Infinite Beauty

My parents lived at the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a long time. My husband, children and I would go several times a year to visit them. It is such a beautiful area… and if you know the right places to go, you can catch the most splendid sunrises and sunsets imaginable! Talk about captivating… just watching God paint the sky over the ocean or the sound was such a blessing to behold! It never got old. Never.

As a hobby, I paint. I have tried numerous times to re-create the beauty that I’ve seen God paint. I fall short, but it’s still fun trying. And I learn so much every time I paint a sunrise or sunset.

At the Outer Banks if you want to catch a sunset, you have to go over to the sound side. And of course, to glimpse a magical sunrise, you have to be on the ocean side. But no matter which side you’re on, the infinity beauty of the sky mixing with the water abounds all around you and is absolutely stunning.

While painting a picture of a sunset recently, I was thinking about the infinite beauty in God’s creation, and it made me think about the infinite value of knowing Christ. In Philippians chapter 3 Paul is writing to the church in Philippi telling them how awesome it is to know Christ and how worthless everything else is compared to Jesus.
Paul says in verse 8 “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus.” Right before Paul said that, he reminded the Philippians that it wasn’t by works or human effort or obeying the law that saved them. It was by faith in Jesus!

Paul said if it was by effort then he would have and could have confidence in his own effort. Read what he wrote in Philippians 3:5-9:
5 I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.
7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.

After studying these passages, I don’t ever want to just look at infinite beauty without first acknowledging the One who has infinite value – Jesus Christ my Lord! Don't you agree?

Thank you for reading! God bless your journey!

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