Thought for 3 August

 1 Samuel 16:7 (New Living Translation)

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t make decisions the way you do!  People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at a person’s thoughts and intentions.”

If you read my thought for the day for Monday of this week about meaning to do things but not quite getting round to it, I would just like to say that the trip to the bank I had been forgetting about has now been duly done – at long last (thanks for your patience Susan)!!!!

When we pick up our bibles to read, many of us, myself included, tend to head straight to the New Testament, which is fine, but in doing this, we can miss a whole lot of wonderful stories and lessons that are contained within the Old Testament.  If you were looking for somewhere to go in the Old Testament, you couldn’t start at a better place than 1 Samuel where we learn that the Israelites push to get a king, they get Saul who is really good when God is with him but turns to the dark side when God is not with him and then David comes along to replace him and the story goes on.  Please check it out when you get a chance.

The message today is not to judge people by their external appearance, a message written a long time ago that is, if anything, every bit as meaningful (if not more so) today as it was in the days when it was first written.  There are so many examples around of the importance today’s society regards a person’s external appearance.  I site ‘Love Island’ as an example that immediately springs to mind where a lot of handsome people with lots of muscle and make-up get together and all is well until they open their mouths, and you find out that none of them are the ‘sharpest tools in the box’ to coin a phrase.  I guess viewers immediately judge the person on how attractive they look then build up a more accurate picture based on the things they say and the ways that they interact with those around them and that initial judgement will, invariably change (I don’t know what happens after this because I’ve not watched it long enough to find out).  Social media is full of adverts telling you how to get perfect teeth, permanent sculpted eyebrows, a leaner body etc. etc. but to what end? 

My conclusion is that all these improvements are, by their nature, temporary where the bible teaches us about how to aspire to a more permanent internal beauty of character which leads to the opportunity for eternal life in the presence of our risen saviour who pays no regard to how we look on the outside.  We should all pray for a change to occur that will help our fellow man to learn about and understand the importance of beauty of character rather than the external beauty that seems to be the focus of so many in this day and age and is altogether temporary.

Prayer             Loving Father, may we heed this warning not to rely on outward appearances, knowing that the heart of man can be so deceitful. We thank you that you can see past our outward appearance to see us as we truly are. You know our real motives for all our words and deeds.  We thank you that nothing is hidden from you. Help us to keep our minds fixed on Jesus in all we say and do so that our internal thoughts and external actions may be pleasing in your sight.        Amen