Finding True Beauty From Within

“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, instead it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle quiet spirit which is of great worth in Gods sight” (1 Peter 3:4)
Many times we fuss over unnecessary things, when it comes to beauty. We focus so much on our outward appearance. We spend all our money and time on things that will make us look beautiful on the outside, while neglecting how we look on the inside. God is telling us women that our beauty should come from within. He is more concerned about how we look on the inside than our outward appearance.

The media today says very little if anything at all about inner beauty. As a result most women both young and old have developed a very warped image of themselves. Some feel inadequate, depressed, and others have developed low self esteem because they do not possess most or all of the physical traits portrayed in the media. Being almost 6ft tall, skinny, having long legs, big breasts, pointy nose, nice shaped buttocks, fair skin, long fingers and long hair are some of the things described as beautiful in this society today. All these standards of beauty are false according to the word of God. God is beautiful and he created us women to be beautiful just like him. Each of us have our own unique beauty. Some of us have long hair others have short kinky hair, some of us are tall others are short, some of us have dark skin others have light, brown or white skin, some of us have big feet others have small and medium sized ones, etc and that is alright, because God our creator made us that way with great purpose, tremendous love and unquestionable intent. He pronounced each of us beautiful when he was done making us. When God looks at us, he is in awe of his beautiful creation. The Bible says true beauty comes from within. You may ask, So what is true beauty? True beauty is integrity, humility, obedience/respectfulness, truthfulness, love, compassion.

If you are one of those women who spend most of your time and money trying to catch up to what the world describes as beautiful, I am sorry to say that, you will you will never reach that goal. According to the world, the definition of beauty is always changing so you are never satisfied with the way you look. That could be very frustrating, not to mention the toll it takes on you physically.

Believe the truth, which can only be found in the Bible. “The Lord does not look at the things man looks. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart (1 Samuel16:7 NIV Bible). It is as plain and simple as that. You cannot make yourself any more beautiful outwardly than how God created you, but you can always improve your inner beauty which has a lot to do with your character.

You can find true beauty from within when you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior. His unconditional love and acceptance changes your life completely. You become a new person and you discover the truth about your life, and who you were meant to be. You begin to like yourself, everything about yourself, including those things you hated about your body in the past. You feel a sense of security and you develop a great self esteem. He begins to work inside you, you start feeding on his word and before you know it you start developing your true inner beauty. When people look at you they will see, Integrity, Humility, Compassion, Love, Respectfulness, and Self Confidence radiating from within. This gives you a unique, lasting, and beautiful outward appearance.

If you do not know Jesus or have heard of him but never really accepted him, or if you are just tired of chasing beauty in the world and want to find your true inner beauty through Christ, all you have to do is sincerely pray this prayer:

Lord, thank you for not giving up on me. Forgive me for not seeing how much you love me and putting my trust in things that do not bring me any happiness, joy or satisfaction. Jesus, today I admit I need you, you are the nissing piece in my life. Today, I ask you to come into my life. I believe you died for my sins, take control of my life so that I will be made whole again, fill all the empty palces in my life. Let your Holy Spirit dwell in my heart and direct me to obey and live according to your will from now on. I pray this in Jesus' Name.... Amen

--Jennifer Osei-Nkansah McGill