“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;” 2 Corinthians 4:16-17
Some would say I’m not old. Some would say I am. Truth? My body is aging. Grey hair. Lots. Quit dying it. Wrinkles. I don’t use anti-aging creams. Eyesight. One eye sees far. One sees close. Hearing. Left ear hears better than the right. Permanent bags under my eyes. I ask people to speak up. I’m sagging. Even my memory is. Women tend to be obsessed with all this. Instead I’m obsessed with the Lord and helping people to find and follow Him. While my physical body shows its aging, I am more alive and vibrant than ever.
It shouldn’t have surprised me one day when I ran into a woman I knew years ago who confessed she didn’t recognize me. She looked beautiful and like she hadn’t aged a day. I knew she didn’t recognize me because I’d aged so much. This didn’t concern me. I wanted her to see how the Lord had changed the inside of me. I felt myself shining with His light and overflowing with His Spirit, with His love, mercy, grace, hope, peace, and such joy! I was years older, knew that I looked it, but knew what she saw was the life of Christ in me and how God by His Spirit by His Word had transformed me and is ever conforming me to Christ. She hated me years ago, partly because of my sin and perhaps because of hers, and I stood there despite having apologized years ago telling her how sorry I was and that I hoped she had forgiven me. I felt myself radiating with life, vibrancy; I was ebullient and gushing at the mouth about what the Lord had done with me. And how now He is using me to reach others.
In America people tend to be obsessed with looking physically young and beautiful. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how do we look in the world’s eyes? Most importantly, how do we look in the Lord’s eyes? Does it truly matter in the context of the Lord and eternity if we look young and physically beautiful to others? Or does it matter they see the beauty of the life and love of Christ in us? Most importantly, does it matter to God that we as we age look young and beautiful? Or does it matter to Him we by believing in and following Jesus Christ as Lord ever increasingly grow in God’s most beautiful, most glorious image? The verse above reminds us what matters. That even as our physical bodies age, and we ultimately face physical death, that we by repenting and believing in Christ as Lord, devoting our lives to Him, are renewed by God’s Spirit by His Word so we are ever conformed to the image of the most holy, awesome, breathtakingly beautiful Lord God almighty!