Stop Calling Me Beautiful: Finding Soul-Deep Strength in a Skin-Deep World

by Phylicia D. Masonheimer

Women must be spiritually equipped with the knowledge of God through His Word so they can minister to the people around them. This requires participating in a depth of study to which many women aren’t accustomed. Such education requires more spiritually mature women to disciple their weaker sisters. We must recognize that cute Instagram quotes, isolated Bible verses, and 15-minute quiet times are not the sum of the Christian life, but that we are called to a deep, consistent relationship with God and to teach that relationship to the people around us.

The missing piece of the conversation is the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life.

We must know it well enough to rightly divide the truth and check teachings against the Word of God as the Bereans did (Acts 17:11). In other words, we must cultivate a holy curiosity. Holy means set apart, sacred, and dedicated to God. Curiosity is a strong desire to know and learn. A holy curiosity, then, refers to a mind that strongly desires to know and learn about God. A mind like this doesn’t happen by accident. It is cultivated day by day. The Holy Spirit grows and nurtures this desire as we faithfully expose ourselves to Him through Scripture, godly community, and solid teaching (all of which we’ll address later in this book).

Going deeper spiritually requires a shift of focus. We must turn our eyes away from our failures and successes, our ugliness and our God-given beauty, and instead fix our eyes on the perfection of Jesus Christ. Our self-discovery is not God’s goal. We are meant to know God and make Him known.

I hungered for more, and knew if the hunger wasn’t satisfied, I would no longer feel the hunger at all.

Perhaps you are a Christian with the Spirit of God residing within you, but you do not listen for Him. You do not persevere in prayer, especially when it’s difficult or inconvenient. You do not take an interest in spiritual discussion because it seems irrelevant to your daily life. Because you have not experienced God the way you see others experiencing Him, you take no interest in Him.

We cannot expect to experience relationship with someone whose company we never seek. God is a pursuer, but He will not force you to choose Him. If you want to have a deeper relationship with the Lord, He offers you every opportunity, but you must be the one to take it.

God wants us to experience Him. But experiencing God doesn’t begin with emotion. It begins with desire, and it is accomplished by diligence.

After we surrender to Christ as Savior, our standing before God is guaranteed by the blood of Christ. The theological term for this is justification. We are no longer separated from or under the wrath of God. We stand before Him in the name of Jesus, and because of His sacrifice, we are perfectly pure.

Just because we are justified by Jesus does not mean we will remain pure all our days on this earth. We still must make the daily choice to live up to our identity in Christ.

But each day we draw closer to Christ, deepening our understanding of and our relationship with Him, we become more and more like Him. This process is called sanctification.

consecrated, set apart, and holy.

sanctification is progressive. The process of being sanctified lasts all our lives and reaches fruition when we enter ...

We don’t go deeper with God by reflecting more on ourselves, or even by reading God’s Word to look for insight about ourselves. Roots of spiritual growth develop as we seek God for who He is and allow Him to do the transforming work in our hearts that we can never do on our own. He is the one who plants the desire to seek Him. He is the one who meets us when we apply diligence in faith.

But despite what our Western minds prefer, God insists on our involvement in Christian community. We are called to vulnerability, transparency, and the sharing of our burdens. Without this, we cannot grow as believers.

It is by seeking God within community that our faith-roots intertwine with others’, forming a fruitful community that supports one another as it grows.