A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit. (Proverbs 15:13)
The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. (Isaiah 3:9)
As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man. (Proverbs 27:19)
Comedian George Burns said of entertainment, “The secret to success in this business is sincerity. And if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Is it not true that professional actors have to become outstanding in their ability to “fake it” when it comes to a role? They must fake evil motivations and cherubic ones, angry emotions and elated ones.
There is another facet in the human face that defies “faking.” It is the sincerity of heart which shows through even when a righteous actor is playing the role of a vile, despicable person—and playing it well. Something in the eyes says the actor is “too innocent” to be playing the part well. You’ve seen it and chalked it up to “bad casting.”
The Scriptures make fascinating observations about the human countenance—the spiritual “aura” that appears on the face and mostly inside the eyes. The Proverbs 27:19 passage links, indirectly, that mirroring of a face in a pond with the mirroring of the person’s spirit in the countenance.
Principle: The eyes are the window to the human soul, and what’s going on there shows on the countenance.
There is a “light” or a “darkness” in a countenance depending on the amount of spiritual light and life that exists in the soul. God is described as having a “light in His countenance.” God, speaking through Isaiah, told the Israelites that because of their spiritual darkness, “the look on their faces testifies against them… they do not hide it.”
A Berkley professor with two Ph.D. degrees conducted more than 1,200 controlled interviews for the military in Vietnam to discover the use and effects of hallucinogenic drugs. He told me that after he had done a couple of hundred interviews, he did not have to ask the soldiers if they had been delivered from drug addiction by a new birth through Jesus Christ. They had a “light in their eyes,” he said, and even bore witness to seeing a “physical light” at the moment salvation released them from bondage to drugs.
Principle: Persons with Christ in them possess a spiritual life and peace which shows as “brightness” and tranquility in the countenance; you can look for and see it.
About thirty years ago, testing this teaching, I began studying countenance and learning to “read” the spiritual light in them. After testing this principle successfully, I am convinced that both righteousness and its attendant peace—and darkness are revealed in the countenance. The apostle Paul describes an immoral woman who lives for pleasure as “dead even while she lives” (1 Timothy 5:6). This is the hollow-eyed whore or vile, dark-countenance libertine whose physical attractiveness is eclipsed by a lightless, death-driven countenance.
Principle: Sin causes darkness in the human spirit which shows in the countenance; it can’t be covered with makeup nor the light “faked” by a happy face.
Principle: True spiritual beauty abides in the heart and is transmitted to the eyes, making a person ‘ugly” or “beautiful” independent of physical attributes.
Be a light-filled, beautiful person. Let the light of Christ fill you and flow through you. By the way, you can’t fake this.
[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]