After Adam and Eve sinned they became aware they were naked. They felt the need to hide themselves. They were naked and ashamed and they hid themselves. Since the fall we have been hiding ourselves our hearts and our bodies. We see our nakedness through the eyes of sinful man and woman because of our hearts. The beauty of the body that was to be shared between the love of a man and a woman is now colored by the sinfulness of our hearts namely lust. Matthew 5:28 says but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Not only do we as women tempt men to lust but they are tempted all throughout their day. It can be pornography on the internet, magazines, or the screen, underwear or other advertisements on television or magazines. It doesn't have to be naked women for them to be tempted, it can be the clothes we wear. Clothes are getting shorter and tighter and lower by the day. It can be in the work place, or the grocery store or at church. We women affect men and can cause them to sin in an area that is already a temptation for most if not all of them.
Not only do men struggle with lust but we women desire to be desired. Maybe we have not thought of it to the extent of being lust after but we want to be thought of as beautiful but we get confused what that is. We go to great links to look curvy and young and beautiful. There is no limit to the blood, sweat, tears, the sacrifices we make or money we will spend to buy the right clothes and have the right bodies, hair and faces or pay to have it done for us. We are told that a womans beauty is not just by her outward adornment of clothes and jewelry but her gentle and quiet Spirit of trusting the Lord, her heart. Prov 31:30 says that Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain but that a women who fears (Holy awe of) the Lord is to be praised. It is the Spirit of Jesus and the Father by His Spirit in us, that peaceful heart, that trust in Him, that makes us beautiful. In heaven we all will have beautiful bodies but there will be no sin to distort our view of it. Here we have flaws and defects and struggles and it shows up in our bodies and we can struggle with our value and worth because of it. We are created in the image of Christ. We are His child and loved abundantly by Him. There is nothing wrong with loving beauty and wanting to look beautiful in a God honoring way but we must always be aware of our hearts who can be so deceitful.
My plan is to go through my closet. Any of those jeans that fit a little too snug because I didn't want to give in to buying a larger size is going to go no matter how expensive they were. That top I have to keep tugging in the back to keep it high enough in the front, I am doing away with. The next time I buy something I am going to look at it through these eyes of how I am seen by all. There is nothing wrong with a woman dressing for her husband in the privacy of their home but in public we need to be educated in what we are doing by the clothes we wear and our actions. How they can be interpreted.
We women need to tell our daughters and our friends. You men need to tell your wives, Pastors tell you congregations. We do not need to be kept in the darkness. Jesus is the Light. Women we can love and respect the opposite sex in a way that is Christ like by the way we dress. It is not too late to change.
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