You don’t need to dress provocatively to be beautiful

Hi ladies

Have you ever heard or said any of the following statements

“How I dress is my business, it shouldn’t concern others”

“If anyone doesn’t like the way I dress then they shouldn’t look at me”

“It’s not my fault a guy looks at me like that (lustfully); he needs to work out his own salvation”

“God looks at our heart anyway and not our dressing”

I’m not here to bash anyone but I want to bring some light and understanding to the subject of how we as ladies dress and the effect it has on others and how God feels about it.

1 Tim 2:9 “..women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control…”

Proverbs 7:10"And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot and subtil of heart."

Luke 17:1-2 “Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for [her] to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around [her] neck than for [her] to cause [another] to sin."

Do we still believe that the way we dress isn't of importance to God; my darling sister, God cares about every inch of us, He called us the apple of His eye and He has inscribed our names in the palms of His hand, do you think He would do that if He didn’t care?

Do we still believe that how we dress doesn’t affect our brothers-in­-Christ or our brothers-in-the-world? When guys see something sexually stimulating (low-cut, short, exposed intimate flesh), their natural tendency is to lust after her and entertain thoughts of becoming sexual with her. It doesn't matter whether the guy is a Christian or not. Even godly guys can be visually tempted to lust. If we want to avoid causing our brothers to stumble and fall, we will dress modestly.

Our clothes say a lot about us whether we like to believe it or not; our clothes can say that we are professional, that we are artsy, that we are sophisticated (all sounding good so far?); but our clothes can also say we are easy and available to whoever wants, that we are not concerned about cleanliness, that we don’t care about our appearance (not so nice now right).

How in Prov 7:10 could we say someone was dressed as though she was a harlot? She could be a school teacher for all we know but quite simply if we are truthful to ourselves there are some items of clothing that we wear simply to draw attention to parts of our body.  If we don’t want men to ogle at our breasts or other ladies to look at our chest area with disdain then we shouldn’t wear tops so low cut that there is fear of our breasts falling out; if we don’t want a man to crash his car as we walk by then there is no need to wear our skirts so short that we need to match out underwear to the skirt, or our trousers so tight that we require the assistance of a friend in order to put them on……come on now ladies let’s be real with ourselves.  We often dress for others, rather than for our selves or to glorify God; it may be sub-conscious but in the back of our minds when we wake up in the morning and think of what to wear we also consider if others will think it to be nice.  There is not necessarily anything wrong with that but when our thoughts stray into the areas of will Mr so and so think what I am wearing is sexy, or is this low enough to grab his attention we need to be carefully.  Those of us reading (and even me that I am writing) we need to check ourselves too, Christians, yes, you and I do it too – it’s a slippery slope and before long if care is not taken we will start wearing the very clothes that a year ago we considered inappropriate.

When God made us, He made us wonderfully and beautifully, our clothes does not give us our beauty so let us not be too overly concerned with how Mr so and so feels as we sashay past him rather let us consider always is God pleased with my look today, will others look at me and see God in me, am I dressed as an ambassador of God, is my dressing glorifying His name.  Like I said I am not here to bash anyone, I just wanted us to look from another perspective.

Let us remember 1 Corin 6:19-20 which states that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within us, we are not our own, for we were bought with a price so we need to glorify God in our body.

Please meditate on the scriptures above and Romans 12:1-2, Proverbs 31:1, Revelations 4:11