Dress for success

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to

withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore,

having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of

righteousness, and having shod your feed with the preparation of the gospel

of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to

quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of

salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

(Ephesians 6:13–17)


Growing up in my family we were taught to take off our school clothes and

put on our play clothes when we came home from school. When we went

to church we wore our church clothes, and when we were going on a

family outing we wore our good clothes. The event predicated the type of

garments we wore. We didn’t go outside to play in our church clothes, and

we didn’t go on family outings in our school clothes. We learned at an early

age how to dress for the occasion.

These principles can also and should also be applied to how we dress once

we become Christians. We place so much focus on the suit, the dress, the

shoes, the hair, the nails, the hat, the tie, the haircut, and/or whatever else

we have to make us look the part on Sunday mornings. Yet, the scriptures

describe Jesus as one who had no form or comeliness; and when we see

Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and

rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid,

as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem

Him. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; het we

esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:2–4)

We must be mindful that our outer appearance does not become a

distraction from the message or, worse, a covering for our spiritual

deficiencies. Let me break it down for you: When we go to the mall, one of

the things we see in the store entrance is a dummy wearing apparel the store

sells. The store hopes that dummy will attract us to enter the store. The

dummy is made up to look good, but underneath the garments there is

nothing more than a hollow shell. There is no life, no substance, no power!

If we want to think about it even further, we can look to the auto industry.

When a car manufacturer designs a new car, it displays the prototype at car

shows to see how consumers respond to the design, the look. The prototype

“looks” like a fully functional vehicle. It has all the outer parts and trimming

that make you recognize it as a car. Generally, although it is fully formed

and looks good on the outside, prototypes at shows generally have nothing

under the hood—no engine, battery, or gas line. There is nothing to give it

the power to do what it ultimately was created to do. All you have is a shell.

It is not enough for us to look good; that’s irrelevant. We need to have the

power of God, the tools of God, and faith in that power and in those tools to

withstand the temptations and attacks of Satan. Our clothing will not protect

us against the warfare we will encounter with Satan. If we depend on that,

we will lose the battle each and every time. Why? For we do not wrestle

against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the

rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in

the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

The scripture text at the beginning of this post will help us to go from

dummy to divine, from prototype to proclaimer.

Are we dressing to go to church or to be the church? Are we nothing more

than a dressed-up dummy or a good-looking prototype? Dress for success

and put on the whole armor of God!

Be blessed. Most of all, be a blessing!
Evangelist Tanya Robinson Williams

Scripture references are from the New King James Version (NKJV)