Life and Lilies

While teaching his followers about proper life perspectives, Jesus talked about the importance of being genuine, that seeking approval and self promotion by showing off superficial, self-righteous piety is arrogant and disingenuous, that the distractions of our material world capture our imaginations and desires and divert us from the more important matters of our spirits, and that we have higher purposes. Although we make life almost entirely about what we need, desire, or cherish, our frames are only dust. Life is about what God wants to accomplish in us as we try to survive in a flawed world with our flawed natures. (Matthew 5-7) Created in God’s image, we are made to live spiritual lives which will display that glory for eternity.

Using the natural world, he illustrated how much God cares for us, that we do not need to be anxious, and that God will help us execute the good purposes planned for us. He taught us how to pray to that end. He spoke of how God feeds the birds and clothes the lilies and said we should “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these”

God has given mankind something far more beautiful than what we can manufacture on our own. By His grace through faith, God gives life to our spirits. Even though some lilies blossom for only a day, they are endued with fragrant beauty which fulfills their creative purposes of reflecting and honoring God and bringing pleasure to this world without even trying. Albert Orsborn’s hymn “Let the Beauty of Jesus be Seen in Me” speaks to that thought and the purpose for mankind.

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me/All His wonderful passion and purity/May His Spirit divine all my being refine/Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.