JESSICA ROAN|GUEST

It is a yearly battle come school picture day. My kids have the cheesiest smiles. Since they were young, we have tried to explain that they can’t smile with their mouths closed or they will end up looking like the Joker. And while less than perfect school pictures drive me crazy, I told my mom a few years ago that I wouldn’t get picture retakes any ore. “We get what we get,” I told her, “It is just a snapshot of their childhood.” Nevertheless, after a fairly successful picture endeavor last year, I thought the battle was finally over. Not so fast. This year, we definitely needed a photo retake for my youngest. But we didn’t do it. And really, why do they have to be perfect?

These efforts I’ve put into my children’s school pictures remind me of other areas of my life in which I care about appearances. About how things look to others. I want people to approve of my yard, compliment my clothes, and be somewhat impressed with the cleanliness of my house. And these examples just touch the surface. In a world driven by social media personas, my parenting, spiritual life, and level of involvement in the church always seem sub-par compared to those women I see who can “do it all” so well. As much as I hate to admit it, I care what others think.

Fear of Man vs Fear of the Lord

The Bible calls this emphasis “the fear of man.” And while we all struggle with this, Scripture does not address this matter lightly. While Proverbs warns, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe” (29:25), and the psalmist wrote, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man” (118:8), 1 Samuel quickly points to the sin involved when Saul admits to him, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice” (15:24). Matthew addresses the issue blatantly saying, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (10:28).

The fear of man is contrasted in Scripture with the fear of the Lord. To fear the Lord means to love, honor, and treasure God above all else. This means we care more about what God thinks than what others think. In order to rightly fear God, we cannot fear man. Paul tells us in Galatians “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (1:10). The fear of the Lord is not only required, but it is the only way to gain wisdom. Psalm 111:10 teaches, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.” So, if the Lord is to be feared, what does he value?

God Looks at the Heart

David’s journey to the throne displays God’s true priority for man. An insignificant young boy amidst several older, stronger brothers, Jesse didn’t even give him a second thought. While considering one desirable brother, Eliab, God told him, “Don’t look at his appearance or how tall he is, because I have rejected him. God does not see as humans see. Humans look at outward appearance, but the Lord looks into the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).  God chose this unlikely young boy to become King of Israel and out of his lineage would come the King of Kings. God described David as a “man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14).

God prioritizes the heart over outward appearances. We see this in the woman who gave only a few coins as an offering, the adulterous woman Jesus saved from being stoned, and the thief welcomed into heaven minutes before dying on a cross. Jesus even chastised the Pharisees for caring more about outward appearances in Matthew 23, “For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (vv.27-28). They didn’t have the fear of the Lord. They didn’t live for God’s glory but for their own.

Our Humble Savior

We see in our Savior one who did not live to impress man, but for the honor of God. From all outward appearances, Jesus was less than impressive. A child of low birth who was announced by his outcast of a cousin, he denounced all earthly possessions. He traveled the known world performing miracles and teaching God’s truth. In Luke 9, as the disciples tell Christ they will follow him anywhere, he replies, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). A humble carpenter who was constantly breaking religious rules by eating with sinners, and healing on the Sabbath, he was looked at only as a problem by many. When Jesus called Philip and Nathaniel early in his ministry, Nathaniel even asked, “Can anything good come from Nazareth”? (John 1:46). The prophet Isaiah described him as having “no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (53:2-3).

Even as he was about to die, his “triumphal entry” was on a donkey instead of an impressive stead. And his death? It was not just brutal but that of the worst criminals, complete with prodding for him to “save himself” and prove he was who he said he was.

Whether we admit it or not, we all care about appearances more than we should. We want to be viewed as successful at the office, the best parent, the most devoted homemaker, the master decorator, and even the godliest wife. But when we care about what others think, we fear man rather than God. May we instead grow in our fear of the Lord, for what he thinks of us is what matters most—and it matters for eternity. Because we are in Christ, God looks at us and sees our humble Savior. He accepts us because we are one with Christ. He loves us as much as he loves the Son (John 17:23). In the end, whatever accolades we receive from this world only add to our earthly image, not to our heart for God.

Lord, grant us the humility to have the same mind as Christ, walking in humility and living for your glory instead of clawing for attention from those whose opinion is temporary and not eternal.

Photo by Caroline Veronez on Unsplash