So after reading my last post {Men are pigs? one for the girls} (if you haven’t read it, check that one out first!) you might think, “But… God is more concerned with my heart. Christians are superficial, old-fashioned, and ‘modesty’ is way outdated. Jesus doesn’t really care what I have on my outside as long as I love Him. He only cares about my inside.”

Wrong.

Jesus has told us that our beauty is on the inside when He said,

Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; let it be the hidden man of the heart. 1 Peter 3:3

He was saying don’t find your worth in outward things; not throw all caution to the wind and wear whatever you want. Girls, think about your father. If you walked by your dad on your way out of the house with a tiny revealing outfit on, what would he say? What has he said or done? A good father would probably say, “Um, I don’t think so. You can go right back to your room and change… and I hope you left the tags on that outfit because it’s going back to the store.” If our earthly fathers care so much about what we reveal to other men, how much more does our Holy, Heavenly Father care? He cares. He cares a lot how men look at and treat His daughters, and He wants His daughters to do everything in their power to keep themselves pure for His sake and for ours.

See, if we want to be everything we are made to be for Christ, then we have to not only be above par, but we have to measure up to the standards set out for us in the Bible. Otherwise, why would Jesus want us to represent Him? If a business is going to send an employee to a meeting with a prospective client, they are going to make sure this employee exemplifies everything the company stands for. They are not going to pick the girl with the questionable wardrobe to be the representative face of the organization. They just aren’t; that would just be embarrassing to the company. Girls, Jesus wants us to be a picture of His grace and holiness on this earth so that other people come to know Him. That’s a big job, and, believe me, God cares what you are wearing when you represent Him.

God also has a lot to say about women who bait men with sexual ways and promises in Proverbs. Have we forgotten?

To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids. For by means of a whorish woman is a man brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. Proverbs 7:24-26

And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart. (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: Now is she without, now in the streets, and lithe in wait at every corner.)….. With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattery of her lips she forced him. He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. Proverbs 8:10-12, 21-23, 27

It will cost him his life.

Yikes. This is not an exaggeration. You can literally destroy lives.. your own life and the lives of the men around you. This girl is dangerous, not to mention creepy, and is destroying lives. We can’t love our brothers in Christ and simultaneously destroy their lives. That should scare us, and literally make us sick to our stomachs. Clearly, our Jesus cares. He cares about us, and he cares about guys. I, for one, do NOT want to be the girl in those verses.

Jesus wants the very best for His daughters.

A far cry from the virtuous woman, this proverbs woman baits and hooks men with her “attire of a harlot” and “much fair speech.” You get what you fish for. If you are “baiting” men with your body, then the only men you are going to catch are the men who want your body. Plain and simple. However, if you want a guy who loves you for your heart, you’re going to have to catch a man with your heart. He has to be able to stay around you long enough to see it. You want a man with a good heart? Show him a good heart, not your physical “goods.”

How you get him is how you keep him. We’ve heard that before. So say you find a man, and he commits to you and marries you; but the main feature that caught him was your body and physical appearance…. what happens when you get pregnant? When you gain weight? When you start to get older and less attractive? If he did not find your inside to be the most attractive thing about you, what’s going to happen when something better comes along? It would be so sad to be in a relationship with a man who only liked you for what you gave him sexually; and, as you aged, thought you were boring, unattractive, or unlovely. There will always be girls prettier than you and willing to show more, and sexual competition is not what God has in mind for his daughters. However, this is where we are headed when we attract men based on our physical appearances alone. Heartache, and don’t you think it breaks Jesus’ heart too? I want my future husband to love me for my personality, my sense of humor, my brain, and courage, and all the weird quirky things that I do, and, mostly, my love for God… and have eyes only for me.

Lastly, I want to encourage you in that next time you see a girl with a sexually revealing outfit on, don’t judge her in your heart. Have compassion instead. It breaks my heart to see and know that some girls don’t know that they do not have to show off their bodies to be worth something. That they are so much more than what their body looks like, and how men respond to seeing it. It is so sad. Pray for her. If you know her, talk to her or show her these posts! Help her see that Jesus made her beautiful heart for Him, and she deserves to expect more too.

Girls, if we want our relationships to be everything we really long for and God promised to us, we can’t settle for the cheap version that the world offers us. We have to ask for something more. If we want to be everything God has made us to be as representatives of Jesus Christ and the gospel, we need to clothe ourselves with the respect and holiness that our message demands. We’ve just got to expect more because the Jesus we love does care about our clothes and how His daughters present themselves….and He definitely expects more of us.