Looking Like My Friend

                    Make Me Beautiful
I desire and I long to be beautiful, Lord.
I want sweetness and grace to come out of my soul
So that others would see something lovely outpoured.
To encourage their faith I’d be used as a tool.

So I scrub and I primp and I preen every day

To create something lovely to shine out of me,
But I’m troubled to realize I can’t find a way.
When I look, just an ugly black heart I can see.

Oh, how could I have thought there was beauty inside?

I am nothing but one whom Your grace has redeemed,
And my efforts to change things have all been denied.
What I thought was becoming was not what it seemed.

Only You, my dear Father, can make me look good;

It is possible when I reflect Your dear Son.
So please give me His beauty; I do wish You would,
So that my life would point to the Beautiful One.

It has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. When there is someone that we admire, we want to be like that person. In the entertainment and sports worlds, we refer to that person as an idol – someone other than God who becomes the object of worship. God, on the other hand, is the correct recipient of worship, so our imitation of Him is a very good and appropriate response.

Romans 8:29 talks about this process. As we allow God to use all things to work in our lives, He accomplishes the good result of our becoming more conformed to the image of His Son. We start to look more and more like Christ. We imitate Him as the one that we want to be like – as the exalted focus of our worship. What does that do to Christ? It lifts Him up as the firstborn, the pre-eminent and rightfully most important figure. What glory God would receive if we could imitate Him more faithfully!

“For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.” Romans 8:29 (NASB)