After recent trips to two different amusement parks, I realized that our broken sense of sexuality is most visible in public places, not our bedrooms. People are in love with their own nakedness. I live in a region known for its hot summers, but what people choose to wear is more about the dictates of cultural norms than keeping cool.
From bare skin to a scarcely veiled sensuality, modern fashion leaves little to the imagination. As a mother of a teenage daughter and pre-teen son, I’m frustrated at the world’s attempt to rush our children down the slippery slope of compromise. So I believe that modesty is worth the fight.
Captivated by the culture around them, the Israelites sold themselves into captivity. Maybe they found the call to follow God outdated, or the call to holiness old-fashioned. Whatever the reason, it was their love for a standard other than God’s that brought them to the brink of destruction.
In the church, we rail against human trafficking and pornography, as we well should, but we sometimes ignore our love affair with the culture and our own bodies. Forgetting our broken past, we can sell ourselves short (Ezekiel 16:5; Ephesians 2:1-3). Paying whatever price to fit in, we can strive to buy into the world’s standard of acceptance much like a prostitute who pays for her own slavery (Ezekiel 16:33-34). We embrace compromise all because someone, somewhere in the world of advertising presented the idea that it would make us look good.
Are we a temple or an idol? (Romans 1:25; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20). The choice is ours. We can’t serve the world’s standards and hold fast to holiness (2 Corinthians 6:16-17).
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: Jeremiah 1:1-9
More:
Read 1 John 2:15-17 and consider any areas where you’ve bought into the world’s standard rather than God’s.
Next:
How has your understanding of modesty changed the way you present yourself or the way you see others? How can you live out your God-given sexuality in holier ways?
ajratnam on May 24, 2014 at 2:15 am
Really, almost all the western countries, so called christian country-tag are showing themselves and their bodies in a depraved condition. The Scriptures (the inspired Word of God- the Holy Bible) gives holiness-depicted life styles in public as well as in private.
The actual meaning of the word “apparel” in 1Peter 3:3 is “loose dress” i.e. the dress worn by women(to say females) must not be in such tightness to show the entire shape of the body thereby attracting the lust of eyes from opposite sex, leading to commit sin physically and spiritually.
Where is the necessity of wearing scanty dresses or being naked in public places but of the Satan’s leading?
ajratnam on May 24, 2014 at 2:15 am
Really, almost all the western countries, so called christian country-tag are showing themselves and their bodies in a depraved condition. The Scriptures (the inspired Word of God- the Holy Bible) gives holiness-depicted life styles in public as well as in private.
The actual meaning of the word “apparel” in 1Peter 3:3 is “loose dress” i.e. the dress worn by women(to say females) must not be in such tightness to show the entire shape of the body thereby attracting the lust of eyes from opposite sex, leading to commit sin physically and spiritually.
Where is the necessity of wearing scanty dresses or being naked in public places but of the Satan’s leading?
alseeking on May 24, 2014 at 2:38 am
The sexualisation of all people is wrong. Some clothes manufactures of the world produce clothes to sexualise people, & pornography, to degrade sex & the human body.
However, the human body is beautifully made. God made it so. However, after the fall (original sin) Adam & Eve, saw that they were naked (Genesis 3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. ASV). Adam and Eve were naked before the fall. Being naked was not sinful, disobeying God was.
Ezekiel 16:24-25 you built a pagan shrine and put altars to idols in every town square. (The sin of Idolatry). 25 On every street corner you defiled your beauty, offering your body to every passerby in an endless stream of prostitution. (The sin of prostitution).
2 Corinthians: 16:17 Don’t touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you. (Don’t defile ourselves with idols, only have the one true God,Yahweh).
Living in a cold, wet climate, is it wrong to sunbath naked, in private, when the weather permits?
freddyb633 on May 24, 2014 at 7:48 am
I understand about how we should be moral. The entire world should be moral, and their are many unbelievers who are moral,who do dress conservative and are going to hell. Morality is not spirituality. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ makes a person spiritual, and when we sin (and we will) we grieve the Holy Spirit, and when we confess our sin we are back in fellowship with God by faith not by keeping a list of taboos.