[Sep. 20 – Sep. 26 : Perfection of Character]
Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. Psalm 90:17
God is a lover of the beautiful, but that which He most loves is a beautiful character…. It is beauty of character that shall not perish, but last through the ceaseless ages of eternity.
The great Master-Artist has taken thought for the lilies, making them so beautiful that they outshine the glory of Solomon. How much more does He care for man, who is the image and glory of God. He longs to see His children reveal a character after His similitude. As the sunbeam imparts to the flowers their varied and delicate tints, so does God impart to the soul the beauty of His own character.
All who choose Christ’s kingdom of love and righteousness and peace, making its interest paramount to all other, are linked to the world above, and every blessing needed for this life is theirs. In the book of God’s providence, the volume of life, we are each given a page. That page contains every particular of our history; even the hairs of the head are numbered. God’s children are never absent from His mind.
Worldly display, however imposing, is of no value in God’s sight. Above the seen and temporal He values the unseen and eternal. The former is of worth only as it expresses the latter. The choicest productions of art possess no beauty that can compare with the beauty of character, which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s working in the soul….
Christ came to the earth and stood before the children of men with the hoarded love of eternity, and this is the treasure that, through our connection with Him, we are to receive, to reveal, and to impart….
We are to be distinguished from the world because God has placed His seal upon us, because He manifests in us His own character of love.
