Sunday Scripture

Proverbs 31:30

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

I believe I may have used this Scripture on a past Sunday Scripture and since I haven’t been doing this for very long, it’s probably too soon to post on it again but this particular verse convicts me every time.  This week it came up in our new youth pastor’s sermon Wednesday night.  He was talking on the subject of how we look and wrong motivations for wanting to look good.

The first wrong motivation is so that someone else notices you. Fine, I’ve heard that before.  Recently, in fact.  Every time you invite someone to look at you, you are asking someone to make an idol out of you, worship you instead of pointing your life to Christ.  Sounds a bit extreme, but I get that.  Look at our fascination with people in Hollywood.  We latch onto those people and in particular their looks in a heartbeat.  It’s not an odd concept.  And if we’re dressing and fixing ourselves up just for someone else to look at us, then we’re asking people to worship us.  Well, ouch, that hurts.

But his second point hurt even worse.  The second wrong motivation is so that WE notice ourselves.  We become our own idol.  Everyone likes to look good and when we do, it’s so easy to think highly of ourselves.  Pictures, glances in the mirror, time spent dieting, exercising, shopping, primping, planning…so much time on our own looks just so we can enjoy looking at ourselves.  Ouch, that really hurts.

It’s ok to want to be healthy and look good but when we are doing it for the wrong reasons…for attention from anyone including ourselves, it’s just not right.  Pride comes before the fall and oh how we can fall when our pride is in our looks.  Maybe it’s just me, but this verse hits home every time and I just have to remember being charming, it’s only deceptive.  Beauty…it’s gone in a moment.  But if we pour our lives and purpose into Christ, it is eternal.

So how about you? To participate, simply post a verse, a set of verses or even just a reference to a verse that means something to you now or maybe even in the past. Explain why it’s important or don’t. It’s up to you. Go now and post and then come back. Post your name and then a direct link to you blog entry. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to leave yours in the comments. Here is the code for the graphic above.