Have you ever wondered why two people can look at the same sunset and have completely different opinions about it? One person might be in awe of the sunset’s breath-taking beauty, while the other person is completely indifferent. Why is that?
Let me ask you another question – Have you ever seen a person who you knew nothing about, yet you instinctively thought they were ugly? People tend to think that something is either beautiful, or it is not.
Let me draw a parallel for you. An apple that is red is the same color no matter who looks at it. Even if a person is colorblind, the apple’s color does not change.
Of course, many people will recognize that beauty is not that way.
You might have heard the old saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” There is some truth to that statement. It would seem to explain why some people see beauty where others do not. It seems to teach that the person who values something is the one who sees it as beautiful. That is true. However, now you are talking about someone’s ability to perceive beauty, not with whether or not the object is or is not inherently beautiful.
Let’s look at what Scripture has to say. Ecclesiastes 3:11a says, “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time…” God granted Solomon more wisdom than any other man who had ever lived; and Solomon is telling us that God made everything beautiful. This seems to go along with Genesis 1:31a, which says, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
I freely admit I am equating beauty with goodness. The Bible teaches that everything God made is good and actually is beautiful.
Now I realize some of you might be thinking about all the evil in the word. Evil is not beautiful, and neither are the effects of evil. We need to stop thinking of evil as a thing: it is not a thing. Evil is the corruption of something God made.
God made man to love one another; that is a very good and beautiful thing. But when a man begins to hate his fellow man, that goodness is corrupted. So all that God made is beautiful – yet anytime something God made is corrupted, that is evil, and therefore ugly.
Unfortunately, one result of living as humans, who have been corrupted by sin, is that we get eye problems. I’m not talking about not having 20/20 vision, or having to wear glasses. I’m talking about our ability to see things as they truly are. I can say without any hesitation that if you look at a sunset and do not recognize it as beautiful, you have a spiritual eyesight problem.
I have personally experienced seeing pictures of someone who appeared to be very beautiful; yet when I met them, I changed my mind, and thought they were quite ugly. I have also had the reverse experience. I saw someone I thought was ugly; yet after I got to know them, I recognized how beautiful they were.
True spiritual eyesight will show you the difference between the beauty of what God made in a person and the ugliness of what sin has corrupted in that same person.
Of course, we cannot see into a person’s heart to see the complete picture, like God can. But we can see a lot from their attitudes, the way they talk, and how they live their life. These things are what Jesus called a person’s “fruit.” Certainly people can fake having good fruit, but you will eventually see who they are by their fruit.
So, here’s what I want you to get out of all this:
When you look at someone you think is ugly, I want you to pray that God will show you the beauty of what He created. I also want you to be honest enough with God to admit how wrong you are in thinking what He made was ugly. Then repent and ask Him to open your eyes, so you can see.
When you see something God has made and you do recognize the beauty in it, I want you to understand that you only see its beauty because God has opened your eyes to it. Do not let a moment go by before you give Him the credit and the thanks He deserves.
Never see something beautiful without thanking God for it. Pray that God will fix your eyes so that you will see His Beauty; and that you will no longer see a sinful thing as beautiful, but will recognize it the for the evil ugliness that it is.
God has made all things beautiful. Our failure to see it is just a result of evil’s influence on us. Pray that God will open your eyes to see clearly.
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