John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Matt. 22:37 Jesus said…Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
:38 This is the first and great commandment.
:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thy self.
:40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets.
Mark 12:30 adds…and with all thy strength…
Psalm 29:1, 2 Give unto the LORD, O ye mighty, give unto the LORD
glory and strength, 2 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his
name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.
The Commands: Love the LORD and Worship Him in the Beauty of Holiness!
The Questions: THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS!
What is Holiness?
What is Beauty?
Where is it found?
Who can find it?
Who founded it?
What is its foundation?
What is its relationship to a Fountain?
Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge:”
Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and
the knowledge of the holy is Understanding.”
ANSWERS to Questions is Knowledge and APPLICATIONS thereof is Wisdom.
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Nelda Flanagan Goal 2006: tolearn@thefeetofjesus.calm
Foundations & Formations of
The Heart of Beauty
King Solomon, a type of the Resurrected Christ, the Son of King David, a type
or picture of Jesus, the Sacrificing One, wrote the following in Ecclesiastes as he was
searching for knowledge, wisdom, an understanding of Creation and man’s purpose
in life. Keep this in mind, Solomon probably knew more women and knew more
about women that any other man because of his many wives, concubines, an unusual
mother and also daughters.
Eccl. 7:18 It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this;
yea,
also from this withdraw not thine hand; for he that
feareth God shall come forth of them all.
19 Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty
men
which are in the city.
20 For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good,
and sinneth not.
24 That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find
it out?
25 I applied mine heart to know and to search, and to seek
out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the
wickedness of folly even of foolishness and madness:
26 And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose
heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands:…
27 Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting
one by one, to find out the account:
28 Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not:
One man among a thousand have I found;
but a woman among all those have I not found.
Proverbs 31:10 Who can find a virtuous w0man?
For her price is far above rubies.
Proverbs 31:30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain;
But a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
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Therefore, What is Holiness?
According to the Webster’s New World Dictionary, “Holiness” is the condition
of being “Holy.” So with this in mind, we search out “Holy.” The definitions in the
dictionary all related to the world’s way of holiness so we begin to search the
Scriptures. The Scriptural definition is “Set apart by God for God, or an Attribute of
God and Christ. Isaiah 6:3 states
“And One (of the seraphims or guardian angels of the throne of God)
cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD
of hosts: the whole earth is full of His Glory.”
Revelation 4:8 gives the witness of the four beasts which are around
the throne of Christ the King, “saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.”
I believe we can say with the angels that Holiness is truly an attribute of God and can
only come from God. This leads us to our next Question.
What is Beauty?
The Dictionary states, “That quality in person or thing which makes it
pleasant or pleasing for one to look upon. Is there anything in humanity, male or
female, which makes us, in flesh, pleasing to God? Are we pleasing in flesh for “The
Holy One” to look upon? No, I believe NOT! Then,
Where is it to be Found?
It is not our works. Isaiah 64:6 tells us that
“all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; Our “good” works are as
“filthy rags” in the sight of God.
It is not of men’s works! It is The Work of One Man: The Man, Christ Jesus!
The Foundation and Formations of The Heart of Beauty is found only in The Man,
Christ Jesus.
Psalm 50:2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, hath God
shined!
Zechariah 9:17. For how great is his goodness, and how
great is his beauty!
Who can find it?
The Answer to this question is found in
Revelation 22:17 Whosoever will, let him come and take
the water of life freely.
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Psalm 27:4 One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will
I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all
the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD and
to inquire in his temple.
If you wish to “take of this Water of Life Freely” and to join with me to “Seek
after and Behold the Beauty of the LORD” then let us take a look at some of the
prepositional phrases described in searching for the Beauty of Holiness. A
prepositional phrase is literally the Pre-Position before the action takes place. We are
to worship the LORD pre-positioned “IN” the Beauty of Holiness, which is Christ
Jesus. We are to worship the LORD “IN” Christ Jesus.
I Chronicles 16:29 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto
his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship
the LORD in the beauty of holiness.
How do we give the LORD the glory due unto His Name? We bring an
Offering. There is only One acceptable offering: The Blood of Jesus Christ the Son
of God and God the Son. We are told in
Romans 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in His Blood, to declare His Righteousness for
the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of
God;
:26 To declare, I say, at this time His Righteousness: that He
might be Just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in
Jesus.
I.
