The King desires your beauty

As you may have guessed from the title, today I want to share by God's grace a particular message, that of beauty, beauty according to the Lord. We are the Bride of the Mashiah. And as such we are to please our bridegroom. Let's take a passage in the word that the Lord gave me, to encourage me to stay in sanctification.

Tehillim (Psalm) 45:11-12 "11 Hear, daughter; look and give ear: forget you people and you father's house.12 The king desires your beauty; since he is your Lord, bow down to him".

The King in this passage is the image of the Lord. And the daughter, or the expression daughter, translated in Hebrew by the word [Bath], is also used in the bible to refer to a city, a place, or a nation. In this specific case, it's about the people of Elohim, the Israelites. We can quote other passages in which we find the word [Bath] as the people of the Lord.

Yirmeyah (Jeremiah) 8:19 " Behold, the voice of the daughter [Bath] of my people, crying out from a far land: Is YHWH no more in Zion? Is her King no longer in her midst?

Yirmeyah (Jeremiah) 6:26 " Daughter [Bath] of my people, gird yourself with sackcloth and roll yourself in ashes! Make yourself a mourning for an only son, a bitter wail! For the devastator is coming suddenly upon us."

The lesson to be learned from Psalm 45:11-12 is that the Lord asks us, his people, to forget where we came from, where he took us, hence the expression your father's house. For now, we are his, for he has betrothed us, and we are his bride.

For better understanding, let us take the example of a man who goes to a family to take a woman as his wife. He takes her and she leaves her family to follow that man. This family she leaves behind, or her father's house, represents our life before our covenant with the Mashiah. The Lord is the groom who married us, and who takes us with him. And he wants us to focus on our life with him, to get rid of all ties, past and present. For now, we must please him as our husband, for he desires our beauty.

After the Lord taught me this verse this way, I asked myself what are these things that the Lord wants us to forget? And He showed me many things.

You know, we all have different attachments, or ties. Some of us are too attached to our parents, others have worldly friendships that they don't want to let go, even though they see that they no longer have anything in common. Others are too attached to their spouse. And when he or she is not available, this causes a problem in the couple, and they are frustrated or angry, and lose their joy, whereas the Lord wants to be the one who brings us joy and fills us. For others it can be fornication, alcohol, anger, violence, or even bad manners.

There is another point that the Lord brought to my attention, and that is about beauty, the beauty that is mentioned in this passage of Psalm shown earlier. In the world, beauty consists in dressing up with fancy clothes, make-up, and so on. But in the Lord's ways, what do we wear to please him? Let us read the word in the book of 1 Peter.

1 Petros (1 Peter) 3: 3-5 " 3 Let your adornment not be that of the outside - the braiding of the hair and the ornaments of gold or the adjustment of the clothes, 4 but the human being hidden in the heart, the incorruptibility of a spirit of gentleness and tranquility, which is precious before Elohim. 5 For this is how the holy women who hoped in Elohim once adorned themselves, being subject to their own husbands."

In this passage, two kinds of adornment are mentioned: the adornment according to the world, which is the external embellishment, and the adornment according to the Lord, which is the inner beauty. We are obviously interested in the beauty according to the Lord.

Let us first analyse the verse 4. It talks about the incorruptibility of a spirit of gentleness and tranquility. This reminds us of a passage in the Bible, doesn't it? Yes, Galatians 5:22 which talks about the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Galatians 5:22 " But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, benignity, faith, gentleness, self-control."

All these fruits can be summed up in the two characteristics of gentleness and tranquility mentioned above. Without faith, joy or even self-control, we cannot have tranquility. Similarly, we need kindness, goodness, patience and again self-control to manifest gentleness. And as the passage says, these fruits are "...precious before Elohim"(1 Peter 3: 4).

Elohim, who is our King and our Bridegroom, loves to see this adornment in us, which are the fruits of the Spirit. This is what he desires.

Now let's look at verse 5. It says that these fruits (those referred to in verse 4) were the adornment with which <<...the holy women who hoped in Elohim once adorned themselves, being subject to their own husbands >> (1 Peter 3:5). It should be pointed out that the woman in this passage also represents the Bride of the Mashiah, his Church. So, the Bride of the Lord (made up of saints) must adorn herself with these fruits, make herself beautiful by bearing these fruits, since she aspires to meet him.

When the Lord touches us and takes us out of the world, he wipes away our transgressions, and he now asks us to walk with dignity according to the Kingdom's rules. He expects us to sanctify ourselves, to prepare for his return. Just as Esther and the other young women in the Bible got prepared and made themselves beautiful to go and meet the king, the Lord wants us to be beautiful, that is to say, cleansed of all defilement (Esther 2: 12-13). To achieve this, we must renounce everything that is likely to take the place of the Lord in our hearts.

My brother, your family has rejected you because of your faith? go forward, for the Lord is now your father. My Sister, your friends have abandoned you because of your faith? it's time to turn away from them, because the Lord is right in front of you and he's holding out your hand. Wife, your husband has no time for you? or doesn't pay attention to you anymore? leave this situation in the Lord's hands and move on. Yehoshua is the faithful Spouse, and he will never abandon you. Young woman, you can't get married, or you haven't yet found the right person? give yourself time and let the Lord lead your life, he is the master of times and circumstances.

What the Lord wants is us. If only we could realize the father's love for us. If only we knew how much he loves us, we would no longer focus on anything but him.

Humans are always looking for something. After studies, we want work. After work, marriage. After marriage, children, and so on. We're always looking for something, always thirsty for something new. But the Lord is immutable. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the source of living water, the source that truly quenches our thirst.

Like the Samaritan woman who was always going to Jacob's well to fetch water, so are we, because we are always thirsty, we are insatiable for the things of this life. But what did the Lord say to her?

John 4:11-15 "11 “Sir,” the woman replied, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then will You get this living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock? 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life. 15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

If we read the rest of this passage, we'll see that this woman realized who was in front of her. Her spirit recognized the Master's voice. The water she asked for was the Lord himself, for he is the fountain of living waters, an eternal source. When you're full of the Lord, there's no time to worry, no time to feel any lack.

If we ask the Lord's children what they were like at the beginning of their conversion, many will tell you that they were so filled and touched by the Holy Spirit that nothing else interested them. We want nothing more than Yehoshua. We don't care if we've only got one pair of pants or one pair of shoes, or no money at all, because our main concern is to please Elohim, to sanctify ourselves for his sake.

Let's ask the Lord to fill us with him, with his Spirit, so that we can live fully in him, so that we no longer feel the lack of the things of this world. Let's pray to him to give us the ability to look only to him, and not to those around us. Even if we have responsibilities and a family in this life, let's learn to give the Lord first place in our hearts. And if we do, then we'll complain less, feel less lonely, or need fewer friendships. Let's get rid of all our burdens, laying them at the Father's feet, so we can focus more on our relationship with him. That's what he expects us to do, to constantly seek him, so that he himself can equip us for heaven. Let's remember that it's he who gives the will and the do. So it's him we must seek ardently. He is the faithful Bridegroom, and he reigns for eternity, Amen!