Are you lovely? Before you grab for a mirror or compare yourself to anyone else, I want to put a different definition of lovely into your mind. Here it is: People are lovely when they are loved. Being lovely has nothing to do with your outward appearance. You’re lovely when you’re loved.
Like Mary. The Bible says nothing about Mary’s outward appearance. The impression we get is that Mary was a poor young woman. When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce Jesus’ birth, she was probably sweeping the floor or scrubbing something clean. Dirty. Poor. And lovely. Why? Because God loved her. Gabriel said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28). What made Mary so lovely was God’s grace to her, the grace that chose her out of all the women in the history of the world to be the mother of God. Mary was lovely because God loved her so much.
You’re lovely too. Do you believe that? No matter what you see in the mirror, you’re lovely too, because God loves you with the same grace he showered on Mary. Sure, Mary is the only woman who got to be the mother of Jesus. But do you know whom Jesus loved so much that he left heaven and was born in a stable? You. Do you know whom Jesus loved so much that he died? You. If God loves you that much, do you know what that makes you? Lovely. “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you!”
(Have you checked out the Upside-Down Savior Podcast yet? To listen to this devotion on the podcast click this link: https://anchor.fm/dashboard/episode/e1shb2h.)
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