“IN CHRIST”
Gen 1:1 In the Beginning God created the Heaven and the
earth
Rev 1:8 I Am Alpha and Omega ,the Beginning and the
ending, saith the Lord which is, and which was, and which
is to come, the Almighty.
The Beginning is Jesus Christ. “In Jesus” God Created all things after His Pattern:
His Holiness, His Love, His Self Sacrifice in Life and in Death, Burial and
Resurrection.
God: (Unity) (a three-fold cord or The Trinity: God the Father, Christ Jesus the
Son and The Holy Spirit) The Strong ONE that binds Himself by an oath or
Promise (The Word of God, who is the Living Word, Jesus Christ).
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The Almighty: (Jehovah) (The I Am) (The Self-Existent ONE who reveals or
manifests Himself as the HOLY and LOVING Redeemer Who seeks the sinner)
Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love
wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us
together with Christ (by grace ye are saved;)
6 And hath raised us up together and made us sit together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus
John 1:1 In the Beginning was The Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God.
:2 The same was in The Beginning with God.…
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt
among us.
The entrance into Christ is by Faith in His shed blood and as told us in the
Word of God, The King James Bible.
What is the Foundation of The Beauty? It’s The Word of God
II.
“ON CHRIST”
Continuing with
Psalm 27 :5 … He shall set me up upon a rock.
Psalm 18:2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my
deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my
buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
3 I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised; so
shall I be saved from mine enemies.
Our enemies are Sin, Satan, Self-Will, Flesh, Death, Hell and the Grave. Our only
Hope for salvation is in believing In Christ Jesus.
1 Peter 2:2…desire the sincere milk of the Word…
3 If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
4 To whom coming, as unto a living stone…chosen of God..
5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house..
6…Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone…
7 …the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is
made the head of the corner.
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8…a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth
.
“In Jesus Christ”, On the Foundation of the Word of God, all things were created
revealing the Gospel, the Death, Burial and Resurrection “of Jesus Christ”. He is
the Foundation of everything! The pattern of all creation.
All languages! In all languages and tongues, He fulfills all tenses of the
conjugation of the verb “To Be: I Am, I Was, I shall be, I have been, I shall
have Been, I Am Being and I shall have been Being for all Eternity” All we
must say is YOU ARE and HE IS!
All Science, Biology and Chemistry are powers of Him;
All Geography is a description of Him;
All History and Social studies are of Him;
All numbers and math are manifestations or pictures of Him in His Power;
All Civics and Administrations are patterns of Him;
All colors and light are descriptions of Him.
He is The All in All
:2…darkness was upon the face of the deep, (The darkness
reveals
That at that time there was no understanding of Jesus Christ, the Face in the Mind of
God.
and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters
As the Word is preached or proclaimed, the Spirit of God moves and reveals Jesus
Christ in the water of the Word as accounted in Eph 5:26 “That He might
sanctify and cleanse it (the church) with the washing of water by the
Word.
:3 and God said, Let there be light and there was light.
This light was and is the light of understanding by Jesus Christ the “Light of the
World” as stated in John 8:12.
:4 And God saw the light that it was good
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the Only Good and there is no fault in Him.
and God divided the light from the darkness .
This is the first mention or use of separation of God’s Spiritual Work from the world
but it continues all throughout the Word of God and into the lives of His people even
today. Now let us turn to
.
Heb 10: 4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and
of goats should take away sins.
5. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith,
6
Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body has
thou prepared me.
6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no
pleasure.
7 Then said I Lo I come (in the volume of the book it is
written of me, to do thy will, O God.
This brings us to our third and fourth point
III.
IV.
“BY CHRIST” and
“OF CHRIST”
Heb 10:10 By the which will we are sanctified through
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that
are sanctified.
BY the Will of God we are set aside for Him through the offering OF Jesus Christ,
God’s Son once for All. Through him we are perfected, saved, and sanctified. It is All
By the Faith OF Jesus Christ. Not our puny little faith, but BY His Faith- Knowing
Himself to be the Son of God and God the Son. No Doubt whatsoever.
Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works
of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have
believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the
faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law, for by the
works of the law shall no flesh be justified
Truly, we are saved and kept BY His Faith as God the Son. The Faith OF Christ.
This then brings us to the following pre-position: With Christ!
V.
“WITH CHRIST”
Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live
in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me, and gave himself for me.
According to this scripture, at our acceptance or receiving of Christ Jesus as
Saviour, we are translated back to the crucifixion on Calvary. We take a part of His
crucifixion. We are buried with Him and also Resurrected with Him and our sin is
left buried in the Sea of God’s Forgetfulness. Psalms 103:10 states
He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us
according to our iniquities.
