Being Exceedingly Beautiful
An Essay by George Barasa
Submission is critical in all areas of human beings’ operation. We need submission in sexual relationships, marriage, place of work, in church, in politics, in homes, the list is endless. In all these areas, it requires a beautiful heart. Beauty is able to hold together and sustain relationship. For a relationship to be held together and become sustainable, the word of God uses example of wives and husbands submission. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothe. Instead it should be that of the inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s eye (1 Peter 3:3).
A true beauty is found and established by God Himself. God used the example of Jerusalem and a stateless child to express his love for us and established beauty in us. Ezekiel 16: 13 So you were adorned with gold and silver, your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered clothe. Your food was fine floor, honey and olive oil. You were exceedingly beautiful and you prospered into royal estate (Ezekiel 16:1-13).
The Lord God Almighty Washed her, anointed her with oil, clothed her with fine linen and covered her with silk. He deked her with ornaments, bracelets among others just to beautify Jerusalem and bring her to Himself.
1. The Processes of How to Become Exceedingly Beautiful (Ezekiel 16:1-13)
i. Acknowledge our shortcomings against God’s Standards.
Manufactures of beauty products produces these products because of meeting a particular need/ shortcomings in the market.
God begins to tell prophet Ezekiel about Jerusalem and her detestable practices as stateless child. God reveals to Ezekiel the origin of the stateless child. The ancestry and birth was the land of the Canaanite. And that the father was an Amorites and the mother was a Hittite. The Amorites and Hittites they rejected the true living God. They were the enemies of the Israelites. They despised their husbands and children. They played harlots. Divorce and separation was highly appreciated. They were corrupt people. They had all kinds of shortcomings (Ezekiel 16:1-2).
For us to beautify the inner self and experience the true beauty:
∙ We must admit that we have lived like the Amorites and Hittites did.
∙ We have engaged in outrageous abominations just like Amorites and Hittites did.
∙ We have lived and copied the detestable practices. We have even practiced more than Amorites and Hittites
ii. Umbilical cord need to be cut/Separated from our shortcomings
God speaks to Jerusalem that the umbilical cord was not cut. It was supposed to be cut, yet it was not cut during her birth.
We need to be separated from unbelieve, bitterness, violence, idolatry, adultery, divorce, sexual immorality in order for us to have a true beauty.
How to cut the umbilical cord? Apply the word of God. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double edged sword piercing to the division of soul and spirit of joints and marrow.
iii. Need to be washed with water to cleanse us
God tells Jerusalem that on the day she was born she was not washed with water to cleanse her. We need to be washed from the old blood, inequities, sin of our parents. Applying the water that came out of the ribs of Jesus Christ mixed with blood and water.
iv. Need to be salted
To be accorded the value and taste that is needed for yourself and others. And these values and taste need to be preserved in order to generate true beauty.
Need to be wrapped in a baby blanked.
God tells Jerusalem that she was not wrapped in a baby blanket. Not given the tender care that she deserved.
True beauty must be accompanied with tender care.
2. Benefits of Being Exceedingly Beautiful
i. Protection
We were naked and vulnerable, fragile and exposed. God came and spread His skirt and covered our nakedness. He took His responsibility to protect us.
God salted this child. God gave her the preservation she needed.
Use the beauty to bring value and tender care to God’s people, and His creation
ii. Being washed away of all our old blood
He saw us in our miserable and bloody state: Nobody had pity on us to wash us from our curses, inheritable sins, inheritable diseases, limitations etc., and He decided to wash us and beautify. We were a people nobody wanted to associate with us. The heavenly Father, Lord God Almighty came and washed us. We became His own people.
No body loved us. God came and loved us. He promised us His love. Beauty brings love to us.
iii. Tender care
So you were adorned with gold and silver, your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered clothe. Your food was fine floor, honey and olive oil. You were exceedingly beautiful and you prospered into royal estate.
He washed her: God gave her a good bath, washing off all her old blood (polygamy, divorce, separation, bitterness, idolatry, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, and all kind of LGBT vices.
Clothed Us: He covered Jerusalem with His skirt. God extended His power and dominion and authority to Jerusalem. God exercised His sovereign responsibilities to Jerusalem. God covered Jerusalem’s nakedness.
To beautify us, God is willing to provide us with everything precious and beautiful. He is able to provide not only human being basic needs but also luxurious human being needs. To make us exceedingly beautiful
3. CONCLUSION
We need to allow God to make us exceedingly beautiful.
The Lord God Almighty expects us to use His given beauty to provide tender care and protect others and His creation. We have seen Miss Universe using their beauty as ambassadors in the various fields such as protecting world life.
Would like to be exceedingly beautiful?