Sweet girl, let me share a few thoughts on how you can save yourself for a man who will honor God and treasure you. This requires both physical and emotional purity.
Boys are physically and visually oriented. Your body holds great influence over them. And I get. I know that it feels good to get attention from guys. But if you want the kind of man that will treasure you forever, you have got to free yourself from the chokehold that culture has locked you in. Dear, every day in so many ways you will be given the message that sexy is fun and successful, desirable and adventurous. But in all reality, sexy outside of a covenant marriage relationship is so damaging.
First, it is damaging to you. The more focus you have on being sexy, the more danger you are in of viewing your self-worth on the scales of physical beauty. And little one, let me tell you that physical beauty is fleeting. It. Does. Not. Last. So trust me when I say that you do not want your identity grounded in your body. And that’s what dressing to be sexy does to you. It consumes you and confuses you into believing that your value is tied to your body and the attention you can get from it.
Second, it is damaging to guys. Knowing how much power your body can hold over a guy should deeply convict you to present your body in a way that glorifies God. For as momentarily good as it feels to get a glance of affirmation or attention from a guy because of the way you are dressed, there is not one ounce of him that respects you or treasures you. In the moment you’ll convince yourself that they like you – that they think you are special – when really they just like being turned on by your body. I know. I’ve been there.
God wired you with an appreciation for beauty, and there is nothing wrong with wanting to look and dress nice, but you have been called to clothe yourself in righteousness… so save sexy for your wedding night. And I promise you, you will be glad you guarded your sexuality for marriage instead of just handing it out wherever you got any attention.
Dear one, don’t open the door for guys to make assumptions about your character based on what you wear. Whether it’s fair and right or not, guys will analyze you based on the way you dress. Dressing immodestly is sending out the message that rather than needing to be fought for, you are available to be used. When a guy sees your body his mind will start thinking of you in terms of how he can physically benefit from you, not how he can treasure you.
And dressing immodestly is making physical and mental purity a rough battleground for the guys who do have it in them to treasure you, guys that are fighting to keep their thoughts pure. So treat the guys in your life like brothers. And honor them with how you choose to dress. There should never be a day when you are not thinking about whether what you are wearing could be a source of temptation for the guys around you or a blessing to them.
As you look around you will see that immodesty is quickly becoming the normal. The world will try to convince you that dressing in a way that shows off your body is acceptable and even desirable. But daughter, you are not called to be “normal” or “acceptable.” You are called to be holy. Set apart. Because your God – the God who formed you and gave you great worth – is holy. So dress according to His standards, not the world’s.
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I deeply believe that baring your heart is just as dangerous as baring your body. Your heart is a precious organ. It is comprised of both physical and spiritual elements that simultaneously make it the very center of your life.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
Proverbs 4:23
Another translation says,
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”
Emotional purity is viewing your heart as a great treasure only to be shared with your husband With the exception of your Daddy, if a man is not your husband, Do. Not. Share. Your. Heart. With. Him. That kind of intimacy and vulnerability is so dangerous.
If is man is not your husband he should not be in your inner circle. The circle of people who know you intimately and whom you share your heart with. Baring your heart to guys is setting a dangerous pattern for the future. Emotional vulnerability is an intimate part of who you are. You should not feel deeply connected to a man that you are not married to. Because most often, emotional intimacy quickly leads to physical intimacy. And unless you are married your heart and your body have to be guarded. Always.
Because you are an emotional, relational creature you will be drawn towards portrayals of emotional and relational intimacy. And more often than not romantic novels and movies set up a standard in relationships that is unattainable and unrealistic. It is emotional pornography.
They condition you into believing that to be in love means to be physically attracted to someone and to feel breathless when you are around them. And while physical attraction isn’t a bad thing it cannot be foundational to a relationship. And the breathless, heart-won’t-stop-skipping feelings don’t last. If that’s what you are defining love as then as soon as those feelings end with one guy you’ll move on to the next.
Or they are like the Twilight series that portray love as being an obsession. Love is pictured as an “it’s me and him against the world” ordeal where no one understands you and nothing means anything to you except for him.
They build up a standard of a man who always plans the most romantic dates and says the right things, who overcomes the most insurmountable obstacles to be with you and makes all of your worries and problems go away… a man who completes you. But he can’t. A man will never complete you…because there is nothing to complete. You are complete in Christ.
There is not a man out there who has not been born into sin. Not one single man who will not end up hurting you or disappointing you over time. And if you buy into the lie that the perfect guy is out there waiting for you, you will never be satisfied in any relationship you are ever in.
Emotional purity is realizing that love is not a perfect, happy ending, or a butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling, but the choice to go through the hard, heart-aching work of sacrificially sharing life with another person and working through all of the disagreements and pain and disappointment. Because you are one sinner bound to another, both on the road to becoming more like Christ, and committed to always living with the other’s best interest in mind.
Emotional purity is believing that love is about another person not yourself. And until you get your mind wrapped fully around the truth that you can never be more loved than you are right now – that you are complete in Christ – you are not in a place to love and be loved by a man.
Now that doesn’t mean that if you are single it’s because you’re not yet satisfied in Christ or that as soon as you are established in your identity in Christ God will cross your path with the man you will soon marry. You may feel complete in Christ for 20 years before you meet your husband. You may never marry at all. And that’s okay.
The point is, little one, if you are trying to find your identity in a man or you’re filling your desire to be treasured with cheap expressions of love you will never find satisfaction.
Emotional and physical intimacy is a powerful bond that is only to be met in marriage and will only bring satisfaction in marriage. So guard your heart and your body.
They are so valuable.
And so are you.
-Mommy
Beyond Undone 