Longing for Beauty (Pt. 1 of Living a Beautiful Life)

This post is Part 1 of a 3-part devotional series titled “Living a Beautiful Life.” Each reflection explores how we can live beautifully and intentionally as women of faith—starting with our longing for beauty and how that points to God.

The Ache for Beauty

In every heart, there is a longing for beauty, for joy, for peace, for love, for goodness and purity, and ultimately for truth. God created beauty and He calls it good. When God creates something, it is not simply a good thing, but a God-thing. All good things first exist purely within God. That is who He is. God is love; love is not God. We are to worship the Creator, not the creation. But when we draw close to aspects of God’s character and creation, it inspires us to seek Him.

The Enemy’s Twist

This inspiration is why Satan hates and desperately wishes to twist, destroy, and hinder any and all goodness of God. He hates God and wants to destroy anything He has made. Including you and I. That is why, in Genesis 3, he deceived Adam and Eve. As a result of Adam and Eve’s failure to love God more than their own desires, we too, from conception, are controlled and consumed by those deadly desires of sin. That death is ingrained into our very nature.

But each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires. Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death. Do not be led astray, my dear brothers and sisters. All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change. By His sovereign plan He gave us birth through the message of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of all He created.

james 1:14-18 (Emphasis Mine)

Your Firstfruits

James tells us the reality and result of broken humanity’s desires is death. Then he says to not be led astray. How are we not led astray? In the last two verses, he writes that,” All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above”, and “He gave us birth through the message of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of all He created.” The Greek word for firstfruits is aparche, referring to,” a beginning of sacrifice that is the first fruit.” The first fruit was offered as a sacrifice, as worship and praise, to the One who had enabled an abundance.

What is something that God has been calling you to offer as a firstfruit?

Come back on Wednesday to read about how that concept of firstfruits impacts our lives as His children.

-Liz