It all started back in the sixties and seventies.

It was a by-product of a paradigm shift in the culture.  No segment of society escaped the implications of the “free spirit” mindset. Not even the Body of Christ. As a young boy, I rarely submitted to my parents demands to dress appropriately for Sunday worship service without an argument. I hated to dress up for anything.

But it just so happened that the winds of change were beginning to blow through.

And after the dust settled, some of the debris which blew in began to take root and grow. As a result, the “let your hair down” diet was eagerly digested with jubilant naiveté in the adolescent community. The call to “dress down for church” resonated in the basement haunts of both the youth and young adult ministries as well as the sanctuaries:

“C’mon man, Jesus doesn’t care what you wear, He just looks at your heart!”

The matter of exactly why this was allowed to happen is a discussion for another day. But it did. And I bit the hook, line and sinker. However, it’s neither by tradition nor coincidence that, historically speaking, clear-thinking people have always dressed themselves in a manner that showed respect for any event or person calling for that due consideration.

In other words, what people wore when they were doing something used to speak to the significance of the reason for their presence.

For most of my adult life, I wouldn’t have even considered not wearing my best attire to a wedding, a graduation or a funeral. Having never given it a second though at the time, I realize now that it was because it would’ve appeared blatantly disrespectful to the honoree of any such occasion.

But when Sunday rolled around, assuming I had nothing better to do than to go to church, I’d throw on whatever was convenient—or more often, something that revealed the nature of my personal interests or aspirations at that particular time in my life. As a result, my practice of “dressing down” placed my own significance above that of the Lord’s. Not only that, my warped perception of group worship had evolved into a ludicrous suspicion that dressing up to give thanks and praise to Jesus Christ somehow ran against the grain of what He taught!

That was probably about the time artistic renderings of Christ’s earthly image began to emerge, depicting Him as a hip, cool but passive dude who rejected the traditional standards of attire.

It’s unfortunate that the remnants of this outrageous crusade of the past still linger inside the walls of our present day congregations. This mindset is sustained by a subtle cultivation of the incalculable worth of personal autonomy—just one more seed that blew in and found soil to grow in.

It would seem that the occasion of gathering to worship the Lord would demand an attitude of offering the very best I had to give in every aspect of that function.

And I would think that this standard should also guide anything I desire to give in His service, whether in financial contributions, time or prayer. Giving God my best demands the best of my intentions. That’s clearly the antithesis of spontaneity or trendsetting.

Ironically enough, the Lord does indeed look primarily at my heart. And it’s not just my conduct that reflects who I am—but also my appearance.

I wonder what He thinks?