Girl, let just start this off by saying you are BEAUTIFUL!! It's how the good Lord created us. There's no way we can get around it. Instead of letting the enemy come in telling us all sorts of lies through condemnation and pressure to preform, how about we just boot all that stuff right out the door, once and for all.
Good! Now that we know that we are beautiful creations of God, we can better understand that with that beauty comes a responsibility. A responsibility to protect and treasure that beauty. If you were given a huge expensive diamond, would you just hang it on your wrist dangling there for all the world to see and maybe even steal? No, I think we could all say that if we had a diamond worth a million bucks that we would be guarding it with our very lives! Thats how it is with our beauty. God gave us this rare treasure made only for his glory and once we're married, for our husbands. So the questions remain are we guarding this as God intended? Are we robbing glory intended for God?? Ladies, we have a tremendous responsibility to protect and guard our beauty!
Now I would like to touch on a few ways we can check ourselves and make sure our hearts are lined up with the good Lords heart on this matter. What is the spirit behind what we are wearing?? Prov 11:23 says that a beautiful woman without discretion is like a gold ring in a pigs snout! Ok, first of all, Ewww!!! Second, you have this valuable ring (the beautiful woman) then you have zero discretion (the pigs snout). Do you see the point he was trying to make?? He used a rather disgusting allegory, but at least he got the point across! Spirit matters! The way our attitudes walk around matter. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is if we want to truly look beautiful then let's get us some discretion. Now that poses another question. What is discretion?? Its an old French word, we would now say discernment. the quality of behaving or speaking in such a way as to avoid offense , or revealing private information. So that brings me to my second verse. Yes, I've got lots of verses to back up what I'm saying.😜
1Peter3:2-5 (Darby Translation)
Having witnessed your pure conversation carried out in fear.(discretion) Whose adorning let it not be that outward one of tressing of hair and wearing gold or putting on apparel; but the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is for great price. For thus also the holy women who have hoped in God heretofore adorned themselves,
So, we can see God puts a lot of stock in the whole inward adorning thing. The whole meek and quiet spirit thing has always kinda irked me, if ya know what I mean. I'm the loud type, the life of the party or at least the one who screams whenever she sees a spider running at her, or the one who gets way to excited about a play in volley-ball. So you can see how I would've wanted to just forget about the meek, and particularly the whole being quiet thing.
1Timothy 2:9-10 says 'In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness, and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls or costly array; but which becometh a women professing godliness with good works'.
The definition of sobriety in greek is, saneness of mind, and self control. And the definition of shamefacedness in greek is respect, modesty and a regard for others. Do you see how that changes the whole picture entirety?? No longer do I have to beat myself up for being to loud! No more wishing I was more like all the other "meek and quiet" girls! I get to be excactly who God created me to be! Plus the overcoming of my flesh. Especially when I don't want to practice self control, and proceed to eat the entire box of chocolates! That may or may not have been what he was talking about! 😜
A lot of us may have grew up in a culture where they've tried to quench their lustful thoughts by making their beautiful women dress super ugly. That my friend is not the answer to a guy's thought problems. He needs to deal with those in a godly manner. But that doesn't give us a "get out of jail" free card. Like I said before, we have a responsibility to hide, guard and protect our womanly beauty. So if we are doing that adequately, the previous won't even be an issue for us! Cuz that's falling on the men around us. I've seen women with what I like to call a prostitute spirit. It's the spirit that loves the attention from the opposite sex, that is trying to draw attention to ourselves, robbing the love or devotion that should have been for God. I know this sounds really, really harsh, But I've been there. I had it! And its only through Gods amazing grace today that I can say I am free! If God is the king of your heart, this spirit will repulse you. You will want nothing of it, at least after you get rid of it. But, talking from experience its very difficult to get rid of it. The only advice I can give to get rid of it is to ask God to get rid of it for you. Then do as He instructs.
So now I ask myself these questions, and I invite you to join me. Why do I dress like this? Who am I representing?? Am I a good representation?? Would Jesus be proud to call me his daughter?? Would he make me an ambassador in his kingdom?? Am I drawing attention to myself or to God?? Am I diligently seeking God on how to dress?? Do I adequately hide my womanly beauty??
I just read in Samuel where God rejected all of Jesses' sons even tho it says they were handsome, because God was looking on the heart. Now it does say that David was very handsome, and that comforts me a lil lol. But its very obvious to see that God is focused on the heart. And I believe he designed us to want beauty. I mean just look at the Lords creations! Everything he created is insanely beautiful!! Um... uhh... all but the spiders. I still don't like those.😜 So the way I see it is if your heart isn't decorated beautifully on the inside then you will want to decorate your body on the outside. Let's ask ourself where the missing link is ?? If we start to adorn our hearts, I believe the clothes we wear will become way less important to us.