The Christian life is not a call to Spiritual activities;
a Bible study here, a mission trip there.
It is a call to die to self and be bound with Christ,
Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute,
second by second...
I've had this blog for a little over a year now and it has been such a growing experience for me. But...due to some problems I've had with blogger I got a WordPress and will no longer be posting here. I'm not deleting this blog as I want to leave what I've already done but I hope you will all visit me and my sister @
http://followingdaybyday.wordpress.com/
We haven't posted yet but will be doing so in the near future!
This is my last modesty post. I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to share this with all of you. Thank you so much for your encouraging comments and words. It’s been a blessing.
So what about brides…
I’ve come to see this as so important.
First I want to address the idea that we can lower our modesty standards for our wedding (or formal occasions) I wrote:
“For some reason women seem to think that because it’s their wedding they can dress in revealing clothing. I’ve literally heard girl’s say things like, “Well it is a wedding!” I have seen godly, beautiful women whom I love dress very immodestly for their wedding day.
I believe that of all places that should be the place where you would want to dress the most modestly considering you are trying to present yourself as a Christian virgin. These are some quotes I got from the modesty survey on the rebelution.”
Age 29
It is a strange thing that even women who would normally purposely dress modestly sort of forget that when planning for their wedding. My wife looked amazingly gorgeous as she walked down the aisle to meet me - and completely modest.
Age 15
In fact, I think they should be higher in a wedding, since a wedding is a celebration of pre-marital purity.
Age 25
Don't compromise standards because you want to look your best. Look your best by upholding your values!
Age 18
Why should you be less careful, especially when you're standing in front of everyone? And for the bride, does she think the groom's the only one who's going to see her?
Age 18
A wedding should be all about purity! Of all the days to NOT lower a pure standard!
When I walk down the aisle I don’t want people to be staring at shoulders, chest, breasts, or the shape of my hips. I want to shine with a Christ like purity. The wedding isn’t all about you, as the world would want you to think, it’s all bout Jesus Christ!
We represent the church:
Just as we want to stand before our husbands in purity as his bride so we should be even more determined to shine as Christ’s bride to the world for the Church is referred to over and over again as the bride of Christ and we as women get the amazing role of modeling that picture in the male/female relationship to the world.
You may feel uncomfortable being different. The world my laugh at you, stare, frown, or roll their eyes when you choose not to conform to their way of dress. They may even label you as one of those “2 good for you” Christians.Some use this as an excuse to dress and look like everyone else. Do you not think that God is strong enough to save His own without His chosen conforming to them? I think it just presents a greater opportunity for you to tell them, “It’s not that Christians are good people. In fact they are especially bad people being transformed by an especially good God.”
How then shall we live?
As you can see modesty isn’t a set of rules, some cute little survey to live by, and some stamp that marks you all the same. It’s about bringing glory to God and letting the world see it.
For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
Your adornment must not merely be external - braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a quiet and gentle spirit which is precious in the sight of God.
1 Peter 3:1-6
“We hear about free spirits, fiery spirits, fiercely independent spirits, fighting spirits, proud spirits, revolutionary spirits, and just plain “spiritedness” paraded as the essential virtues for the ideal woman.
Psalm 37:11 promises, “But the meek will inherit the earth; and will delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The wicked plot against the just and gnash upon him with his teeth. The Lord will laugh at him, for he sees that his day is coming.”
God laughs at the militant feminists who mock the real woman for her meekness, promising that it will be the descendants of His meek servant that will inherit the earth.
(Psalm 147:6) “The Lord lifts up the meek: he casts the wicked down to the ground.”
A gentle and quiet spirit is not only imperishable; it is precious in the sight of God. It’s also one of the hardest qualities to cultivate. Far from a sign of weakness, a gentle and quiet spirit is a sign of a woman who is strong in faith, mind, and character.”
- Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin
From: So Much More
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When you begin to see your clothing and how you present yourself through God’s eyes, nothing else matters. Comfort doesn’t matter, Fashion doesn’t matter, what people think doesn’t matter, what matters is honoring God.
Christ tells us that the world will know we are followers of Him by our love one for another.
“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:35
What matters is in your heart but we don’t want to wear something that distracts from that.
Christ has given us a freedom in Him that we can use with great joy but must not abuse. He tells us to dress modestly. Do it to glorify Him!
~~~
We should love purity with all our heart and strive for it with a passion. Even to go beyond what is required of us.
This is good, Biblical, and mature.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
~~~
We are always reforming. There will never be a time when we can step back and say, "I am completely modest. I have reached the level of perfection."
We must constantly evaluate our lives useing God's Word and be willing to learn, get rid of clothing, understand modesty more, every single day.
~~~
The world holds up an image and says “This is beauty!”
Please go watch this before going on. It's by the Rebelution and worth watching...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PWdW4BruF4
God looks at the heart of the woman who loves Him and says, “This is beauty and precious in My sight.”
Are you beautiful?
