Matthew 23: 25-26
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”

Jesus was talking to the Scribes and Pharisees because He was disgusted with the fact that they were so busy trying to look and act spiritual that they were missing out on the most important things. Your walk with God is not a “fake it til you make it” situation. When your walk with God is right and your heart is right with Him then it will shine through.

No one likes to be around someone who is fake! I would almost rather be around someone I knew may not really care for me or agree with me than to be around someone who pretends they do. May sound silly at first, but think about it, wouldn’t you rather know where you stand? 1 Samuel 16:7, But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” God doesn’t want you to be fake, He wants your whole heart. If we will just clean the inside, the outside will reveal it.

Mark 7:20-22, And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.” This is what Jesus was telling the Scribes and Pharisees in the verses above in Matthew; it is what is in your heart that makes the difference.

Ladies, we are bombarded today with everything we can think of to try to make us more beautiful and the pressure to be beautiful is as strong as it was back in the day of Esther. I am glad we have the things we do to help us in feeling more beautiful, but we must not neglect the inside. We must first take a look at what is going on in our hearts. True beauty comes from within and all of “the fixins” for the outside won’t matter if we are ugly on the inside! Let us all take the challenge today to ask God to show us what needs to be cleaned out of our lives so we can be more like Him. Let’s continue to push to know Him more and to be more like Him! Every single one of us has the opportunity to be beautiful from the inside out and it doesn’t cost a penny~ let’s get started being the best we can be for Him!

Quote:
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson