Imagine you meet the girl/guy of your dreams. The two of you end up dating and your feelings for one another grow deeper and stronger as the days go by. Boyfriend will propose to girlfriend because he has a desire to spend the rest of his life with her. Truth is that you have already had many talks about getting married and a few months later that will become a reality.
How will you dress on that day? You will not dress like a slob to your wedding and in most cases neither will you dress casual. The culture for weddings is still to dress your best. The amazing thing is that you will never find a couple on their wedding day that is more focused on what they are wearing than on their spouse to be. Instead of dressing nice simply out of duty and having the feeling of "I have to," deep in their heart is a burning fire that wants to please their mate and they say "I get to."
Many will pay money that they don't have simply to impress the other person. They will go out of their way to make it a special day that they will never forget and out of love and respect for their soon to be spouse they will aim for the very best.
Now I am sure that most of you know where I am going with this. I think it is interesting to note that in the book of Revelation, the church at Ephesus had all of its doctrine spot on. They knew the ins and outs. They knew 1 Samuel 16:7 which talks about how God measures the heart. They knew all of these things, yet they had lost their first love (Revelation 2:4).
They had split the hairs of doctrine so well that they had it all right, yet that became their focus and instead of being consumed with God they were obsessed with just knowing about God. Earlier in this church's life, they would have gone out of their way in order to present their best before Jehovah God, yet the stages of life came in and they began taking God for granted.
Has our attitude about this subject caused us to lose our first love? Our relationship with God is about the heart, but just as a woman craves for her husband to love her, she also desires him to continually go out of his way to impress her, do things for her, and prove his love by showing in action that he wants to give her the very best.
Where is that "love" within the church? In my own heart I have seen myself try to make excuses. I rationalize it by telling myself that I am always in the presence of God, therefore I can't always look my best. If you are a believer in Christ, then it is true that you are inseparably linked with God, however, whether you and I want to except it or not there is a difference.
Our culture has chosen for there to be a specific day out of the week that we come together as a body of believers and worship our God. Why do we dress our best for a mortal girl or a mortal guy, yet refuse to honor the Immortal God by the way we dress? I say this in love so please show me grace, but if you and I dress ourselves the best for a mere human rather than for God, then it is possible that we have become man-pleasing idolaters!
God wants our love for Him to be greater than that of a man and a woman on their wedding day and He doesn't want that to end. He desires that our wedding day love for Him will continue throughout the remainder of our lives and on into eternity.
However, the same concept goes with the fact that if somebody does come to church in jeans or shorts and a T-shirt, then we are not to judge. God does measure the heart. All I am saying is that I believe we should out of love and reverence for our great God and Savior give Him the very best because that is what He deserves. None of us know the heart of another, yet each of us is to glorify God in the highest!
In conclusion, remember that everybody's "best" will be different. Not everybody will be the same, however, each and every one of us is to fully submit ourselves to the Father's will, both internal and external.
Dressing your best is not at all a way to somehow earn God's acceptance because you can never earn it. If you are a believer, then you already have God's full acceptance. Now as believers' in the risen Christ, let us work from that acceptance enjoying God and glorifying Him forever.
"...whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31
Totally agree! Dr. Paul Hiebert (Anthropologist who taught missiology for many years at Trinity Seminary) pointed out how, in many tribal cultures,Christians dress up on Sunday as an outward form of worship (just like singing your best). This is natural worship. Seems when we emphasize any "ONE" characteristic of God above others we get out of balance.
ReplyDeleteThe movement toward casual dress at church came from the movement that realized how much God wants to have a close relationship with us and we can't dress up to achieve what He is already giving.
I can relate to that thinking and I'm not opposed to acting outwardly consistent with it but whenever balance returns to our understanding and maturity, our outward actions will begin to become more consistent with it as well.