After over a decade of living according to someone else’s rules, out of fear that I was somehow responsible for all men who might fall to lust, I escaped that trap of bondage. I didn’t grow up in a traditional Christian home. My family considered themselves Christians, but certainly not a discipled Christian family. I honestly didn’t understand what a Christian even was until much later in life. I grew up in Southern California, spending most of my summers at the beach. I don’t recall ever hearing the word ‘modest’ until I stepped foot in an old fashioned hell fire damnation church in my early twenties. I stepped away from a partying type of world into a very controlled religious environment.

Talk about going from one extreme to the other!

After leaving that place of control, which was motivated by fear, my pendulum began to swing once again. I knew I didn’t want to go all the way back to the other extreme, so I planted my feet firmly in the foundation of Christ and began what I consider to be my most diligent search for practical Christian living, ever.

I didn’t want to be a legalist, nor did I want to go back to living the life of a Prodigal Daughter. I desperately needed to know where grace was going to help be stay balanced in the middle. I was looking for a middle ground, because quite frankly I couldn’t find grace in the legalistic extreme, nor could I find anything healthy on the Prodigal side of life.  There has been a lot that I realized by living on both sides of the spectrum and one of the most profound things I have seen is a total lack of balance if we remain on either side.

The Prodigals aren’t able to accurately describe their pain in a way that the legalists can understand. Most Prodigals are hurting and angry and many lack the ability to express that in ways a legalist will even think to listen to. The legalists are so far right that they can’t hear of someone else’s pain, especially if they are the ones who inflicted such pain, because they feel totally justified in their beliefs, regardless of whether or not someone is hurt by it. They often use the Bible as their justification for being harsh.

This is a dilemma that covers many cultural decisions we face as Christians and neither end of the spectrum seems to be able to see clearly.

Can we come to the middle and discuss a few things?

I wrote about the legalistic side of modesty and how it can become destructive as we place unnecessary burdens on women. Attempting to make women perform religiously in their attire isn’t going to help a man’s problem with lust anymore than his attempts to make scripture memorization some kind of sin repellent.

Now lets take a look at the other side of the coin on this issue.

This is the side where I feel is best studied as a disciple of Christ. If you have no desire to be discipled, then this isn’t for you. A person is certainly free to walk away from becoming a disciple. That is where I stand firmly as a pro choice advocate for believers. I am pro choice in regard to believers having the choice to become a disciple or not. I hold nothing against those who decide to walk away from this part of the Christian life. It’s not an easy endeavor at all and there are many battles within Christendom that are not easy to deal with. I don’t believe that becoming a disciple is mandatory. I believe that is between the person and Christ.

When a person is ready to become a disciple, I think they need to find someone who is balancing as close to the middle as possible so you can learn to avoid the extremes that are both as unhealthy as the other.

There is a life in Christ that is neither Prodigal or Legalist.

Yes, it’s possible!

Becoming a legalist is not going to protect you from falling to sin. In fact, I think being a legalist is probably more dangerous than being a Prodigal. When one is a legalist they become very good at covering up their problems and fail to be able to find help, because their other legalistic brethren will not show grace. They want to hold everyone as close to the farthest side of ‘right’ as they can. This makes it very difficult to allow God to do His part.

Mankind tends to get in his way like that.

Don’t fall!

I’m so sorry, but falling is a part of life.

I don’t mean that you should go jump off the cliff, but if we think we can’t fall then we are deceived.

Just when you think you can’t fall, because you’ve taken all the ‘far right side’ precautions, it is then that you just might.

God wants us to walk by faith.

Walking by faith can’t be achieved when we are walking on the ‘solid-rightness-of-I-will-never-fall-because-I-live-by-the-rules’ end of the spectrum.

Discipleship.

Your choice.

I support your choice.

I’m Pro Choice like that.

