Looks Can Be Deceiving
“It is better to look good than to feel good,” said Billy
Crystal's Saturday Night Live character. Are we more concerned about how we
appear to be rather than how we really are inside?
Recently I was somewhat distracted in my car and almost hit a
pedestrian. He was visibly upset and
slapped my car. I apologized but when I
drove away, I thought about another response I could have made. I could have jumped out of my car and started
a scene. But immediately the thought came to me that someone on that busy
street might have called out to me and said, “Hello, Pastor Fair,” right in the
middle of the confrontation. The thought
that made me repent later was, “Was I more concerned about how I looked than
how I was?”
The prophet Samuel was sent to anoint King David and focused on
the external looks of the candidates but God spoke to him and said that He
looks on people’s hearts (1 Samuel 16:7).
Jesus followed up in the New Testament and said some people are like beautiful
gravestones but house dead men’s bones (Matthew 23:27).
We do not want to just look like people of God. We want to be people of God on the inside and
outside. Let us strive to make sure that we are representing Christ on the
outside and allow Him to create something beautiful on the inside (Psalms
51:10). Since God lives within, He can help us deny ourselves and fight our
flesh (Galatians 2:20, 1 John 4:4).
Please comment below and
tell how you decided to let Christ live through you so that the Christ inside
was evident in your actions outside. It may help someone who is struggling
with his or her walk with Him.
1 Samuel 16:7
New International Version (NIV)
7 But the
Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have
rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People
look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Matthew 23:27
New
International Version (NIV)
27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful
on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and
everything unclean.
Psalm
51:10
New
International Version (NIV)
10 Create in me a pure
heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Galatians 2:20
New
International Version (NIV)
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no
longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live
by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
1 John 4:4
New
International Version (NIV)
4 You, dear children, are from God and have
overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in
the world.
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