Beauty part 2

I have come to realize that my joy in Christ comes from my experience beholding the beauty of Jesus. It is what draws sinners to the cross. When Jesus’ blood is seen as the beautiful sacrifice that cleanses this sin that is such an infinite offense to God, there no response but to run toward and embrace Him as savior. I read something by Jonathan Edwards that talked about this very thing. He basically said that believers are held captive by the beauty of Christ and unrepentant sinners will never (even when Christ’s glory is revealed to the world) see the loveliness and beauty of Christ. Then he goes on to say that if someone sees the beauty of Christ, it produces a love of God that is far greater than just the love someone feels for God because he loves them.

David in the psalms makes a request of the Lord. He states “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). That was David’s yearning. He wanted to gaze upon the amazing beauty of God. That is one of the many reasons why a christian wants to go to heaven. I long for the day when I get to see Christ in his glorified beauty. I can not wait for the day when the Bible says I get to see God face to face. When I seriously try to picture the beauty that is in Jesus I have trouble holding back the tears. That true beauty is so overwhelming. The word for beauty in that psalm could also mean benevolence. One could infer that David is talking about how the beauty of Christ is found in his kindness. The Bible does say that God’s kindness is what leads men to repentance (Romans 2:4). Some of the most beautiful aspects of Christ are his kindness, his love, and his patience with us.

However, I think that the most beautiful thing that christians get to experience on this earth is the cross; the time when God became a human to live among his creation and spill his innocent blood. How often I forget what really happened at the cross. I think we fail to realize how innocent and pure the blood of Jesus really was. The reason that christians can preach that the blood of Jesus can cover all sin is because it was the purest blood the world had ever seen. It was a blood so innocent no human being should be allowed to go near the one whose veins that blood flowed thru. This blood should be infinitely precious to us. I think to often in our culture we are trying to find ourselves within our selves. We try to found our worth in our self-esteem or self-love, but we should find our worth solely in the sacrifice of Jesus. We have been cleansed by the purest of blood, the blood of God himself. I want to be captivated by that beauty.