Beauty Within
Friends of mine just bought their first home - a super cute fixer upper.
It needs a lot of work, but they need to take things one step at a time due to budget and time constraints.
When I first visited, I recommended making all these huge changes: tear down that wall, open up that space, move the doors, and add a few windows.
You know, all the low-cost stuff.
I think I've watched too many home improvement shows.
First things first - they needed to give everything a good cleaning and put on a fresh coat of paint.
When I saw the place just a few weeks later, it looked brand new!
They didn't have to make all the huge changes I thought were needed; they just had to freshen things up and uncover the beauty already there.
I think that's how we should look at our fixer-upper selves.
We think we need to make these massive changes.
Maybe if we make everything sparkly and new, we will be good enough.
Maybe if we stop doing ALL the bad things and aim for perfection, God will love us.
The fantastic news is God loves us just the way we are.
He knows what walls need to go and what parts of us need a complete teardown.
But He isn't withholding His love for us until all that happens.
God's love doesn't have specifications, tight budgets, or unattainable deadlines.
His love is unconditional and unending, and perfection is never His expectation.
God doesn't see us as an ugly house that he's ready to discard or demolish.
His eyes of love look beyond the cracks and stains. He sees what is underneath and behind all the junk that hides our beauty and potential.
God sees us as His precious, beautiful children worthy of love and investment.
So rather than doing a walkthrough of our lives, criticizing every wrong thing we see, how about we love ourselves the way God loves us?
Underneath all the layers of junk we have put on and hidden behind is a stunning beauty ready to shine.
How about we start with a good cleaning and a fresh coat of paint?
One thing at a time. We don't have to do it all at once.
Slowly, we will uncover the beauty within us that has always been there.
God sees beyond and behind our junk and our mess.
He sees you and He loves you so much,
Just as you are.
Jeremiah 17:14
Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Ephesians 2: 8-10
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.