I’m writing about modesty.

Those who have issues with this topic and don’t hold the same values in Jesus and Christianity as I do can dismiss, since I’m not necessarily writing to that audience, though I wish those of you in this category would open your minds a tad to how your choices always affect more people than just yourselves.

But those who have issues with this topic and DO hold the same values in Jesus as I do SHOULD read this. I feel a strong need to challenge and call up higher the women in our generation desiring to be more like Jesus.

I also want to say that I haven’t always held this strong conviction. I once had a strong feministic view on reality, figuring that my decisions for myself were for me, and that people who disliked my decisions should get over it because my life shouldn’t affect them. The clothes I wore shouldn’t affect them either and BESIDES, being a curvy woman with a big booty made it hard as it was to wear things that didn’t bring attention to that area of my body.

But over the past few years God has been changing my heart. And this is the thing that I had to come to grips in order to look more like Jesus and HAVE more of Jesus:

MY LIFE IS NOT ABOUT ME. 

“Everything is permissible”–but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”–but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. 1 CORINTHIANS 10:23-24

I have the ability and often the right to do whatever I want. I am able in and of myself to wear whatever I want, and that is permissible. But we are not called to live a life of doing whatever we want and getting away with whatever we want! We aren’t called to look out for ourselves but to look out for OTHERS.

Ladies, if you are following Jesus, or better yet claiming to be a follower of Christ, we live in a world that desperately needs to see what that looks like. We need to recognize that we are not living for ourselves; we are living to see God’s kingdom come. We are in a world that desperately needs to see a posture of respect for others and selflessness that exudes in how we dress.

The argument isn’t and CAN’T BE, “Guys need to learn how to guard their eyes.” or, “I shouldn’t have to worry about what others think about me.” This is selfish and the only interest in any of these statements is self-focused and self-centered.

We aren’t living for ourselves. We are called to build those around us up. We are called to “be an example to all believers in what we say, in the way we live, in our love, our faith, and our purity.” (1Tim 4:12)

Your belly shirts and butt cheek shorts aren’t setting an example. They are causing your brothers in Christ to stumble, and they are setting a bad example to the world of who Jesus is. Your tiny bikini tops and cheeky bikini bottoms are absolutely what the rest of the world finds normal and ok, but we are called to “not copy the behaviors of this world” (Romans 12:2). And if you struggle to see validity in this, I challenge you to go to a brother in Jesus you look up to and ask him what he thinks about swimsuit season and its affects on his mind. I give you permission to talk to my husband about it who has been fighting for purity in his thoughts for 10 years with a group of several other guys.

The goal of your life as a child of God is to learn how to “lose your life for Christ’s sake.” (Matt 16:25). It isn’t to get away with as much as you can and still be a Christian. The WRONG mentality in what you wear is wondering how low or how short you can go without getting talked to by your pastor or discipler. The RIGHT mentality is wanting and desiring to stay as far away from anything that causes your brothers to stumble as possible in what you wear.

I want freedom for my husband. I want freedom for his friends and freedom for the other men in the church that are painstakingly desiring to choose Jesus despite how hard us women are making it for them. I want US to passionately want it for THEM. Because the thing is, we want to marry pure men, but we have a hard time coming alongside them and helping them by admitting that we have a direct affect on their freedom. We want the very thing we are quenching with our selfish choices.

Let’s choose to be women that help men fight for their freedom. Let’s decide that our generation of men ISN’T stuck forever in cycles of impure thoughts by helping them and encouraging them with more than just words, but with OUR lives and the way we choose Jesus FOR them.

This is not a judgment or hateful post. Again, it hasn’t been until the past few years that the Lord began to open my eyes (and EARS) to the guys around me and to my own choices. But we are called to spur each other on and raise each other up. Your life isn’t meant for yourself; it’s meant to be a display of Jesus and his heart for the people around you.

Let’s be women who rise to the challenge of selflessness.