Recently I was challenged to participate in the “No Shave November” fad. I decided that it might be fun since I hadn’t grown a beard since I was in my 30s. I am a little bothered, however, by the fact that my once nice dark brown beard has become completely gray. I found myself wondering how I would be perceived in the eyes of others. Will this make me look old, sloppy, and ungroomed?
I began thinking about some of the celebrities that I used to follow. Kenny Rogers sure looks different and so does Burt Reynolds. Not to mention what Bruce Jenner has done to himself. These folks have spent a lot of time and money trying to make themselves look younger and different in the eyes of the public. I’m sure there is sometimes a stark difference in the public image and the real person inside.
In reality, what people need, I guess what all of us need, is not an external makeover but an inner transformation. Our deepest flaws and issues cannot be corrected by cosmetics because they are directly related to who we are. They are deeper than the surface because they are connected to the mind and heart. Yet we try in our own ways to look good on the outside, ignoring the disconnect on the inside.
God has created us each one in His image. We have fallen short of that naturally by focusing on ourselves. What God offers us all, in His son Jesus, is true transformation – not just a facelift or an outward adjustment. In Col. 3:10, Paul says that those who have been raised to eternal life in Christ “have put on a new man, who is renewed in knowledge, according to the image of Him who created him.”
He doesn’t look at us as a fixer-upper! He transforms us into new people in Him. People with a new heart and a new mind. He is not concerned so much about how we look on the outside, as He is about the inside. He accepts us the way we are, but loves us too much to leave us that way.
Have a wonderful Christmas and rope great!
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