'authentic beauty'

God save me from changing my plans, this will be the title of my teaching tomorrow night for our quarterly ladies night at church. It was a phrase that came to me in prayer the other day and I decided to pursue it.

As I looked up the words, first off in the dictionary, I was shocked to find that authentic didn't mean what I expected. Well, it did ultimately, but the first definition was not at all what I expected. It said, authoritative. Wow. So I click on authoritative: having or proceeding from authority. If that doesn't describe a life in Christ, as His children, I don't know what does.

Then on to beauty. Beauty is: the aggregate of qualities in a person that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit. So, an authoritative person giving pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalting someone's mind or spirit.

The crux of why I want to be defined as one of 'authentic beauty'? Luke 2:52 and Romans 14:17. Jesus grew in favor with God and man. And the kingdom of God -righteousness, peace and joy is pleasing to God and man.

I've discovered there is a place where you have favor {divine influence} on the heart of God and the heart of man. It's a place where you bring pleasure to both God and humanity. And I want to find and live in that place.

It's not a compromise because we're not talking about man as 'the world' (James 4:4), which is an orderly arrangement of how things are. And the world's arrangement of how things are morally is, at best, corrupt and, at worst, defiantly opposed to God. But no, we are talking about humanity. God-created human beings. People.

People that so crave righteousness, peace and joy. But because of a debased world, people don't really know what that means and definitely do not know how to get the three. But when righteousness, peace and joy are characterized in my life - I bring pleasure to both God and man, I bring the Kingdom of God to planet earth. Authentic Beauty. Way cool.