I get many questions and comments on my Youtube channel about what to wear and what not to wear. There have been many sermons and churches that condemn pants and other types of beauty and aesthetics. In this video, I share about our freedom in Christ and our boundaries with that freedom--- I know, boundaries with freedom; but it's for our good. 😉
Our clothes are not alive. Clothes are amoral. Amoral means they are without a moral compass, without a sense of right and wrong, because they are objects. Pants aren't sinning, food doesn't sin. It's what we do with them that brings the transgression or offense. We are the ones who are in control of what we do, so it's not that these things are a sin, but where our heart is when using them.
For example, I've heard many people misquote the scripture, "money is the root of all evil." When the scripture actually says that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil. My Pastor in Nashville always said, "I've never seen a 20 dollar bill rob someone." In the same way, pants can't send you to hell because it has done no wrong! It's what we do with these things that make it immoral or righteous.
So wear what you want, but don't let it be an opportunity for your flesh. Wear your pants but don't let it be an opportunity to be lustful or to show off how big your booty is. Wear your tank top, but don't let it be just to pop your cleavage out. Let it be pure, but in order for it to be pure, you have to be pure in your heart about it. If you have Christ in your heart, He makes you pure inside and it shows on the outside. You will choose what you do based upon the change in your heart.
Let's talk about our freedom in Christ in Galatians 5:1,
'It was for this freedom that Christ set us free [completely liberating us]; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery [which you once removed].'
In Galatians 5, Paul was speaking to the Galatian Church because they were always using the law of circumcision to make them righteous or pure, as was their custom. And the Gentiles, who were grafted into the Gospel of Jesus, did not have the law. The Gentiles had immoral freedom apart from the law. The Apostles had to deal with two types of Christians: the rigid who relied on the law for righteousness, and those who always had their freedoms from the law due to immorality. So the Apostles always had to reprimand the churches and instruct them according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which made them free. The Jews were instructed to stop telling the Gentiles that they had to be circumcised to believe in Christ, and the Gentiles were told to stop abusing their freedom in Christ to do the immoral things they used to do: eating the food of idols, sexual sinning.
To sum it up, we have our freedom in Christ. Wear what you want, but it is not an opportunity to abuse grace and freedom and give our flesh what it wants. "Oh, I can wear pants now so let me wear them tight to show off my butt", etc. We have to be sensitive to our own motivations, because that is what God is looking at, your heart. He doesn't focus on the appearance of things, rather the heart. We have to watch and guard ourselves against falling back into a yoke of slavery. The moment we give our flesh one opportunity, it shows up in other areas of our lives. It's not just in matters of dress, we start to compromise in other areas of our life if we give our flesh one moment of glory.
Many of you might not know this, but I am the Founder of Entertaining God Magazine, where we promote faith-based talent and minister to them. There was this music video by a female rapper that was really good. It was very different and kinda mainstream and she was dressed provocatively but the video was great. In the comments, someone said, "I like this video, but you're not modest, it's provocative, etc" and her response was, "I've reached a level of maturity in my faith to be able to do this" (I'm probably paraphrasing, this was a while ago)
And that to me was risky to say because we are never at a level of maturity to let our flesh have its way. I'm never at a level of my faith when I can drink alcohol in excess. There is modesty to everything but we are foolish to think that we can "handle it". Our flesh is always going to try to overpower us, it is a daily fight to subdue it. So just because you've been in Christ for ten or fifteen years doesn't mean that your flesh can have a little fun. Our flesh wants to have its way and my Pastor in Nashville has always said, "When you give sin an inch, it will take a mile." And then we wake up one day and wonder how did we get so far? It's because we gave it a little bit.
So to wrap it up, in Christ, we are free, but not free to become a slave to anything. It's time we stopped using our bodies to be slaves to the culture, slaves to our own lusts. "Clothe yourselves as God's own chosen ones, His own picked representatives, who are purified, holy, and well-beloved by God." - Colossians 3:12
Learn more about God's love for you here.