Encouragement

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SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

In our society, physical beauty gets so much emphasis that one of the results has been an epidemic of plastic surgery. Feelings of inadequacy and dissatisfaction, in the shadow of a tsunami of idealistic and often airbrushed images, have lead many to make the drastic decision to get their bodies altered. Sadly, those who cannot afford surgery have sometimes taken even more drastic measures, like starving themselves or attempting suicide. When you add to this our tendency to throw away anything from a broken chair to a broken relationship, no wonder there are more and more despairing and lonely people.

Sad to say, we often need a crisis to remind us about the things that really matter.

While society often focuses on how we look and what we own, God is more concerned with who we are on the inside – and He sent Jesus to show us the way back to Him. In God’s kingdom, everyone has a place and a purpose and being your self is a prerequisite. We may be a long way from the Creators original purpose for us, but we are not an accident of the universe as some suggest. When we place our lives in the safe hands of Jesus, He – like the ceramics artist who makes a masterpiece out of a bucket full of broken tiles – can take our pieces and make something beautiful out of our lives.

Gloria Gaither wrote the song "Something Beautiful" after Jesus brought forgiveness and healing into her life.

Something beautiful, something good
All my confusion, He understood;
All I had to offer Him, was brokenness and strife
And He made something beautiful of my life.


Jesus challenged His critics when He said, “If you do what I say, you will know that what I say is true.”
(Paraphrase of John 7:17)

His challenge to get involved still stands. Being a disciple of Jesus is not a hobby or a spectator sport.

Mark Trodd
[email protected]

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