The Beautiful God Series

These things cultivate one’s sensory awareness and expands the consciousness in a way that creates an ever deepening appreciation of creation. Yet, they are all but token twinkles and shimmering shadows of the beauty of God that has been inextricably woven through the fabric of all creation.

Beauty is the universal foundation of all things. It is transcendent by nature. The beauty and glory of God is far greater and far surpassing any earthly beauty one could ever know. Everything about Him is beautiful. His power is beautiful. His love is beautiful. His mercy is beautiful. Beauty is rooted in Him. He is the foundation of all beauty in the universe.

His beauty is what makes Him worthy of worship. Beauty begins and ends in God. He is the revelation of all that is good, loving, and kind. He even signs His name using the brilliant colors and hues of a rainbow (See Gen 9:13), and uses beauty as His messenger, declaring across the universe that He is “altogether lovely”. (Song 5:16 KJV)

Beauty in creation is to draw mankind to the Beautiful God, to create within a deep hunger to know true beauty Himself. Yet, people often settle for an imitation, the created counterfeit, not the Creator Himself. They are drawn instead to beautiful things and people. Each year tens of millions of dollars are spent on cosmetic surgery, clothes, jewelry, and make-up just to look more attractive. Yet Adam and Eve didn’t need clothes, or make-up, or jewelry, as they walked naked in the Garden, because they were clothed in the beauty of God. His beauty - the beauty of His presence - covered them.

The reason people are attracted to beauty - and long to be attractive and wanted by another - is because God is the ultimate Beautiful One. He is the absolute original pattern of all other beauty. He made mankind to long for Himself because He sees each person as beautiful and longs for intimacy with them. Anything less than knowing God will leave a person unsatisfied.

The ancient Greeks used the word “Beautiful” interchangeably with the words “Excellent”, “Perfection”, and “Satisfying”. Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder and yet it is not dependent upon - or affected by - anyone’s perception of it. The beauty of a work of art is not based in the individual colors used, or its shape and texture. The beauty is found in the harmony of how each element exists in relationship with the others. Beauty is the manifestation of the Spirit of God that animates all of reality.

The attributes of God’s character and nature obtain their infinite beauty from their relationship to each other. His love, wisdom, justice, power, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are beautiful. (See 2 Thess 1:9; Gal 5:22-23) God is beautiful in all His ways. He relentlessly and lovingly pursues mankind, reaching out in romantic passion with nail pierced hands.

It was the beauty of Jesus that caused the disciples to drop everything and follow Him. (See Matt 4:19) It wasn’t His looks or His charisma that drew them to Him. It was His mystical beauty, the wondrous fragrance of love that emanates from Him and ever consumes those who draw closer and closer as they take on His fragrance and His beauty. (See 2 Cor 2:14)