My wife and I were looking for a painting to hang in our living room. We wanted something that would not only be beautiful but also had to match another painting as well as the new rug we had purchased. As we were shopping we found just the right painting. It depicted a dock extending out on a lake with mountains in the background. We hung our painting and were delighted with its just-rightness. A few days later my wife noticed that when she looked at the picture from a different angle there appeared to be a mark on one side. It seemed to be from an overabundance of clear stain that was applied to the painting in the finishing process. The more that we looked at our just right picture the more we noticed the stain. We were a little disappointed but decided not to allow our joy to be affected by the mark. We would keep our painting and celebrate its beauty even though it was not perfect.
God is the master artist. He desires to create a masterpiece on the canvas of our lives. He saved us and is constantly working on our character and our behavior. He is working on us to make us reflect more and more the image of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul told us in Phil. 1:6: “Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ”.
God desires to paint the beauty of Christ upon our life, but when we fail Him and decide to disobey His Word it leaves a blemish, a stain. Those stains can be removed by sincere confession. We must also remember that God is not finished with us yet. The verse in Philippians tells us that we will be unveiled on the day of Jesus Christ. Only then will our real beauty be fully revealed.
We are not perfect. Yet when our Lord looks at those He has redeemed by His grace, He does not focus on the sins and the stains, the nicks and the imperfections. Nor does He take us back to the store or dispose of us at a yard sale. He sees the beauty in us. He sees His Son, not the stain.