Focus: 1 Peter 3:2-3 - KJV
2. While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. 3. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
Titus 2:1-8
Our God is pure and approves of purity in all of His creatures. Hence, it is often said that cleanliness is next to godliness. However, God is a total God and not concerned just with our external or bodily cleanliness. He is one who pays greater attention to the heart which relates to the man’s totality. As beautiful and presentable bodily ornaments and decoration may make us look, it is not a basis for getting to be with the Lord in the end, and even here now. Because God looks to the heart and not like men does, He enjoins us to practice moderation in our external adorning but to keep absolute purity on the inside. For when the Lord seeks those to relate with, it is the inner purity and beauty that serves as the basis of His choice. Let us please recall His choice of David as king out of all the sons of Jesse. Only David had the preferred inner beauty to carry through God’s purpose.
Our inner beauty is projected through discreet and chaste dispositions; being of good behavior in all ways, not given to alcohol or gossiping or falsely accusing or wrongfully judging others in their absence. In all, we ought to be patient, sound in faith, temperate in all things, not given to anger or unnecessary outburst and particularly, to operate always in love. A heart that is made of these virtues only exudes the fruit of the Spirit which principally is love. Those with such inner beauty are not just approved of God but also of men. The man David, even though the king rejected him out of rivalry and envy, his son, Jonathan could not stop loving David and when he became a fugitive, his father’s house and many that were dubbed vagabonds sought him to stay with. We need to pause and consider what manner of man is wanted for treason and everyone wants to be with him. Is it not that they were making themselves outlaws also by their association with the wanted? That is what inner beauty can do – it makes even men defy all odds to love the bearer.
Beloved, if only we all can beautify our hearts as against the outward adorning that attracts thieves, lust and all manner of evil to us, then shall we also be preferred of God and men. Let us therefore allow love in our hearts through which all other things are copulated in us. A refusal to allow love to be is an opening to vices which tend towards lust and other works of the flesh.
SOLUTION: Keep your heart pure so that through it your entire being will be beautified. Shun the outward adorning that is excessive. It only endears us to evil like filth attracts flies. Keep all things in moderation but maintain a sparkling pure heart. There is no alternative to it in being on the side of the Lord.
Please pray: Father, we lay ourselves on your surgical desk for a heart transplant; please take out every heart of stone and replace with the heart of flesh for crass purity and inner beauty, in Jesus’ name. Kindly make us acceptable unto yourself and to every good human contact, in Jesus’ name. Let us find favor by it, on all sides, in Jesus’ name.
If you are blessed by this post, kindly share with your contacts, as well as others, that they may be blessed also. Thank you and may God bless you abundantly as you do so, in Jesus’ name.
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