When it comes to modesty, we as Christians should consider the following: What is the purpose of our dress? 1)Attraction/seduction? or 2)Bringing glory to God?

If we dress in a way to attract/seduce, we are in sin, and probably causing others to sin as well. If you don't think this is serious stuff, let's see what Jesus has to say about this:

"But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. WOE TO THE WORLD FOR TEMPTATIONS TO SIN! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire."
(Matthew 18:6-9)

Christinyou

You must die if you want to be free. Die to thinking that you must do anything in your own strength. If we are working in the flesh we do not have peace and joy. Christ did it all on the cross and you only have to trust in that, in that crucifixion of your old nature two thousand years ago. It took place then. You died with Him so you must start acting as though it is the truth - of course it really is. Trust Him to wield the sword and it becomes operational.

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Ron Halverson

If a person is living in sin, it is their sin not the devils. Who will set us free from this body of sin? How?

Paul says that Christ is the only one that sets us free. How; By His effectual working in us. Col: 27-28

I know I died and the new life in me is Christ by His Spirit and His faith.

I was asking those question to those that blame the devil for everything, when it is my sin Christ died for.

In Christ: Phillip

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Phillip

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Phillip

Holiness is much more that us changing our outward behavior and the way that we dress. Holiness is a matter of the heart, and the Lord is wanting to change our hearts. Legalism and religion will change your outward behavior without the work of the Holy Spirit in conforming us to the image and likeness of Christ.

Our prayer should be the prayer of David, who was a man after God's own heart. "Lord create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me."

The work of grace in our hearts and the sincere love and devotion to the Lord will cause us to walk in obedience to the Lord, and this will take care of our outward behavior and the way that we dress, the places that we go, and the people that we associate with.

It is the nature of man that must be changed, and we have been made partakers of the divine nature. We are what we are by nature. You can take a pig and clean him up, dress him up, teach him all of the social graces, but when you turn him loose, he is heading back to the mud pit, because he has the nature of a pig, which no amount of outward discipline will change.

"Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’”

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”)

He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’” (Mark 7:14-22).



"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26).

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, said the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:" (Hebrews 8:10).

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Mike

"It is the nature of man that must be changed, and we have been made partakers of the divine nature. We are what we are by nature. You can take a pig and clean him up, dress him up, teach him all of the social graces, but when you turn him loose, he is heading back to the mud pit, because he has the nature of a pig, which no amount of outward discipline will change."

Amen!! This is the whole point: our natures need changed. This comes about by the grace of God, the cleansing blood of Christ, and the fullness of the Spirit. He does the work in the heart, and He makes the changes in our life. Many get the cart before the horse. The cart does not pull the horse, the horse pulls the cart. It takes grace to be holy. His holiness working in us, helps us to live holy. The good works follow the Christian, they do not make a person a Christian.

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James

AbideinHim said it well.

Quite true, holiness begins in the heart, and THEN expresses itself in actions. On the one hand, it means that if you are not holy, you need to ask God to change your heart first and foremost. On the other hand, it means that if your actions are not holy, don't even PRETEND that your heart has been made holy. And without holiness, no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

So the question we should ask ourselves is this, "Has God made me holy? Has He given me a new heart that COMPELLS me to follow him? Has He given me the HOLY Spirit who convicts me and redirects me whenever I begin to err?"

And, lest we should have the erroneous idea that being born again has no impact upon our behavior, let us remember that God has said, "Little children, LET NO ONE DECEIVE YOU. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as He is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God."
(1 John 3:7-9)

Is Christ really in you? Has He destroyed the works of the devil in you? Is God's seed in you? Have you been born again?

Love in Christ,
Renoncer

Isaiah 6:5 Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

"Woe is me, for I am undone"

Isaiah became aware of the vast distance between him and the holiness of God. Remember that it is not the confession of a man living in open and actual sin, but of a true servant and child of God, and that the confession pertains to that hidden and subtle sinfulness of nature.

When the believer, who it has been revealed to the condition of his heart and discovers the deep-seated wickedness of his own fallen nature that remain after conversion, and the gulf between that inner fallen nature and the God whom he longs to resemble, and the dishonor which this inward sin brings upon his Lord, there is a woe, heart-rending and poignant.

Edited for spelling

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Colin Murray

What murrcolr said is worth re-reading.

Amen to that!

"Isaiah 6:5 Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

"Woe is me, for I am undone"

Isaiah became aware of the vast distance between him and the holiness of God. Remember that it is not the confession of a man living in open and actual sin, but of a true servant and child of God, and that the confession pertains to that hidden and subtle sinfulness of nature.

When the believer, who it has been revealed to the condition of his heart and discovers the deep-seated wickedness of his own fallen nature that remain after conversion, and the gulf between that inner fallen nature and the God whom he longs to resemble, and the dishonor which this inward sin brings upon his Lord, there is a woe, heart-rending and poignant."

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Janice