Who could resist? people Magazines? They're the sweetest donuts in the world. You're in line at the grocery store and if you manage to avoid a magazine… Cosmo or National Inquirer, people Seems like a safe choice. Jennifer Lopez The most beautiful woman in the world And Bradley Cooper Sexiest Man Alive–But wait! That's So It's 2011. Apparently these two celebrities are no longer world class beauties. And here's the spiritual application. I know a lot about Jennifer Lopez and Bradley Cooper. I probably know more about the famous, the rich and the beautiful than I should, but I don't know as much about heavenly beauty as I should. I may know a lot about Tay Tay, but what do I know about spiritual celebrities?
What's your spiritual celebrity quotient?
So in 2011, I developed a new way to measure my mental health. People Magazine Spiritual Celebrity IndexHere's the thing: There is a connection between our ability to recognize celebrities and our ability to recognize what God's kingdom values. reverse Relationships. These days I pick up a People magazine, look at the pictures, carefully avoid the captions, and try to remember the celebrity's name. Minus points if I get it right away. Plus points if I think, “Who's that?” These days, for me, any score above zero is a winning score.
In fact, if you look closely at a magazine, you can see beauty in boring uniformity: impossibly white teeth, complexions as smooth as ink on paper, perfectly Photoshopped bodies. I am beginning to understand what Leo Tolstoy meant when he said about happy families: “All happy families are alike; all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.” The same can be said about modern beauty: how many amazingly beautiful people do I have to look at? But it’s like drinking seawater, and after 10 minutes I crave more uniformity. This is what we value: beauty that doesn’t change anything in me and can’t satisfy me.
In the Epistle of James (near the end of the New Testament), we find a stern warning:Do you not know that friendship with the world means enmity with God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God?But James was always a boring guy. He got ideas from his brother, Jesus. Jesus said,That which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of GodOf course, James was talking about greed and Jesus was talking about money, but how hard is it to make the connection with almost everything we value in our society?
We don't need to reject society or criticize the values of our time, but we need to cultivate our own taste and embody God's true beauty. We can all be Kingdom cover women.
Heaven is full of beauty, subtle, eternal, and true. It is dazzling, no doubt, but it is a beauty that is refreshing in its depths, that invites us to “see and become,” and gives us the freedom to admire beauty without the desire to possess or use it.
I want to see beauty that changes me. From glory to gloryWhat if, as Paul's graceful words make clear, the beauty of heaven is part of God's message, lifting me above the momentary pleasures (and tastes) of this world? There is eternal beauty, and it is beautiful because it lifts me up into a beautiful realm.
There is only one type of beauty that changes, and it can't be found online or at the grocery store checkout. What's your spiritual celebrity quotient?
This article on spiritual celebrities was originally published by hereused with permission.