~~~
Girls have something in them that desires to be pleasing and a desire to make themselves beautiful. I know I do and as I said in my post on dressing beautifully and attractively, there is nothing wrong with that. Not because I say so...but because I believe it's in the Bible.
But we will never have true outer beauty until we have true inner beauty.
(The world may tell you you're beautiful or they may tell you your not)
I believe all women who follow the Lord with their whole heart and dress in a way that honors Him and Him alone is absolutely beautiful!
~~~
Only God can give you a heart like His and that is what will make you beautiful. It has to become important enough that we will seek it more than anything else. This is the kind of beauty that is real and will last forever.
I made a power point on modesty before doing these posts. I had been working on it for about a week and had approximately 130 slides I realized I hadn’t said anything about how our clothing affects young men. I don’t take it like you’ve probably heard everyone else take it. No, “Oh those poor guys, we just have to help them out. They just can’t control it. We just got to cover up for the guys.” That always frustrated me because honestly, I didn’t care much about their whining and they didn’t seem to appreciate my efforts anyway.
However I have come to seem how important it is that we protect them as our brothers. It might be even more for you than for them. I don’t know many boys who care about girls dressing modestly but you should care because you want to protect yourself. You’re not a piece of meat to be drooled over and devoured. Don’t dress like it
They were created first and we were created to be their helpmeet. They should be important to us and I think that dressing immodestly and feminism has affected them in a devastating way.
I’ve heard girls and young woman eager to marry say something similar to, “Where are the young men? There is no one I know who I would marry. They’re all too boyish, to annoying, too silly, too selfish, all I do is argue with them!”
While I’m not debating whether boys have faults or not I do want to say I believe many flaws they have are many times our fault! We degrade them on the play ground as toddlers by being bossy and making it clear that girls rule and we will choose the game. We tease them for their boyish behavior. Little girls only want to hang out with the calm and boy with more ‘girl like’ qualities and then turns around and just wants to prove to the ‘boyish boy’ that she can beat him at everything! Through the teen years we laugh at them, or dominate them, or bully them, or train them to be submissive in conversation. Then when it’s time to marry we wonder where the men are. We wonder whose going to lead us and can’t figure out why we can’t find anyone. This is what feminism does. It not only degrades women to something harsh and ordinary but degrades men to something week and pitiful.
Immodestly also plays a big part. We all know that they have a problem with their eyes; we’ve heard it over and over again. Some guys promote surveys to try to help you help them. Others complain one moment then seem to enjoy the immodest girl who flaunts herself before him. Others don’t seem to even care. It doesn’t matter. We are to dress modestly anyway.
This isn’t just for boys with hormones. This is for the young guys, the little boys who watch you and see you. This is for your little brothers or the children you baby-sit or pass in the halls of church. This is training them to be men and not defiling their innocent purity at such a tender age with the thought, “He’s too young to know…”
Galatians 6:10, “Wherever we have opportunity, we should do good to everyone, especially to our Christian brothers and sisters.”
Justin and Melissa Turley Melissa was featured on "Return of the Daughters"
What Should We Do? Dress unattractively?
Some people think that if you want to be modest you can’t dress attractively.
Some think we should go back to an older, more ‘covering’ style. Though they achieve the modest and conservative look, I don’t think this deals with the real issues.
We are required to learn from history but, not go back to it.
In fact, the Bible champions women who dress beautifully and attractively.
Proverbs 31:22 -
"...For all her household is clothes in scarlet. She makes bed coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple."
Matthew 6:28-30 -
"And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil or spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, o you of little faith."
God led me to that verse recently. I was convicted to get rid of some of my clothing that didn't cover me as well as I needed to and as I cleared out my closet and laid my stuff over the bed I realized I was looking at over $70.00 worth of clothing. That hurts...especially when you buy your own clothing. But then I read this verse and knew God would provide me with clothing and He wants me to be well dressed. He promises to clothe us like the lilies of the field, which are beautiful.
This didn't mean I got an entire new wardrobe. I've had to wear things more than I want to and I could use some more clothing but I still dress well. God's provided me with nice clothing, lots of it were on the sale rack and from second hand stores but we are to dress beautifully, attractively, not for ourselves but to be a witness to the world of the beautiful God we serve.
"Wonderful so wonderful is Your unfailing love
Your cross has spoken mercy over me
No eye has seen no ear has heard
No heart could fully know
How glorious how beautiful You are
Beautiful One I love
Beautiful One I adore
Beautiful One my soul must sing
Powerful so powerful Your glory fills the skies
Your mighty works displayed for all to see
The beauty of Your majesty awakes my heart to sing
How marvelous how wonderful You are
You opened my eyes to Your wonders anew
You captured my heart with this love
'Cause nothing on earth is as beautiful as You"
All through history God made things beautiful. Look at the garden of Eden. I can't imagine how beautiful it was. The there was the Tabernacle. My dad recently has been preaching on the instructions for the Tabernacle. It was so detailed and made with such beauty. The priests had special garments made from the finest crafts men. Which brings me to my last point. God loves beautiful things and wants us to enjoy them. Heavens going to be the most beautiful place we've ever seen. But let us never let our beauty focus on us as women today do by participating in beauty contests and spending millions of dollars on themselves. My our outer beauty bring glory to God. My next post will be about inner beauty...
