What is Beauty?

If you asked the question, “What is beauty?” of twenty different people, you would probably get twenty different answers. I looked the question up, and I saw answers like: beauty is your health, beauty is in your appearance, beauty is in your figure, and the list goes on and on. Now all these answers may be true, if we are talking about physical beauty. But is that what really counts? So many have been swept away in the foolish thinking that outward appearance is what really matters, that beauty on the outside is what is important. There is no reason why you need to go along with this. You should break the wave and instead, look at what is beautiful on the inside.
You should look at what is beautiful on the inside because outward beauty does not last. Proverbs says that “Beauty is fleeting”[1]and in the book of 1 Peter it says that your beauty should not come from your outward appearance “Instead, it should be of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit…”[2] Our physical beauty on the outside will not last long, but what is on the inside is unfading. Something that sums this up well is the phrase “beauty is as beauty does”. That is a definition of beauty that you do not hear much anymore. It means that your beauty is defined by what you do, rather than how you look. This is what we should invest our time in something that lasts instead of something that dies.
Another reason why you should look at what is beautiful on the inside is because outward beauty can be deceptive. There is an old saying that says “Beauty is only skin deep” and that is very true. The outward beauty that is focused on so much is sometimes just a cover for something ugly underneath. And, sometimes, what is not very pretty on the outside turns out to be something marvelous underneath. You can never see beauty by just looking at the outside of a person. As it says in Proverbs, “Charm is deceptive…but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised”[3].
Lastly, you should look at beauty on the inside because that is what God sees. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and our beholder is God. He does not look at beauty the way we do. Take, for example, when Samuel was looking for Israel’s next king, God said to him:
Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.[4]

God sees everything, including our hearts. He knows who is truly beautiful and who is not. And a person who is really beautiful is of great worth in God’s sight.
So then, what is beauty? True beauty is what lasts, what is genuine, and what is precious in God’s sight. God is the designer and the creator of beauty everything that is beautiful reflects him. Therefore, when we are imitators of Christ instead of the world that is when we are truly beautiful. Be an imitator of Christ and look as he looks and see what is beautiful on the inside.
[1] Proverbs 31:31, New International Version
[2] 1 Peter 3:4, New International Version
[3] Proverbs 30:31, New International Version
[4] 1 Samuel 16:7, New International Version