How do I look?
For many, there are few questions we ask ourselves more often. We may not voice or even think the words, but our actions speak for us. In the morning, we wake and comb our hair. Pajamas find their way back to the drawer. Cracked knees see lotion; oily noses get powder. Throughout the day, we frequent the mirrors in our bathrooms, pockets, and cars. After we eat, we pick food from our teeth. If we’ve lunched with friends, we’re sure to alert them to stray spinach. Spilled coffee calls for a clean shirt. Even those who say, “I don’t care how I look,” make some effort to look as if they don’t care how they look. Whether we climb into bed with a freshly washed face or with a month of unshaven growth, at the end of the day, appearance matters to all of us.
But should it matter to Christians?
No — and Yes
Perhaps we’re tempted to say, “Only the flesh judges a book by its cover, and only the flesh cares about its own cover.” Certainly, we would be capturing much truth (1 Samuel 16:7; Proverbs 31:30; 1 Peter 3:3–4). Scripture is clear: God regards us not according to the color of our hair but the condition of our hearts. How dear to him are the souls of those who believe it!
But does this make our appearance — the ones he sketched in his mind’s eye an eternity before we were born — un-dear to him? As we sense the wrongness of beauty, activity, and judgments that are solely skin-deep, should we likewise disregard just how wonderfully God made our skin (Psalm 139:14)?
Perhaps some of us have let our countercultural logic run lopsided for too long. When it comes to salvation, we are right to believe that our appearance doesn’t ultimately matter. When it comes to sin, we should sense how strong an idolatrous stakeholder our appearance can be. Yet when it comes to loving God and neighbor, we are wrong to think, feel, and live as if our appearance has no part to play.
Freed by Christ not to care about the ultimate value of appearance (Galatians 3:28), in what ways does appearance still matter in the Christian life? Consider four examples of how believers might care about their looks for the glory of God, not self.
1. Hospitality
It’s Friday afternoon at the local park. Imagine meeting a couple new to the area and inviting them to breakfast at your house. Then imagine opening your door at nine o’clock the next morning — dressed in your pajamas. You don’t smile, gesture, or nod. How long will it take for your guests to begin shuffling toward the door, weighed down by feelings of unwelcome? Maybe sixty seconds?
The ways we visibly carry ourselves, like the islanders Paul met on Malta, can communicate “unusual kindness” (Acts 28:2) — or not. After letting Jesus into her house, what happens to Martha? She looks “distracted with much serving,” so much so that Jesus tells her, “You are anxious and troubled” (Luke 10:40–41). Whether we look like we’d rather be alone with coffee or like we’re frazzled by the pressures of company, our appearance will speak, and people will respond.
What a gift to steward! By God’s good design, our appearance has the power to help Christian hospitality along. Our welcome may begin with a text invite, but once the doorbell rings, our facial expressions, mannerisms, and even our attire help us in saying, “Your presence does not burden me. I planned for you to come, and it’s better now that you are here.”
Wherever God commands his people to show hospitality, he commands people with appearances. Let’s use them.
2. Evangelism
Hudson Taylor, nineteenth-century British missionary to China, knew the power of appearance in the battle for lost souls. Think just of his hairstyle. In order to “become all things to all people” (1 Corinthians 9:22), he dyed his blonde hair black, and shaved the front portion of his head, braiding the rest into a queue, the male pigtail common in Chinese culture at the time. Talk about a redemptive use of hair coloring and cutting.
What about us? We may not be cross-cultural missionaries, but we do daily engage with people who differ from us in ethnicity, work, income, and interests. Does the man you meet with every week usually dress down? Wear a washed-out tee and make him feel comfortable. Does the woman in your book club frequent YouTube’s makeup tutorials? Ask her about them and then try one out. By God’s gracious appointment, each human appearance is unique. Yet each can serve to mirror the face of others for the sake of good and the gospel.
Some may call such actions inauthentic. Christians can call them love.
3. Reverence
But sometimes our looks can do much more than adjust to others: They can set a tone. After all, “Dress for the occasion,” as a principle, is useful for more than wedding invites. Just as a birthday party is an “event of the year,” corporate worship is the Christian’s “event of the week.” How might we use our appearance to say as much about Sunday service? We need not create a church-wide version of What Not to Wear. Rather, as individuals and families, we consider how our looks can help our hearts to “offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28).
For example, when it’s my husband’s week to lead worship, he always opts for pants over shorts, even in summer. One scorching morning, I told him he might be pretty toasty on stage. He replied, “I know, but I want how I look to show that I take worship seriously.” As a leader, he sees his appearance not as a means to personal style and comfort. His aim is respect for God, a solemn awe that says, “What we are doing right now, as we worship together — this is different. Let’s treat the time differently.”
Your appearance on Sundays has the same potential. What will you do with it?
4. God’s Design
I once had a small crisis about whether it was inherently vain to paint my nails. The more I thought about it, the more I realized what a blessing glass bottles of pink, purple, and red can be in the hands of a Christian woman. Whether it was nail polish, mascara, or a headband, I began to rejoice in the ways that I can use my appearance to reveal the way God made me: female.
Of course, these examples are mere “expressions of femininity.” As hard as they may try not to, all cultures assign certain clothes, colors, activities, and styles to women and others to men. So, while a skirt does not determine a woman’s sex, it can help to express it in our context. And in a world that often encourages the rejection of God-given masculinity and femininity, Christians can use their appearance to reinforce and rejoice in God’s design.
Women don’t have to paint their nails to be female, and men don’t have to grow a beard to be male. But as Christian men and women, we can find ways to enjoy being the way God made us — and obviously so.
Don’t Merely ‘Stop Looking’
Often, when Christians wrestle with the way they look, we tell them to simply stop looking. “How you look doesn’t matter,” the saying goes. While the words capture some truth, they also lack a resurrected vision of appearance. To paraphrase Abraham Kuyper, perhaps what we need instead is to hear Christ say, “Mine!” over every square inch of our bodies and not only our souls.
So, don’t merely “stop looking” at your appearance. Yes, stop looking in idolatrous, vainglorious ways. But then every morning when you wake, start looking at your appearance as a means to serve others. From hospitable smiles to cross-cultural missions, reverent dress to happy masculinity, oh, how many ways our “very good” appearance (Genesis 1:31) can point to our very good God!
Let’s give Satan a reason to hate mirrors and not only to love them.
Desiring God