We have all heard
statements like “beauty is in the eye of the bolder”, “beauty is only skin
deep” or “beauty over brains”. Although we say them and may even agree with
them, they are not Biblically sound. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God made
everything beautiful. God made EVERYTHING beautiful. So beauty is in the eye of
God not the beholder, and, if He made everything beautiful, that means beauty
runs much deeper than the skin. If God made everything beautiful, He made us beautifully
intelligent. Beauty is brains.
We have allowed the world
to redefine beauty for us. A world where beauty is only skin deep. Is she
pretty? She has a nice personality. Oh that means she’s ugly. Never mind. I
don’t want to meet her. That means that her beautiful personality holds no
value over her beautiful face.
This
is a world where we, humans, spend $24 billion on plastic surgery worldwide, $55
billion on cosmetics and $1.2 trillion on fashion. We are fixated on having our
hair & nails “did”, face beat and clothes slayed. This is the world’s focus
and definition of beauty, but God’s focus is more holistic.
Esther
2:7 describes Esther as fair and beautiful. The Hebrew for fair used here is
yapheh (YA FE), which means handsome or beautiful. The Hebrew word for
beautiful used here is towb (TOVE), which means as follows:
good,
pleasant, agreeable
A.
pleasant, agreeable (to the senses)
B.
pleasant (to the higher nature)
C.
good, excellent (of its kind)
D.
good, rich, valuable in estimation
E.
good, appropriate, becoming
F.
better (comparative)
G.
glad, happy, prosperous (of man's sensuous
nature)
H.
good understanding (of man's intellectual
nature)
I.
good, kind, benign
J.
good, right (ethical)
This
beautiful as defined here does not once mention Esther’s outward appearance.
Why? Because God does not look at our outward appearance. He looks at our hearts.
Why because He already made the outward beautiful. We make the inside
beautiful. The Bible says that the heart (mind, will and emotions) is deceitful
because of our sinful human nature. Therefore, we must renew our minds daily.
Esther had a renewed mind. She wasn’t just pretty on the outside.
In
Esther chapter four Esther learns that there has been a decree to kill all the
Jewish people in the Persian Empire. Her adopted father Mordecai begged her to
ask the king to have mercy on the Jews. Esther responded to Mordecai, telling
him that going before the king without being sent for would result in her
death. Mordecai responded to Esther with a very famous Bible quote. He warned her
not to think that just because she was the queen that meant that she alone
would be spared. Then he said who knows you may have been chosen as queen for
such a time as this.
Esther
then asked Mordecai to have all the Jews to fast and pray with her for three days as
she prepared to go before the king unannounced. Esther’s response was let’s
fast and pray because she understood something that Jesus said thousands of
years after she lived. Faith for some things can only be built by prayer and
fasting. Sounds like someone who had a beautifully renewed mind to me. Someone
whose spirit was in tune with God’s spirit.
Then
we see how Esther strategically orchestrated everything. She does not go before
the king and tells him everything. She requested two dinners with the King and
Haman, the man who set up the plot to have the Jews killed. At the second dinner,
she revealed to the king Haman’s plan to kill her and her people. The king
ordered that Haman be hung on the gallows he had erected for Mordecai and that
the Jews would be able to defend themselves when the day came when they were to
be killed. Esther had a plan. She had a strategy. She used her beautiful brain.
In
this narrative of Esther we saw more of her heart and intelligence than we saw
of her beauty. Dressing up, wearing makeup, getting your hair and nails done
are not bad. They are good things, but they are not the only thing. We must
focus on making sure our minds and our emotions are as much on fleek as our
hair and nails.
Forgive.
Let go of baggage. Get rid of toxic relationships. Pray. Meditate on the word
day and night. Fast when you need the faith for something that seems impossible
to attain and fast when you don’t need anything at all. Exercise. Exercise.
Exercise. Eat healthy. Put down the soda, fast food and sugary foods. Read
something other than Face Book.
We
only get one body, one soul and one spirit. God has taken care of our spirit
man. Our spirits are saved. Our body and soul are where the working out our
salvation with fear and trembling comes in. We have to give everything we can,
with the help of the Holy Spirit, of course, to make our bodies and souls
beautiful.
