While it may sound sexist, many women spend a lot of time with their physical appearance with the desire to attain some form of beauty. This is not to say that many men don’t, but it would probably be acknowledged by most that more women than men do this. There does seem to be in people a desire for beauty. However, the true beauty of the human being is the soul. I Peter 3:3 “Your adornment must not be merely external– braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; 4 but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. 5 For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands.” The true beauty of a person is of the soul. The humble soul is marked by the beauty of heaven which is Christ in the soul.
“If Jesus is indeed to be our example in His lowliness, we need to understand the principles in which it was rooted, and in which we find the common ground on which we stand with Him, and in which our likeness to Him is to be attained. If we are indeed to be humble, not only before God but towards men, if humility is to be our joy, we must see that it is not only the mark of shame, because of sin, but, apart from all sin, a being clothed upon with the very beauty and blessedness of heaven and of Jesus. We shall see that just as Jesus found His glory in taking the form of a servant, so when He said to us, ‘Whosoever would be first among you, shall be your servant,’ He simply taught us the blessed truth that there is nothing so divine and heavenly as being the servant and helper, of all…When we see that humility is something infinitely deeper than contrition, and accept it as our participation in the life of Jesus, we shall begin to learn that it is our true nobility.” (Andrew Murray)
Humility is not casting the eyes down and pretending not to be proud, but it is the emptiness of self while being full of Christ. While we are humbled and shamed in one sense by our sin in the presence of God, but we must see that true humility is the most beautiful thing the human soul will put forth because in that the glory of God shines in Christ who shines through the soul with Christ. Psalm 51:17 teaches us that “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” There is no sacrifice or service that the soul can give to God but instead it is to be a sacrifice to God. This is when the heart is broken of its own self-sufficiency and its own pride and it bows to the Lord empty of self asking for the Lord to use it.
What each person must ask him or herself is why God is beautiful to him or her. If God is only beautiful to the soul because of something He does for self, then the person is still focused on self too much and is missing the true glory and beauty of God. In the context of speaking of God’s glory, Jonathan Edwards says this: God is God, and distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above ’em, chiefly by his divine beauty. They therefore that see the stamp of this glory in divine things, they see divinity in them, they see God in them” (Religious Affections, Yale edition, p. 298). The glory of God is also the beauty of God. For a person to see the true glory of God is for that person to see something of the beauty of God in it. It is this beauty of God in His glory that ravishes the soul and makes it long for a desire the glory of God.
The soul that longs for true beauty will never be satisfied with any other form of beauty but that of the glory of God shining in and through its soul. When God looks upon a soul, if He is going to see true beauty He must see His own glory and beauty shining there. This is why it is so vital to be a true sacrifice to God. It is only the broken and contrite soul that is emptied of self and comes to the Lord in humility. It is only the soul that is emptied of self as its idol that can have God as its God. It is only when the soul is truly broken from a form of unity of love with itself that it can have unity in love for God. In the soul that is truly broken from self and Christ then dwells in that soul, the glory of God dwells. But we must remember that the glory of God is not to be separated from the beauty of God. When Jesus Christ dwells in the soul of a human being, the beauty of God dwells in that soul as well.
Human souls are to image forth the glory (and beauty) of God in all they do. If we are to do that, the ugliness of sin and self must be turned from. The only way to be turned from self is to be humbled. If we truly love God and long for Him to look upon us as His image and for Him to see His glory shining back at Him, we must be humbled. But if we desire for other human beings to see the beauty of God in and through us, we must also desire true humility. But there is also no middle ground as we either want others to see our beauty or to see His. We must be humbled.
God Loves... Himself 
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