Hollow Beauty - The Heart of a Pastor

Hollow Beauty

1 Peter 3:3-4

“Don’t try to make yourselves beautiful on the outside, with stylish hair or by wearing gold jewelry or fine clothes. Instead, make yourselves beautiful on the inside, in your hearts, with the enduring quality of a gentle, peaceful spirit. This type of beauty is very precious in God’s eyes.”

I once knew a family, a mother and father and two daughters, who went to a church I attended. The father was a hard worker, albeit not very grounded in the word, and it was evident that, though he was a gentle and kind man, he only attended church because of his family.

The mother was friendly enough and professed strongly her Christian values and desire for them to be instilled in her pre-teen and teen daughters. But there was an insecurity about her and that seemed to be more strongly represented in their children. She would not leave the house without lots of makeup and hairspray. And her daughters, from an early age, spent far more time in front of the mirror than in the pages of a Bible.

At least an hour was spent each morning, rain or shine, errands, appointments or sitting at home, on layers of makeup, curling of hair, choosing and changing of clothing, all to ensure the best face forward to the world. Some of the outfits the girls were permitted to wear were arguably “age inapropriate.”

Yet for all of their efforts, they never achieved any satisfaction, it seemed. There was a callousness about them, especially the young girls, toward anyone and anything. Every comment was laced with sarcasm when speaking of others. The girls felt no one liked them and, for the mother’s part, she did as well. This became a self-fulfilling prophecy. And even when moving to a new place where “people were nicer,” the same results bore out.

What was the problem? One of Jesus’ closest apostles hit the nail on the head:

God neither cares about nor rewards outward attempts at beauty. As with everything, what He is concerned about is what is in one’s heart! It is a completely fruitless effort to spend all of one’s time dressing up the outer package when the inside is hollow and undesirous. Any relationship with a person like this is doomed to fail because one is always looking for another to “complete them” or “make them happy” rather than begin by being happy with onesself.

Walking the beaches and boardwalks of Southern California I note so much outward beauty. It is almost as if only the physically attractive live here or are allowed to mingle here. When I brought this up to my wife, she posited that perhaps they were all feeling in competition with one another and so constantly felt a need to “up their game.”

Sadly, this makes a lot of sense when observing the actions of many of these folks. Many of them dress very provocative, clearly get the best waxing, nails and makeup, spend hours at the gym and move and carry themselves in ways that would make a sailor blush in embarrassment. And yet this is encouraged in the media, by the music and reality show “idols” they follow, and even by the lyrics of popular songs and scripts of popular television shows.

What all of them eventually find, however, is that the lack of authentic personality in each other eventually turns them against one another. In seeking the attention, approval, and beauty of others, they are eventually cast out or turned off by the very societies they seek to be a part of. What is the solution: stop seeking the approval of failing man, have confidence in the self and seek the guidance and approval of a loving God who did EVERYTHING to gain our love and affection, including dying on the cross for us.

Only Jesus understands our true needs and can fulfill them. He understands our joys, our hurts and our pain and stays by our side throughout all of them, even when we turn aside from Him. He was not one to focus on outside adornment to gain followers. Scripture says of Him:

(Isaiah 53:2-3) “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”

And yet He has, through His patience, His caring, His love and His sacrifice, drawn innumerable to salvation through Him!

We know our bodies are temples to God. So should we make them beautiful? We should certainly take care of them! By all means exercise, eat healthy, be an example of this to others. It is fine to look good before going out. But MOTIVE MATTERS. It is not about YOU feeling good about yourself. If you fall into that trap you will NEVER be satisfied with yourself. Instead, remember that it is about going about God’s business and setting His example. It is about being confident in who you are in Him. It is about knowing you are loved and worthy of love. With the right heart, you will find fulfillment.

~Pastor Brian Wattenbarger