The Beauty of God

When we contemplate the many attributes of God, we see a God of awesome and powerful beauty. In each characteristic - such as holiness, righteousness, purity, mercy, love, forgiveness, patience, and omnipotent power - we see perfection. As we look to Him with reverence, from the vantage point of the cross of Christ, we see a God of multifaceted grandeur.

That such a magnificent God is near and ever present to us in the gift of His Son Jesus Christ almost sounds too good to be true. Yet it is wonderfully and exultingly true. Through every trial, or mundane circumstance of life, He is near with astounding grace.

Praise God for His incomparable beauty and the radiance of His Son in glory. In all the the fullness of God, our Lord Jesus is at His right hand.

Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Hebrews 1:3

Artwork: © Jeffrey M Green. "Minsi Lake", pastels & "Sunset Over Barnegat Bay", colored pencils.

Artists Focus on God through the Showcase of Creation

As an artist, many times I reflect with the deepest devotion on the beauty of God. We do not often think of the word beautiful in relation to God. It is glory of the highest glory, utter sublimity, awesome beyond our finite minds. The appreciation of God as beautiful calls to mind all His glorious attributes, with an awe of joy.

How gracious it is of our Creator that mere man can enjoy creativity. A gift from the Hand that created our very beings and the capacity to express ourselves. Though we see mere shadows and reflections of His wonder in the world around us, they are revealed as His handiwork and point back to Him.

God’s beauty, a radiance of glory, is the delight of my heart’s desire. It is not a beauty of the trivial, however, or our own often worldly idea of merely nice or charming. God is awesome above all things. He is absolute in power, vastly beyond us, in glory, holiness, and character. Yet, this same God is personal, intimately near in the most healing love, in the Person of His Son. Jesus, the wonderful gift of joy that sets us free.

The world, life within us and around us, was fashioned by the hand of a glorious Creator. An artist does not sit before an empty canvass and watch as it somehow forms a wonderful work of its own making in an accident of time (however long is needed for it to somehow emerge itself from nothing from a medium somehow existing the same way). Here we see art fostering appreciation in existence as a cause from a personal God.

Artists have a unique role in highlighting the experiences and showcase of Creation. It is not something we do in our own nobility. Does God really need anything from man? No, it is a gift. The very ability - the eyes, the perception, the hands, the mind, life itself - is all a gift. With feeble imperfect hands of mortality and dust that merely admire vibrant living life He has wrought, we use our perception and creativity.

For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. Romans 1:20.

Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Psalm 104:1.

Artwork: "Garden Butterfly", © Jeffrey M Green.