I think God is too. (and I’ll write about this soon, so lets not get argumentative about that before the article is actually published. Please hold off on your ‘Farewell Sisterlisa’ tweets ok?)

So you decided to become a disciple and now you’re wondering what this Modesty issue is all about.

Our freedom, the Liberty that the apostle Paul wrote of. Ya, that liberty thing.

It’s like a super power. We were given the power to become the sons (and daughters) of God.

There’s a power in this grace.

It’s like the comic books. A person realizes they have come into some kind of super power and often the first thing they need to decide is how they will use that super power.

Will they become a villain or a hero?

What will you do with this power called grace?

Would you like to depart with your inheritance like the Prodigal Son? Are you a rogue wild stallion?

Will you be a controlling dictator trying to harness everyone else’s power to create your own legion of soldiers?

Lets talk about learning how to become a team in this powerful world of grace.

Modesty is a super power when grace is involved.

Paul called it temperance.

In the comic series X-Men, Cyclops wears a special kind of glasses that controls his super laser vision, that without the glasses would destroy everything he looks at.

A woman is created beautifully. God created her. The first woman was Eve and I bet she was a total knock out!

Prior to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam never viewed her with a lustful eye. He probably looked at her and admired her beauty in every aspect, just like God does. (which, by the way, IS possible)

After feasting on that cursed tree, he now views her through tainted vision and lust conceives.

Many people in the world today, both in churches and outside churches, feast on that same tree.

Us women can’t control their vision. That is between the men and God.

But our beauty, our curves, our skin, is power. It can be used for evil or for good.

In my former life I used it for evil. I flaunted my female powers of persuasion for my own selfish reasons.

And it works.

But a female disciple of Christ should be mindful of this and choose to conceal that power, like Cyclops does with his special glasses.

I know I am free in Christ. My sin is covered by the blood, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to run nude in the streets.

Give me a break!

Don’t laugh, but I’d probably scare the poor guys more than cause them to lust.

But there are women with great figures, fabulous tans, and great curves.

They have a greater burden to bear, their super power is heightened by these natural attractions that GOD gave them.

Some beautiful women will tell you they feel like it’s a curse.

No matter how professionally they dress, they are victims of lustful men who have no self control.

We need to find balance.

It’s a personal choice and for those who have made the choice to be as modest as possible, I thank you.

I applaud you.

But even the most modestly clothed woman can have a very impure heart in her attack on women who don’t want to be disciples.

Those women are no better than the hooker in Hollywood who flaunts her power to make money with married men.

The Prodigal and the Legalist are equals.

And anyone smack dab in the middle are just as equal in God’s eyes and we’re all living out our choices.

The only thing that holds us together in unity is love.

Grace covers it all.

Colossians 3:12Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

Eucharisteo!

That very difficult place where being thankful is so very hard.

That’s why we need His humility to manifest in our lives.

Don’t attack the beautiful women, they have a greater burden of beauty to bear. We should be their sisters in support!

We work better together when we’re linked arm in arm advancing forward for the cause of Christ, which is love.

If you want to be a disciple, use your power of grace wisely.

It’s your choice.

Related Articles:

Equally Loved leads to Humility

Sin Repellent is Worthless

The Battle Between the Law Givers and the Grace Embracers

There’s a story that you may have read being sent through a “FWD” via email about a woman carrying water pots every day, with one cracked and leaking water. What she didn’t know was that someone else had known about this leaky pot and planted seeds on that side of the road so the water would cause the seeds to grow. It created a beautiful garden along the road side, providing beauty and showing them that even a cracked pot could bring forth something glorious. I wonder if anyone else had thought that maybe this tragedy in Japan is a “cracked pot” that will bring a blessing?

