The Beauty of the Lord

 

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The Beauty of the Lord

   When Charles Kingsley was dying he seemed to have a glimpse of the Heavenly splendour into which he was going, and of god in His brightness & loveliness, and he exclaimed “how beautiful is God”

Psalms 24:4 “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. 5 He shall receive blessing from the Lord”

   Every revelation of God that is made to us is a revelation of beauty. Everywhere is nature, in the flower that blooms, the bird that sings, the dew drop that sparkles, we can clearly see the reflections of God’s beauty … Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time” … in the Holy scriptures every revelation of the Devine Character presents tp us in surpassing loveliness. Christ was … “God manifested in the flesh” 1Timothy 3:16 … the beauty of the invisible God made visible to the human eyes, and such enrapturing beauty has never been seen, save in that blessed life.

   The beauty of God is frequently referred to in the scriptures. In one of his, Davids Psalms, declares that the supreme desire of his heart was to dwell in in the house of the Lord, all the days of his life, just to behold the beauty of the Lord his God. Then in the prayer of Moses we have the petition .. Psalms 90:17 “let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us” .. this was a prayer that the charm of God’s excellence might be given to His people, that the divine beauty of the Lord might shine in them, in their lives, in their faces, and in their Souls. We think of the face of Moses himself, of when he came down of the Mountain, after forty days of communing with God. He had been so wrapped up in the divine glory, that his very body was as it were saturated with Gods brightness. Or, we think of Stephen, before his martyrdom, when a window in Heaven was opened and a ray of glory from the Holy place fell on Him. So irradiated was his features that even to his enemies his face appeared like the feature of an Angel.

   There is a spiritual light that which makes the plainest face irradiate, and the homeliest of features lovely. There is a beauty of the soul shines like a star, in a World of sin & corruption. It is for this beauty we are taught to pray .. “let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us” Psalms 90:17 .. It is not the beauty that fades when sickness smites the body, or which is lost in the withering touch over the years, but the beauty grows lovelier in pain or suffering, which shines out like a star at night. It transfigures the wrinkled and faded features of old age, and bursts out in death into the full likeness of Christ.

   Every true Christians life is beautiful so far as it truly represents Christ. Anything in religion that is not beautiful is not just or adequate expression of divine thought. Holiness of Character is simple the reproduction in human life of the likeness of Christ, and any feature that is not lovely and whining, is not truly Christ like, and hence misrepresents. If not the Christian Religion itself that is unlovely in any case, but the Human interpretation of it in conduct.

Daniel 4:27 “Therefore, O king, let my advice be acceptable to you; break off your sins by being righteous, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor”

   There are certain qualities that belong to the beauty of the Lord where ever it appears, one of these is ‘Spiritual-mindedness’. The eyes look upward beyond the things above. The aspiration is for more Holiness and why the expression is .. “let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us” Psalms 90:17 .. The masters benediction is upon those who hunger and thirst for and after righteousness. Spiritual longing is the hearts cry, which God hears and always answers with more and more of His fullness. It’s the ascending Angel that climbs the ladder to return to the same radiant stairway, with ever new blessing from God .. “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth” Psalms 50:2 .. it’s nothing less than the very life of God in the Human soul. It is the transfiguring spirit in us which cleanses the dull Earthly lives into the divine image.

Psalms 27:4 “One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life”

   The beauty of the Lord in a ‘Human’ life is not merely a Heavenly yearning. It is intensely practical. It is more than religious sentimentality, more than a devout feeling, more mere than Holy aspiration.

   True spiritual longing draws the whole life upward with it. Joan of Arch that her ‘White-Standard’ was victorious because she said to it ‘boldly among the English’, and then she followed it herself. We all must have aspirations, but we must follow them ourselves if we are to make our lives beautiful.

   One of the first result of grace in the heart is sweeter, kinder, truer more helpful living, in all life’s common relations. It makes us men a kinder neighbour, it makes us men more thoughtful husbands, a gentler father. A wife and mother shows the beauty of holiness not only in her earnestness in Church and her prayer’s, but also in her devotion to the interest of her house.

“let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us”  Psalms 90:17

   You may disagree, but Heavenly contemplation must not draw us away from Earthly duties. When we get to Heaven we shall find Heavenly work to do, but for the present our duty is here, and be the best Christian we can can be.

Deuteronomy 16:15 “the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands”

   We all want a religion, one that not only will lift us up to seventh Heaven of rapture; one that will not makes us forget our duties to those about us; but instead a religion that will bring God down to walk with us on all life’s hard paths of toil and struggle, and that will lead us out into all sweet ministry of love.

Ecclesiastes 3:13 “that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labour—it is the gift of God”

   One feature of “let the beauty of the Lord” as worn by His Children on Earth, is moral purity, Christ’s benediction is for the pure in heart. Bodily health is beautiful, mental vigour is beautiful, but a heart of purity is best of all. All spiritual loveliness begins within .. “let the beauty of the Lord” .. our God maybe on us but that winning charm of God’s loveliness will shine in the features of our life which man can see. We must first must have the divine beauty in us. A Holy heart will in time transfigure all life, and the only Holy heart is to have Christ within.

“Be thou in God a pure, twice Holy child,

doing the right unconsciousness , having

God in you, thy complete soul.”