beautiful on the outside

Have you ever noticed how beautiful many things are on the outside?

People, cars, houses, purses and fruit?

Have you ever been shocked by something that looked SO beautiful only to find a whole lot of ugly on the inside?  I can think of MANY situations when this was true for me.

It's why the saying says, 'beauty is only skin deep', I guess.

The most recent item that deceived me by it's immaculate - beautiful covering was an orange.  I was so excited to find this big bag of beautiful oranges at the store this week.  (I lead a very exciting life!)  I finally cut one of the largest oranges open tonight only to be terribly disappointed by the bitter taste.

Due to the fact that I am currently fighting a bit of a cold, I decided to continue eating.  I decided quickly this was much more like eating an overgrown lemon then it was an orange!  Fooled again!

This of course is a very trivial comparison to what many peoples' lives look like.  All pretty and cleaned up on the outside - filthy ugly stuff on the inside.  The thing is, you cannot keep it all hidden forever. Given enough time the real you comes out, something you say or do reveals what is deep inside.

The good news is this:

God knows EVERYTHING that is on the inside and HE still died for us.  He still forgives us, He still cleans us up.  All we have to do is come to Him and quit pretending.

Pretending is exhausting.  Believing is freedom.

The orange will be thrown away,  but we will live forever regardless if we surrender our ugly stuff to Him or live for eternity hanging on to our sin and separated from Him.

I cannot imagine why anyone would choose to remain outside of Him.