Before reading this, you should read this post from Beauty from the Heart. Very thought-provoking!
I was visiting Beauty from the Heart recently (one of my favorite sites, if you haven’t already figured that out!) and read their post entitled, “Overbearing Daddies and Magazines That Care.” It talks about how a certain teenage magazine thinks that a father protecting his daughter’s purity is, well, bizarre and grossly restrictive.
Reading about this, I was once again saddened by the way our culture takes the truly beautiful and makes it look undesirable (such as purity and faithfulness to your future husband, while it takes the truly undesirable (ungodly) and makes it appear beautiful (such as adultery and fornification).
Then, I realized that it’s not just our culture. It’s been going on since sin entered God’s creation. You see, one of the first deceptive tricks used by Satan on Eve was making the undesirable- the forbidden- appear beautiful. He made the beautiful- walking with God and trusting and obeying Him- appear undesirable. Satan made Eve question her Creator’s goodness.
“But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that it was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” Genesis 3:4-6
We know the results of Adam and Eve’s taking of the fruit: banishment from the Garden, banishment from fellowship with the Lord, their Creator. And we know the happy ending to the story: redemption in Christ by the grace of God and work of the Holy Spirit. Until the Lord takes us to Heaven, though, we still live in a fallen, sinful world. And Satan still uses the same trick to tempt us into sinning. He makes us question God and what God has told us is beautiful.
Our sinful world (and culture) also gives us this deceptive message (I John 5:19, James 4:4). We are told that it is much more beautiful to be a seductive woman than to be a pure woman. Because what is purity anyway? Just some crazy set of rules to keep us from having fun?
See, our loving Heavenly Father knows the ramification for sin. We do, too. We can read about the Fall and see how it brought pain, suffering, death, separation from the Lord. Sin destroys.
“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full grown brings forth death.” James 1:14-15
From this verse, we see that sin comes out of our own hearts- our own desire. Our hearts are so corrupt that we have no hope of overcoming sin and knowing what is true and what is false. We must constantly look upward to the One who gave us life, reading His Word and thus filling our minds with a different message than the one the culture is giving us.
Then, knowing God’s truth, we must trust and obey Him, even when our culture thinks we’re being foolish, even when our own hearts object.
The Lord, our Heavenly Father, has something better than what this world promises. Can you wait? Can you trust? Can you obey?