“God’s sacred intent for us goes far beyond just saving sex till marriage, wearing one-piece swimsuits instead of skimpy string bikinis, or idolizing Christian bands instead of secular ones. It is not just making sure we tack on some Christian morality to our self-indulgent lives.
His sacred intent for you and for me is nothing short of absolute abandonment to Jesus Christ, entire separation from the pollution of the world, and ardent worship of our King with every breath we take.
Yes, it’s a huge vision – one that is contrary to everything our culture presents. In our modern world, we as young women seem to be presented with only two options for our femininity – we can either embrace the sensual, sexed-up version of womanhood glorified by pop culture or...
we can go the opposite direction and trade in perfume and makeup for grit, grunge, and guy-like behavior. But both of these options cause us to completely miss out on the glorious pattern God designed for our femininity. We were created to shine with heavenly beauty, to radiate with Christ- like feminine loveliness, and to sparkle with the lily-white purity of our Prince (Jesus). We were created to be set-apart for Him.
“Clothes make a statement. They proclaim to people who you are and what you believe, what you are worth, whom you belong to, what you admire, what you aspire to, what you are for, and whether you are protected or cheap…
Looking around us on the street, we see girls of all shapes and sizes and social backgrounds and beliefs. Nearly all of them have one thing in common: they aren’t wearing any clothing. Like all clothing, the clothes that we don’t see these girls wearing make a very obvious statement:
I’m not worth much… I just want to get attention… I live for myself… I need to be noticed… I need to look like everyone else…
We need our own messages to declare the exact opposite-
I am loved… I am cherished… I am protected… I am a woman of virtue… I am submitted to God… I am a part of a civilized society… I am worth more than rubies… There is a part of me that is not to be stared at by strangers, because it belongs to my future husband…"
-Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin
From: So Much More
How much do you believe you're worth? When People see you what message do you declare to them? Do you look a like a women striving after the things of God in our godless culture? Or do you look like everyone else?
We are ambassadors of Christ! Are we dressing like we are daughters of the King, or daughter of the world?
“When my daughters walk into a room I want them to communicate virginity; I want them to communicate purity and loveliness. If they dress or talk like they are impure then that is what they are communicating. I see that in the world andI see that in Christian young women today. I see young women that, although they may be physically pure, they may be virgins, they don’t look like it, so what that does is it lies about God.
If a woman wears maternity clothes she shouldn’t be surprised when people think she is pregnant.
If you wear a uniform that says that you are a police officer, you shouldn’t be surprised when people think that you are a police officer.
So, if a woman dresses as though she is loose, she shouldn’t be surprised if that is what people think of her character. And as a Christian, that is a problem, because what we are doing is lying about the nature of God, and communicating something we are not.”
- Stacy McDonald
Some of you may have heard the Christian women of our time trying so hard to get teens to dress modestly. They don’t dare expect too much but try to “be cool and be modest”
They make helpful little charts and check lists and have modest fashion shows to try to attract girls to modesty. I must say I’m glad they’re at least trying but God never calls us to a dress code. He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him. It seems that those who hold up modesty goals are doing nothing more than just trying to get a little clothes on our girls and if they want to do that they have to attract them to cute, modesty, and so very stylish. People practically won’t see a difference other than you have a yard more of fabric then they do.
I am not speaking against dressing attractively as you’ll see in my next post. But when we look at the Bible our comfort never seems to be on the radar with God. It is our sanctification and becoming more like Him.
Just because you're covered doesn't mean your modest. If we go back a few posts and look at what the Bible says we'll see that the words modest clothing and proper apparel in the Bible don't mean covered. Now covering yourself is so very important. But it's so much more than that. There is a tightness to look at and wither it draws too much attention to yourself. But whats also so important is what your clothing says you represent. You can't dress one way and act another. I've talked with girls you tell me that they just love to be stylish but they won't show too much skin and if they do that they're ok as long as their heart shows people they're a Christian. I don't think this is possible. Not only are you dressing like the world but your behavior and demeanor will be affected in what you wear. This is almost foreign in our culture today however several decades ago they understood. You dressed up when you went in public, you dressed in your best for church, you wore a suit if you were traveling, and on and on. We just don't see it today. I don't think you have to wear your Sunday best every time you go to Wal - Mart. My main point is you can't dress one way and expect to act another. You must dress and present yourself in the same way you want you behavior to be. If you dress like a tomboy, your going to act like a tomboy, if you dress like the girls on Disney channel, your going to act like the girls on Disney channel. If you dress like the girl at the mall hanging off her boyfriend you'll act like her. They go hand and hand.
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is. That which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Romans 12:2
“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
