Satan's Influence On Our Lives

A little tidbit from the Bible study I am working on for Thursday.

What might Satan have learned from the exchange in the Garden of Eden? First, woman was easily deceived. Secondly, the woman was able to get man to do what he would not have ordinarily done on his own. Thirdly, when the time came to be accountable for his actions, man blames the woman and God for giving her to him. It’s the perfect plan. Deceive women into believing lies contrary to God’s Word. Use them to manipulate men and themselves into sin. Separate both man and woman from God by shame, guilt and blame towards each other and God.

I am really excited about this study. I have been digging in very deeply to the whole "image thing" for my personal self much more deeply than I will take this study. It has been just fascinating. You know, God created us, we are His masterpiece and when God created us in His image He defined us. No one else has the right to do that, especially not Satan. But as women, who do we listen to more? God's Word or Satan's Word? What do we believe about ourselves? What God's Word says or what the rest of the world and media says we should believe? How do we view our bodies as women? As a holy temple, beautiful, strong, created to do good works, worthy of love & respect, and a masterpiece created by God? Or are we created to be defined by worldly views, instruments of pleasure, needing to be beautiful & sexy on the outside, weak, fearful, unworthy of love, disrespected and allowing our sex to be demeaned by media, always finding flaws in our selves? Oh my, I was feeling more than a little convicted by this study. I must say I naturally am more inclined to believe Satan's lies and work in the world than I am to live what God's Word says about me when it comes to image/my outward self. Thankfully I learned a bit back to root my identity in who I am in Christ (please reference the sidebar for all the verses that say who we are in Christ in statement form). I am so not perfect in living that out but I have come a very long way in that regard and continue to grow in that journey.

Thursday night or Friday morning I will post the study. I hope you enjoy it. This morning as I was at the YMCA taking another Zumba class I was very aware that most of the moves we were doing, I would NEVER do in public. As an exercise class, fine. But sadly, even the way we dance as women is just mostly geared toward degrading our true selves and we make ourselves sex objects. All the moves we do are dance moves that are danced all over the world. I wonder why it is that we feel the need to gain affirmation or that we can only get a man's attention by being either beautiful and/or sexy? I am guilty, I won't pretend otherwise. Oh yes, Miss. Jennifer from the age of 23 to 27 was all about being little Miss. Sexy Pants. If there was a platform, table or bar ledge I could dance on you can better believe I was on it. Oddly enough I never showed my cleavage, not ever. I would wear short skirts, tight jeans, show my belly, and wear tight shirts but for some reason I drew the line at showing the girls. I always said those were "viewing by invitation only". Ha ha, I guess that was the Holy Spirit in me saying "Girl, what are you doing?" Thank Heavens for that!

During this study I remembered something I forgot that happened to me a long time ago on a date. I wore something on a date that I never should have. It was a flesh colored dress and it was very very thin and over top of it was a flesh colored lace. By looking at it at a quick glance it looked like I was wearing the lace only. Although it covered me, it was very sexy and people were always trying to look through the lace to see if they could see my skin. I thought it was funny but I never wore it again after this date. I knew I was in trouble when in the middle of the date the guy said he couldn't take it anymore and was trying to pull my dress off my shoulder, he said he couldn't understand how I could be wearing all lace but he couldn't see anything. This was a three piece suit IBM executive, surely someone that smart could figure out there was something under the lace? Um, no. So at the end of the date he pushed me into my apartment and said I had driven him crazy enough trying to see what was under my dress all night. Needless to say a struggle ensued. Thankfully I worked out six days a week with weights and I was very strong and able to hold my own in the struggle. This only seemed to egg him on even more though, he was very determined he was going to get what he wanted. Luckily for me a friend of mine had just discovered her fiancee had been cheating and I had let her stay at my apartment for a few days to clear her head. She heard the struggle which woke her up and turned on the lights and hit him with something. We both shoved him out the door thankfully. If she had not been there I am not sure what would have actually happened but none of it was going to be good. I can accept my responsibility in that escapade now. Clearly the guy was a jerk, yes. But, look what wearing something geared toward making men want to see more of you, wearing something that was totally enticing did to him? None of that would have happened if I had not worn that dress. I know this because I had gone out with this guy 4 other times and he was a perfect gentleman all the other times. We really need to not use our bodies to fan the flames of lust for anyone other than our spouses. It's not healthy. I say that not as someone anti sex, I am a big fan of it. I think it should be done a lot :) We just don't need to gain affirmation by how "sexy" we can be. I wish I knew this when I was in my twenties. I think we ladies need to be very careful how we carry ourselves and dress ourselves. How hard must it be for a good Christian man in this world? We don't need to make things any harder for the good guys trying to live a life pleasing to the Lord. I hope you agree.

The other thing I've always thought was odd about how us ladies dress ourselves to get men to want us or get attention is this; we will do everything under the sun including pouring hot wax on our eyebrows and have the hair ripped off our faces to make ourselves more appealing and noticeable. A great deal of thought goes into our wardrobe, shoes and hair. We do this to be noticeable and beautiful and acceptable. What do men do? They put on jeans, a polo and put little thought into what shoes they may wear. And guess what? We notice them, we want them. They don't go to great lengths to make themselves more "manly" , oh maybe some work out and a big thank you to those of you guys who do because we ladies really enjoy a well muscled torso. Oh my, I can't watch the volleyball scene from Top Gun. It makes me think very bad things!!!!! I know I heard an Amen on that one. But the point is that they don't do all the crazy stuff us ladies do and it does not make them any less desirable to us gals? I think the men would still want us ladies if none of us dressed to be sexy. Of course they would, we're women. And I think a decently dressed lady who is very confident in herself is a very attractive thing.

Well, to quote Forrest Gump, "that's all I have to say about that."

Love ya,

Jenn