My family and I recently had the awesome privilege of visiting Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Go ahead and take a minute to Google images for the park. It is beautiful!
What is the most beautiful landscape that you have ever seen? Flowers? The ocean? Or maybe some wildlife?
Think about this beauty. How does this make you feel about God?
Heaven is declaring God’s glory; the sky is proclaiming his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)
It is easy to find ourselves standing in awe before such beauty. We think. “This is amazing! This is true beauty! God is a wonderful Creator! It doesn’t get any more beautiful than this!” What else would you add to this list? What else do you think or feel when you see such beauty?
Now, ask yourself this question, “What does God think when He sees me?”
Do you see why you just made the list? It is easy for us to look around and see the beauty in the mountains, the lakes, the oceans, the flowers and wildlife. Unfortunately, I think we struggle to see God looking at us this way too.
God looks at you and thinks. “You are amazing! You are beautiful!”
We also visited a beautiful church in Jackson, WY, where the pastor shared a passionate message from Hebrews 2. In his message, he kept referring back to our “great salvation.” Every time I heard him speak of our “great salvation,” I kept thinking of the Grand Tetons and their beauty. I kept thinking about how all around there is a great witness to the beauty of God’s creation.
Don’t miss this. We, you and I, were created by God too. We are part of this beauty. God looks at us this way.
The Bible tells us that we were created in the image of God. John tells us later in the Bible God is love. God is love, and we were made in His image. So, we were made to love as God loves. Jesus even comes along later and tells us to love one another as He loves too.
However, sin came into this world, and this world is no longer how God created it to be. We are no longer able to love as God loves, but the story does not end there.
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17)
In this same conversation, Jesus tells Nicodemus that we must be born again, made new. This is why Jesus died on the cross. He goes to the cross to defeat the power of sin, so that when we believe in Him we are made new. Paul tells us that God then sees us as holy and blameless. God looks at you, in Christ, and says, “Amazing! Beautiful! Wonderful!”
God knows how beautiful you are. Even more, He knows why you were created, to love as Jesus loves.
Blessings, Pastor Matt