I went to the store earlier this week, and as I was waiting in line, I heard a song that struck me. I don’t know the whole song, but it was about is the singer who wants to move on with her life and leaving her boyfriend behind. What got me was this line: “You’re on my heart just like a tattoo. Just like a tattoo, I’ll always have you.”

When most people think of modesty and purity, they think of physical aspect of it. What they don’t get is it is so much more than that. It is emotional too. Actually if you really think about it, the emotional side of modesty, purity and keeping yourself that way is the most important part.

It is easy to keep your physical self pure, but it is way harder to keep your mind and emotions pure. You don’t have the same kind of accountability in keeping your mind and emotions pure as you do keeping your physical self. If your dress is immodest, then someone who loves you and cares about your purity will tell you, but no one knows what is in your mind. No one knows the thoughts you have. No one can tell you those thoughts are immodest because they don’t know them. They can’t read your mind. They don’t know what you are thinking about unless you tell them and most of the time, you don’t tell anyone. So all the thoughts and emotions you have just stay inside of you. That is not a good thing.

Being modest is also about keeping yourself to only your future spouse. When you have a boyfriend/girlfriend, and you spend time with them, and do things with them and become attached to them, they always will be with you. You will always remember them. They are imprinted in you. The line in the song is really true. The relationships you have now will always be like a tattoo on you and your thoughts and your heart.

I once heard the analogy that you are like a jar of Peanut M&M’s. Whenever you hold hands with someone, spend time alone with them, share emotions with them, etc, you are giving one of your ‘M&M’s’ away to that person.

Do you want to get up to the altar with your future spouse and have a half full jar or even almost full jar of ‘M&M’s’ to them to have for the rest of your life? Or do you want them to have a completely full jar?
The emotional side of modesty and purity is the most important part of your being a Godly young man or woman of God. We must keep our thoughts and emotions under His control and not give any of our ‘M&M’s’ to anyone, until it is our future spouse.

Modesty is more than a dress or apparel issue. Whether you are modest or not is based on where your heart is. If you have a modest heart, then you will have a modest apparel. Even more so than our apparel being modest, we need to make sure our hearts, emotions and thoughts are also modest.

In order to make sure we are completely modest, we need to make sure our hearts are modest. The Bible talks about a modest heart:

1 Timothy 2:9-10
“In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, costly array;
But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.”

You have to have a modest heart to have a modest dress. God doesn’t care about the outside, He looks at the inside.

1 Samuel 16:7
“But the LORD said, ‘Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.‘”

So if you are the most modestly-dressed person, and your heart is not modest, then God doesn’t see your clothes, only your heart. And to Him you are immodest.
I don’t think that modesty of apparel and emotions are only for girls either. I believe that they are also for guys. Guys need to be just as modest as us girls. The way they look at us, talk about us, think about us, etc. If the girls need to guard themselves and not cause our brothers to sin, by the way we act, dress, etc, then I believe that guys need to guard themselves also. They need to not associate with the immodest girls, nor act immodest toward girls. Turn away from temptation.

Modesty is a two sided issue. It applies to both the guys and girls. It is a heart issue.

I pray for each of my friends and myself, that as we grow towards becoming the young men and women God wants us to be, that we keep not only our dress and apparel modest, but also our thoughts and emotions. I know I don’t want to go to the altar with anything else than a full jar of ‘M&M’s’ for my future husband. I want the same for each of you that I know.

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