I told you I am reading Donald Miller's newest book, Searching for God Knows What. Every once in a while he just leaves me going, "Wow!" In the chapter entitled, Jesus, Miller is simply making observations from what he has read in Scripture about Jesus. One of them is "He was ugly" (Understand: Miller likes to shock with his words). He cites Isaiah 53: 2-3 as supporting this.
But listen to what he says: "Jesus was definitely representing humanity as equal, hardly caring about how He looked. One might believe that the unsightliness of Christ was a statement of humility, but that isn't true. It would be inconsistent if Christ's looks were a statement of humility. They were, rather, a statement of truth, and our seeing them as humility only suggest an obvious prejudice" (p. 126).
Wow! He got me! We think not being good-looking is humility. Why? Because culture associates looks with worth. But God said long ago to Samuel, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart." And I still haven't gotten it.
Oh, God -- help me to value the way You do!
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2 comments:
So true. I believe if we really looked at people's hearts, we would be more loving and more forgiving. It seems to work for God, why not for me? :)
Our challenge is to rise above our culture which values the outward appearance and the superficial beyond all reason. Not to make excuses but it's amazing that we manage to look past the exterior at all considering that we are constantly bombarded with media extolling the value of people based on their appearance or other superficial qualities. I must ignore the dictates of my culture and not allow it to set my standards of value when God values us otherwise.
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