{photo credit Scott Bertolini}

Ann writes in her book, ‘One Thousand Gifts’ that thankfulness precedes a miracle. I also noticed that the media has reported an amazing thing about the Japanese people during this tragedy. The Japanese people are cooperating with their government and with one another during this time. When Katrina hit, all ‘you-know-what’ broke loose in New Orleans and many people began looting, raping, and killing each other. So which country exhibits the works of the flesh and which one has the fruit of the Spirit? Yes, the earth quakes..and the tsunamis hit..and Japan wasn’t the only nation who suffered. But God’s glory will be seen and in many ways already has.

Have you seen the responses on their faces when they could finally use the phones and hear their loved ones speaking to them? That they lived? Did you read about the 4 month old baby girl who lived after being swept away from her parents? They are thankful to be alive. The ‘eucharisteo’ that Ann speaks of. To be patient and thankful in adversity…Japan has exhibited that..whereas New Orleans lacked quite a bit of that. And America is supposedly known as the nation of “God”? May God find us faithful to love and be thankful when adversity hits us. So what is it that Japan has that causes their people to be cooperative and helpful to their neighbors? I think they are being quit an example to us over here in America. I pray their “cracked pot waters the soil” and may we recognize the glorious work of our Lord instead of trying to condemn them with our westernized view of Christianity. God turns things around for his GLORY. May the grace abound all the more.

I think that Christians have a lot to learn when it comes to going through adversity. Perhaps the freedom they all enjoy in America has them so spoiled that they have lacked compassion on others when they suffer. Many times I see Christians raging with condemnation for others as they suffer. Why do so many Christians thrive on judgment, when mercy triumphs over judgment? Why do they find such pleasure in their flesh when jumping on the bandwagon to rub in more condemnation on top of what they’re already suffering? Do you attend funerals of those who didn’t agree with your theology with picket signs that say they deserved to die? Do you attempt to “sweetly” poison people with smooth words of hate to insist on your version of why tragedy strikes? Why can’t we be more like Christ who grieves and weeps for people? Where’s the compassion for people who suffer? Why do so many Christians demand their “freedom of speech” that kills people all the more. It’s as if they find pleasure in ‘killing the body and mind in Gehenna’.

I don’t care how nicely you try to say that you think tragedy is a judgment and hell is deserving..the listener hears “I hate you and think you deserve this”. No matter how sweet you say it, you still sound like the cult who pickets funerals with hate signs. They just amp up their voices louder than other Christians do..they believe the same message many western Christians do, they just obey it to the letter whereas the others seem to be afraid of what they believe. If they really practiced what they preached they’d join the same funeral picket lines.

There’s something deeper inside us though, I think. I sure hope you hear that same voice I hear.. “Be still and know that I am God” Do we hear him stilling our voices before the words leave our vocal chords? We hesitate holding up a picket sign that says people are hated and deserving of judgment. Maybe we hesitate because the message isn’t clear and God is trying to get our attention.

Maybe there’s a deeper truth God is teaching us through this tragedy in Japan. Maybe he wants us to hear what he has to say about mercy and grace. Do you love your neighbor (Japan) as you love yourself? If your home was destroyed in a tornado would you tell everyone you know that you suffered a tornado because you were in some kind of sin that only God knew of? Or maybe these earthquakes, tsunamis, and tornadoes are natural occurrences that have been happening for many years as a result of the earth growing? Maybe these tragedies are not judgments, but rather tests, like what Job went through.

Will we be like Job’s wife or like Job? Will we toss the tragedy around as if it’s a curse or as if it’s a blessing?

Eucharisteo indeed.

James 2:12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.

The law of liberty is in Christ. This is where freedom is. The freedom to receive grace, the freedom to offer grace.

Do we speak and act as people of grace?

James 2:13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

I would be very very cautious of running to heap judgment on people without mercy. Those who show no mercy are denied mercy to themselves. You see, God believes that mercy triumphs over judgment.

Romans 11:32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

People of wonderful grace reach out to others with wonderful grace. People who walk after judgment, are people of judgment.

{photo credit by Sprittibee}

Galatians 3:25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

Acts 4: 29And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. 

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