Christen’s Corner

My story for the month:  Inner Beauty Recipe  

The world can be a tough place, especially for teens. You have peer pressure, which isn’t always positive, you have influences that aren’t always good, and you have temptations that can be hard to turn away from. Sometimes we lose the attributes that God has blessed us with, which can be found in our inner beauty.  It can be hard in this time and age to reflect on our inner beauty instead of our outer beauty when the world around us seems to demand so much.  Well, I was reading a very interesting article written by Rebecca St. James that I found very helpful and thought you might want to take a look at it.  I was touched by it and I hope that you are to.  This is a biblical recipe for inner beauty that when all the ingredients are mixed together can lead to a better tasting life.  Are you missing a few ingredients?

Ingredients: 

Love- The self-sacrificing variety. It is not dependent on anything from the other person

Joy- Deep & abiding inner rejoicing given by God no matter what’s going on in your life.

Peace- Inner peace and quietness, even in the face of tough circumstances; it goes beyond what makes human sense.

Patience– You suffer right along with others while they’re working out some personal difficulties. You keep being good to them, even when they do wrong to you. You don’t try to retaliate for wrong treatment.

Kindness- You show gentleness and kindness that is useful or serviceable.

Goodness- You reach out to others to do good even when it is not deserved.

Faithfulness- You are trustworthy and reliable.

Gentleness- You are humble, meek, and submissive to God’s word.

Self-control- You control your passions, desires, and impulses.

Directions:

Combine generous portions of all these ingredients from Galatians 5:22-23(“But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such there is no law”). 

**So take this recipe wherever you go, when you are at school, with family, or hanging with your friends, and nothing can stand in your way because just like your outer beauty, your inner beauty will shine through with God in your life.

My verse for the month: 1 Samuel 16:7

“But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his apperance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him.  For the LORD does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”