If you don't see the beauty of it....

How do you know if you really 'love' someone or something?

We say that we 'love' all kinds of things and sadly we say we 'hate' all kinds of other things.
Why I say 'sadly', is because we should be like the world (the carnal nature) and see everything as only 'black and white'.  Judging by appearances the scriptures say.

No, we are to look at the heart, which is the Old Covenant way of looking with the SPIRIT (the real you connected with DAD (GOD)).

So, we are to let HIM lead us, and look at people and things from HIS perspective and not our own judgments that the carnal mind conjures up.

I remember thinking about this 'judging from the outside' bit when I was at a beach a few years ago with the family.  Now this beach was sand that could walk out for miles (up in Algonquin Park, northern Ontario), but to get to the sand that you can walk on for miles, you had to get past this 3 to 4 meter (3 to 4 yards) of hard stones and rocks.  The water there was too shallow to swim over those rocks, and some wearing water shoes, could get over, but for the many that didn't have those types of shoes/flippers even, had to traverse over these hard and un-forgiving stones.

So, this younger guy, built and for sure showing off his arms and worked on muscular body, walked to the stony area, seemingly for the first time.

I judged him, "thinks he's cool"...."watch the stony area, betcha can't get through that with that stride" were my judging thoughts.

He gets to the area, and walks through hardly breaking stride!

"think he is really tough, and strong - showing off" were more thoughts.
BTW - these thoughts are NOT really me (or you) these are carnal minded/ evil worldly thoughts that we are supposed to battle.

After he went swimming beyond the the hard area, to the endless sandy shoulder deep water, he came back.

Stepping on the hard rocky area, he stopped.
Bent over and picked up (one of the many hard stones), and examined it.
"probably a geologist and knows about every stone too" were my judging thoughts.

He picks ups a stone, and brings it towards me (I never met the guy in my life).
He shows me (there were many others sitting and laying on the beach around me) this amazing stone.
The more he turned his hand, parts glistened in the sun.
And with genuine interest in the stone, and a real like soft nature about him, I realized that he knew about nature/rocks to a degree and fully appreciated all this!

He loved it and it was beautiful to him.

Just like the LORD told me, "when you see it as beautiful, you truly love it".

And the same LORD said "judge not, lest you be judged"...I really mis-read this fine young father and young man.

See them as JESUS does, look at them in love.  And when you see them as 'beautiful', you really love them!

-eric