God's Masterpieces

We live in a world that puts all the focus on outward appearance. We pay to make ourselves look beautiful--new clothes, jewelry, makeup, tanning, and more extreme measures like plastic surgery. And it's not just the rich and famous who get wrapped up in this culture. It's us Christian ladies too. While we're fretting over gaining a few pounds or finding a few more wrinkles, our little girls are watching us. They are learning from us to focus on looks and outward appearances. Too often we think that if we change the outside, we will be happy. In reality, it's our hearts that need to change. I Samuel 16:7 says "for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." Instead of teaching our daughters and granddaughters that what we look like is of utmost importance and what we should spend most of our time on, we should be delving into God's word, filling our hearts and minds with things above and teaching our little girls to do the same. Each day is a learning process and each day we have the choice of whether or not we will become more intimate with our Prince through pouring over His word and learning all we need to draw closer to Him.

Wanting to change our appearance is not a bad thing. Being overweight is unhealthy, hard on our bodies, and makes us less able to do God's work. So wanting to lose a few pounds is not the issue. The issue is feeling that changing our outward appearance will somehow make our life better. But, the truth is God loves us just the way we are, just the way He created us! We are His masterpiece, one of His expressions of beauty. He anticipated our arrival before the world was even created and chose us to be holy and blameless, because He has given us redemption through Christ's blood. (Ephesians 1: 4-7) He formed us and summoned us by name. He says we are His. (Isaiah 43:1) He created us in His own image (Genesis 1:27) We are each God's good creation, of infinite worth to the Heavenly Father, precious in His sight, and cleansed from unrighteousness. If anything shows us that we are one of God's masterpieces, it should be that Jesus became like us to save us. He gave Himself to redeem us from all wickedness and purify for Himself a people that are His very own, eager to do what is good.

Ask yourself: Who am I? What makes me, me? What makes me special and unique? What gives me value and worth?

The answer? I am God's masterpiece, fearfully and wonderfully knit together in my mother's womb, someone Jesus came for and died for.

You are so valuable to God that He would move heaven and earth just to get your heart. He never changes, even if you do.