:11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his
mercy toward them that fear Him.
:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he
removed our transgressions from us.
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:13 Like as a father pitieth His children, so the LORD
pitieth them that fear Him.
This takes us back to Ephesians and combines “With Christ” to “In Christ” and
brings us to our next sixth point:
VI.
“THROUGH CHRIST”
Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love
wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us
together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)
:6 and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding
riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ
Jesus.
As we are now “new creatures” in Him, “Through Christ” we have access to all the
omnipotent powers of Almighty God. We are to be filled with His Spirit and have
access by Him and through His Faith to the seven perfect powers of God which are:
LIGHT, RIGHT, TRUTH, MERCY, GRACE, PEACE and GLORY. (see the Lesson:
The Presents His Presence Presents on our Newbirth Day.) With these riches, we
can claim
Phil 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me.
Now
Col 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things
which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of
God.
2 Set your affection on things above and not on things on
the earth.
3 For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.
This brings us to our final point which is not a preposition, but a verb: an Action
Word.
.
VII “IS CHRIST”
Phil 1:21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain
Once we have been “Born Again”
John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily, I
say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God.
We have one purpose on this earth: For me to live is Christ.
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Phil 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus::
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to
be equal with God;
7 But made himself of no reputation and took upon him
the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death
of the cross.
We are to have “the mind of Christ” and be willing to be servants for Him and for the
lost world. We can do this ONLY by the power of the Holy Ghost working within us.
Phil 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will
and to do of his good pleasure.
Paul tells us in
And in
Phil 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which
hath
begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of
Jesus Christ.
Eph 4:1 to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are
called.
Peter also admonishes us in
I pet 1:15 But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye
holy in all manner of conversation;
16 Because it is written, Be ye holy for I am holy.
As we go back in our minds to the Fire by Night and the Cloud by Day, with its
thunder and lightening which led the Children of Israel in the wilderness, we can
believe that this awesome power revealed at that time was wrapped up and willingly
limited in a robe of flesh and became the man, Christ Jesus, who willingly allowed
himself to be beaten and spat upon, stripped, striped and ridiculed and then laid
himself down to be crucified. After three days, he lifted himself from the grave and
proved that he was the VERY GOD and then gave the Holy Ghost of His power, The
Beauty of Holiness, to us. Now we can also believe that that same awesome
power lives within us: You and Me. We have marvelous abilities and powers, such
as: by the witness of The Word of God, we can raise the dead -Those dead and
trespasses and sin, make the spiritually blind eyes to see the Lord Jesus Christ and
the spiritually deaf ears to hear gospel of the New Birth all by the prayer of Faith:
Christ’s Faith, and the witness of the Word of God, the King James Bible.
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II Tim 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear but
of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
:8Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our
Lord,…but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel
according to the power of God;
9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began
This brings us to the final question
What is Its relationship to a Fountain?
We are told in
Psalm 36:9 For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy
light shall we see light.
John 14:19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no
more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
:20 At that day (Resurrection) ye shall know that I Am in
my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
As we, for a moment, return to the conjugation of the verb “To Be”, we repeat once
again, “He Is” and then, because He Is (He Lives), We ARE.
We can say with Him:
John 10:30 I and my Father are ONE.
John 8:28 As my Father hath taught me, I speak these
things
29 He that sent me is with me. The father hath not left me
alone,
for I do always those things that please Him.
49 I honour my Father.
John 9:4 I must work the works of him that sent me while
it is day
5 as long as I am in the world I am the light of the world.
Ps 90:16, 17 Let the beauty of the Lord be upon us.
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We are His Body, His Hands, His Heart, His Lips, His Voice. The Voice of ONE
crying in the wilderness.
In ending, we return to Solomon in
Proverbs 14:27 The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life,
to depart from the snares of death.
His Heart of Holiness within us His children is The Heart of Beauty. Finally
Matt 5:1 And seeing the multitudes, He went up…
We too should be willing to be a living sacrifice for the lost multitudes. God calls us
by
Romans 12: 1, 2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your
reasonable service.
:2 And be not conformed to this world; but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may
prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will
of God.
The multitudes beg in
Psalm 4:6 Who will show us any good?
And our response should be:
Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.
Psalm 34:3 O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his
name together.
Let us Worship the LORD in the Beauty of Holiness:
The Heart of Beauty
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