So Beautiful

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our reading titled So Beautiful was written by Cindy Hess Casper. I was very young when I peered through a hospital nursery window and saw a newborn for the first time.

In my ignorance, I was dismayed to see a tiny, wrinkly child with a hairless, cone-shaped head. The baby's mother standing near us, however, couldn't stop asking everyone, �Isn't he gorgeous?� I was reminded of that moment when I saw a video of a young dad tenderly singing the song, �You are so beautiful� to his baby girl. To her in rapture daddy, the little girl was the most beautiful thing ever created. Is that how God looks at us? Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10 says that we are his handiwork, his masterpiece. Aware of our own failings, it may be hard for us to accept how much he loves us or to believe that we could ever be of value to him. But God doesn't love us because we deserve love. He loves us because he is love. His love is one of grace, and he showed the depth of it when, through Jesus' sacrifice, he made us alive in him when we were dead in our sins. God's love isn't fickle.

It's constant. He loves the imperfect, the broken, those who are weak and those who mess up. When we fall, he's there to lift us up. We are his treasure, and we are so beautiful to him.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 through 10. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work and those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.

Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Let's pray. Precious Father, thank you for seeing beauty in us, even in our sinful state, and thank you for redeeming us through the saving work of Jesus. Let our lives reveal the beauty of your presence in us. Thank you, Lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening. My name is Rachelle Traub and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.