiritually vain to praise Him for what He has made us. But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Galatians 6:14). All things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18). Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God (2 Corinthians 3:5).

Praise the God who creates beauty inside and out.

⁶ In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, ⁷ that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,

1 Peter 1:6-7

Image courtesy Glen's Pics on Flickr.