“Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”  This idiom is used to express the fact that not all people have the same opinions about what is attractive.  What is beauty?  Well, that’s easy to answer.  Just turn on the TV or browse your computer ads.  Most opinions about what makes a person beautiful is found in all forms of media.

Fact:  People selling the latest and best products in the beauty industry overwhelm us by aggressively telling us how much more beautiful we would be if we bought and applied their products religiously.  “It doesn’t work if you don’t use it and keep using it,” which is genius marketing.  You must keep buying and using it for it to work!  If you do not, it’s not their fault but your’s if you do not become as beautiful as the models!   

The more beauty treatments we apply, the more flattering clothes we wear, the care in eating the right foods, the more exercise we do to move that fat around our bodies, while trying to manage all the hairs on our head is not the way to beauty in the eyes of the Beholder who created us and who loves us so much that He laid down his life for us. 

Lean in as Peter explains…

1 Peter 3, The Message

Cultivate Inner Beauty

^1-4 The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated by your life of holy beauty. What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition.

^4-6 Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands. Sarah, for instance, taking care of Abraham, would address him as “my dear husband.” You’ll be true daughters of Sarah if you do the same, unanxious and unintimidated.

⁷ The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God’s grace, you’re equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don’t run aground.

Suffering for Doing Good

^8-12 Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that’s your job, to bless. You’ll be a blessing and also get a blessing.

Whoever wants to embrace life
    and see the day fill up with good,
Here’s what you do:
    Say nothing evil or hurtful;
Snub evil and cultivate good;
    run after peace for all you’re worth.
God looks on all this with approval,
    listening and responding well to what he’s asked;
But he turns his back
    on those who do evil things.

^13-18 If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.

^19-22 He went and proclaimed God’s salvation to earlier generations who ended up in the prison of judgment because they wouldn’t listen. You know, even though God waited patiently all the days that Noah built his ship, only a few were saved then, eight to be exact—saved from the water by the water. The waters of baptism do that for you, not by washing away dirt from your skin but by presenting you through Jesus’ resurrection before God with a clear conscience. Jesus has the last word on everything and everyone, from angels to armies. He’s standing right alongside God, and what he says goes.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

We learn that holy beauty begins on the inside.  What’s on the inside is then reflected on the outside.  People are drawn to those who are at peace, love unconditionally, are kind and encouraging to others, without expecting anything in return.  These beauty traits become new ingrained habits for living the abundant Life with Jesus.  They love everyone, no exceptions.  In fact, they have learned to love more and judge less.  They listen with empathy and sympathy.  They take the time to pray with you not just for you.

Peter tells us how to cultivate this inner beauty! 

Be a blessing!  Live at peace with others even when you disagree on certain topics.  Being agreeable reflects God’s love that lives in us.  “Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble.”  These traits are developed as God’s Holy Spirit does his beauty work in our hearts.  To become more like Jesus, we must offer our lives wholly to His care as He does His special works of inner beauty in us!  (Romans 12 is helpful in our beauty treatment.) To do what Jesus did, we listen to our Beauty Maker!

Pause to pray and ask—

What’s on the inside of me that affects the outside of me? 

How is what’s on the inside affecting my relationships? 

Who am I allowing to work on the inside of me? Two choices.  Choose wisely.  It matters.

Make a beauty appointment with God, He is ready to help you!  Who’s next?

Lord,

Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for our appointment each morning to talk things over. Thank you for seeing me throughout the day.  My inner beauty begins and ends with you.  You are the first and last Word.  Cleanse my heart, renew my mind, refresh my soul, and restore the joy of you in me and me in you daily that leads to inner beauty in your eyes.  It is your eyes of beauty that I seek.

In Jesus Name, Amen

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,
All his wonderful passion and purity,
O thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine,
Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.