Worth Repeating - April 25, 2017

I Samuel 16: 7 The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. (NIV)

[God] sees our defects, errors, and blemishes. But he also sees our value.*

We tend to be shallow and make judgments about people based on what we see, but a person’s value is not determined by his or her outward appearance. Getting to know a person helps us change our views as we get past the exterior and get to know them “by heart.” We may forget our original assessment and see the person’s beauty as we learn to love her.

While we should not make judgments based on appearance, all we can see is what is on the outside. As a person who wants to bring glory to God, my outward appearance should say something about what’s inside me. If you can’t judge a book by its cover, why do publishers and authors hire artists to design their book covers? If you’re looking for a good adventure story, you don’t pick up a volume that is decorated with kittens and flowers, do you? A romance novel isn’t usually graced with pictures of machine guns. As God’s children, we have an obligation to present ourselves as a book that others would want to open and read. The book and its cover should present the same message.

It is a dangerous tendency to think that we have the ability to know what is in another person’s heart. Only God can look at the heart of each of us and see the beauty or the ugliness dwelling there. 

Scars on the outside simply kept score; it was the scars on the inside one had to watch out for.*