First I want to note that you can be fashionable and modest at the same time, although it is a difficult task that requires both mindful and intentional dressing. While I believe the calling of modesty is for all women, I don't think being modestly fashionable is a sin, however it can be if it becomes a source of security for you. That is what I want to write about today.
Security. What is it? Where does it come from? Can you live without it? These are all great questions regarding the things that we feel comforted in and safe in. If placed in anything other than God, it is false security and is foolishness. Feeling secure and being secure are different. You might feel secure with something, but it may not truly offer you any security whatsoever.
There are many, many things that can make us feel secure, and Satan can use these things to derail us from the true security found in Christ alone. Money, a career, a home, clothing, food, good health, beauty, a car, nice stuff, and relationships are just a few of the things that we can begin to feel a false security in. Most of these things are usually not bad in and of themselves, but to grow so fond of them that without them you feel a little lost, well that isn't good. Having freedom in Christ is being able to live without these things being a priority or of importance in our lives. True freedom is found when they aren't. As I've given up two of them, clothing and beauty, I've found more freedom than I've felt in a while.
When it comes right down to it, false security can be found in anything that isn't eternal. The root of the security is that we find some kind of value in it. In the Bible, Jesus says:
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
~Matthew 6:19-21~
What you value is where your heart is, and where your heart is, well there is your reward. Is your reward only as good as the temporary things you trust in, or do you trust in God and have reward with Him? You cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24), and when we begin to feel secure in things other than God, those things begin to be forms of security and without them we are incomplete. I do not want to feel incomplete without make-up or stylish clothes on, but I do want to feel incomplete without Christ because I am incomplete without Him.
Fashion, clothing, and beauty were beginning to take precedence in my life and it was only when I took them away that I realized the value I placed in them. It's sad, but I'm so grateful that God has revealed this to me now instead of on the day of Judgement. I would rather stand corrected now than stand guilty then. I still have a lot to learn and a long ways to go, but I am strengthened knowing that my value and worth is placed in a God who is eternal, and not in a something as fleeting as beauty and fashion.
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?"
~Matthew 6:25-27~
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