Beauty that lasts
Leah’s eyes were delicate, but Rachel was beautiful of form and appearance---Gen29:17
Beauty draws attention.
It installs attraction and commands favours. Rachel is described as beautiful. She possessed natural features that placed her in a niche far above her elder sister. Though the younger of the two, she attracted a suitor first. Her physical attributes surpassed the antics of Jacob’s trickeries. Physically, she portrayed a beauty that literally reduced Jacob to a willing servant. She became the cynosure of his reasoning. Sight not faith motivated Jacob. The passion for Rachel’s beauty resulted in an obsession that led Jacob into lying with another person without knowing it. Not satisfied, he carried on in his service for man in order to possess pretty Rachel. His unbridled desire for the damsel eventually culminated in a sororate marriage. Rachel by virtue of her physical beauty effortlessly enjoyed more attention and therefore wielded more influence in the home. Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah-----Gen 29:30. But her beauty only served to attract carnal Jacob, while Leah’s complacent spirit drew God’s attention. When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren-----Gen 29:31. Rachel though showered with encomiums by Jacob was sterile while Leah though unflattered had the incentive of fertility from God. Rachel’s earthly beauty made her powerful with man; Leah’s uncomplaining spirit earned her favour from God. Rachel with all her physical beauty lacked the joy and experience of an inner life growing within her. Simply put she was pretty as sight could see but barren as faith observes. How very much like Rachel we are today. From the least to the greatest, everyone desires to appear fine and sociable. With no thought for godliness, we crave the beauty of this world so much that we’ll do anything to appear presentable. Teenagers and youths peruse the streets in abominable clothing, materialism holds adults to ransom and extravagance boasts of captives. But the Word of God stands sure, the world is passing away-----1Jn2:17. The beauty of this world is at best transient and at worst subject to decay. It is of the flesh and incapable of producing spiritual reality within a person. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit----Jn3:6. The Lord Jesus is not one to reckon with in terms of physical beauty----He has no form or comeliness and when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him----------Isa53:2. The apostle Paul would be an eyesore in any beauty contest. - For---------his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible----2Cor10:10. John the Baptist in his physical crudity will be incapable of getting an invitation to a birthday party today. He wore clothing made of camel’s hair---Jn1:6. Yet he possessed a degree of spiritual beauty that Jesus said of all born of women none is greater than John the Baptist----Mtt 11:11. All the saints down the ages lacked the fineries of this world ----They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. ---Heb11:37---38. Yet they possessed a kind of beauty with far reaching effects that transcends the earthly and temporal. But we are unlike Christ and the apostles. Modern Christianity with it’s civilized worship methods, improvised sermons and refined preachers betray a spiritual deadness that calls for mourning.
-----Rachel envied her sister and said to Jacob ‘give me children or I die----Gen30:1. Pretty Rachel was full of envy. She increasingly lusted for that which earthly beauty could not provide. She reverted to using threats to get what she wanted. Physical beauty in its best form attracts only men. Concerning genuine beauty, apostle Peter said ‘do not let your adornment be merely outward----arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel-----rather let it be the hidden man of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God’—1Pt 3:3----4. Prophet Isaiah advised ‘To this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word-----Isa66:2 ‘I will dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit. To revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. ------Isa57:15. This is the kind of beauty that attracts God, but Rachel had no heart for such. Barrenness was a threat to her position as beauty queen and she was willing to use carnal means to annul its effects. She resorted into using her maid as a baby making machine, It doesn’t matter what the maid felt. She had no regard for human feelings. Her beauty was been ridiculed by the productivity of the unattractive Leah, and she must do something about it. How often we resort to carnal means to keep up an impression of an impeccable godliness. We love to have the form of godliness that impress men but lacked power from God. Listen to Rachel again with great wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and I have prevailed-----Gen30:8 She rejoiced in her carnal attainments but the fact remains. She was sterile. By strength shall no man prevail—1Sam2:9. Then it happened in the process of time that God in his mercies gave her a son. It was His way of saying ‘Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth---Col3:2’. This was God’s way of telling her that apart from Him life is impossible and everything else qualifies as vanity.
At the event of Jacob’s departure, Rachel stole her father’s idols. This wasn’t God’s plan for Jacob! It is even more disheartening that even after God’s gift of a son; Rachel still had a heart for idols. Oh the folly of rejecting God’s convictions at the expense of his many mercies. Even when her father caught up with her in search of his idols she lied easily to cover up. This is a corrupt beauty without morals. Friends, let’s learn to follow after the kind if beauty that is in communion with God. If the Lord God had searched her Himself, she’d have been in trouble!
‘So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath [that is Bethlehem] Gen35:19’ The coloured skin, the beautiful form, the nice curves, everything perished on the way. We cannot carry the beauties of this world along into eternity ‘For we brought nothing into this world, and is certain we can carry nothing out’------1Tim6:7. All that glitters is not gold. All physical attainments and bodily attractions begin and end here in this world and they will all perish here in this world. Rachel’s physical beauty faded into insignificance Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord she shall be praised----Prov31:30. Friend do you have the joy of true spiritual beauty in your inner man or you are merely beautiful outwardly with the latest creams, clothes and cars fuelling your passion. Like Rachel death to self is necessary if you intend to be a carrier of unending life. God is interested in your heart and the kind of life it yearns to host. Who will you attract God or man? Your decision matters.
‘The Lord said-------do not look at his appearance 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------1Sam16:7
Written by Ade--Peters
http://gospelfromtheheartofafrica.com
Brother Peters near the village of Rotaprr in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
A Bible teacher and Gospel preacher, Temitope Adewole (Peters) desires to help make disciples for the Lord Jesus.