4 Self Care Tips For Christians Who Care About Their Looks

To listen to the blog post “Is It A Sin To Care About Your Looks? 4 Self Care Tips For Christians” over reading it click the play button below. 

Let’s talk about self care and if you are a Christian you may be wondering is it a sin to take care of your appearance or it is a sin for Christians to care about their looks. To answer your question in a nutshell, the answer is NO. BUT, there is a BUT.  The Bible does say that we should not be vain.

• Vanity by definition is excessive pride in or admiration of one’s own appearance or achievements.

• Where as the definition of self care is: the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one’s own health.

Notice there are some key differences when it comes to caring about your looks because of self care and being vain.  Being vain is about having pride and pride is about work of the flesh (see my blog here for more on that).

Before continuing on with this blog post, I want you to watch my video on when I lost about 70 pounds, not out of vanity but because I wanted to honor my temple and the lesson that God taught me in this.  Also, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking here.

Now that we have that basic understanding out of the way if you are still confused about if you should take care of your appearance as a Christian and if Christians should even care about what they look like let’s take a deep dive into some scripture shall well.

1. Self Care & What The Bible Says About Your Body:

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;  you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19

As a Christian, I hope you are aware of what the Holy Spirit is, and in case you are not then you can read my blog to get a good understanding of the Holy Spirit. But I want you to consider the above verse for a moment.

If your body is the temple of God and the Holy Spirit dwells there (which is apart of God) then really you are a representation of God.  Therefore you have to think to yourself how do you want to go about into the world representing God? Why would you want to walk around looking all raggedy and poorly kept?  Some of you get dressed up for a date, you would not believe the number of beauty treatments that you go through to see a man. So why not give the same consideration to God.

If He is in you and always with you, then take care of your appearance for Him.  How can you as HIS (meaning God’s child) walk around looking a mess, knowing that HIS spirit is dwelling in you? Having the spirit dwell in you is a privilege to take care of your temple and make yourself look like it is a privilege for the Holy Spirit to dwell in you.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God ”this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12:1-2

In the Old Testament whenever someone sinned they used to have to kill an animal to be forgiven of their sins (also check out my blog on the difference between the Old and the New Testament).

Whenever someone would have to sacrifice an animal it could NOT be some raggedy animal that had matted fur that was about to die anyway.  The animal to be sacrificed had to be the best of the best. It had to have a pleasing appearance and be without blemish (Numbers 6:14)

So since you are offering up yourself to God you need to look the same way.  Do not offer some strung-out version of yourself before God.  Do not go out in the world telling people how full you are in Christ, but when people look at you, you look like you have held on to the bumper of a car and allowed it to drag you for a mile or two.

No one is going to believe how full you are in Christ if you are walking looking as if you are suffering.  Be a living sacrifice to God. When people look at you, they should say to themselves that you look so happy, healthy, and well taken care of that they want some of what you got.  Also check out my video below for self care and the spiritual bath.

2. Self Care Means Take Care Of Your Appearance Includes Your Inside Too

When it comes to self care that means taking care of every part of yourself. This was a lesson that I had to learn and that was to take care of the inside of my body just like I took care of the outside of my body. This is why I told you to watch my above video on my weight loss journey and God getting on me about being healthy.

In 1 Corinthians 10:31

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

Self care in this case means that you must pay attention to what you are putting in your body.  Remember your body is a temple with the spirit of God living in it. Do you want to poison it by putting a lot of drugs, alcohol, and bad food in your system?

For additional Christian self care tips you can read my blog on the Daniel Fast versus the Daniel diet. But when you read the story of Daniel (Daniel Chapter 1), God told him that if he followed a plant-based diet then he would be healthier than all the other men on the king’s compound. And low and behold it turned out to be true.

Am I telling you that you need to go vegan, NO I am not? Because even Daniel ate meat and drank wine again BUT what God was saying was having a balanced diet. Because what the King was telling Daniel to eat was A LOT of food and wine:

The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table Daniel 1:5

And God told Daniel that he may want to add some veggies and some water into the mix as drinking wine every day is not good for your skin. Like legit, He said that.

Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see. Daniel 1:12-13

Notice that Daniel said the appearance, meaning that what you eat can affect what you look like from the outside and if God decided to give directives on it, it must mean it was important.

3. When It Comes To Self Care Remember: Looking Your Best Can Bring You A Good Man

This is not to say that we take care of our appearance so we can get the attention of men. As I have just explained above we do it because we are a representation of God. However, let’s not pretend that if you are single that a man tends to be attracted to a woman that is put together over a woman that is not.  Because if she does not care about what she looks like and how she presents herself to the world then why should he? Also consider buying my book specifically for single women by clicking here.

Now random fun fact when it comes to self care and the Bible did you know that Esther received beauty treatments before she could even stand before the king.

Before a young woman’s turn came to go into King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. Esther 2:12

Because even they knew her old ways of looking all torn up was probably not going to cut it if she wanted to be queen. You can read my blog here on Esther and even view my video below on her, but there were several times that she looked her best when stepping in front of the king.  The second time the Bible mentions this was when she stepped in front of the king unsummoned in her Sunday’s best (or her royal robes) to keep him from chopping her head off.

On the third day, Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance.  When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her Esther 5:1-2

Notice that when he saw her he was pleased with her so let’s not pretend like her looking fabulous in her royal robes did not play a part in pleasing the king.  And you looking fabulous can help play a part in attracting men. Just keeping it real.

4. Self Care As A Christian Means To Take Care Of Your Appearance Not Take Pride In Your Appearance

Your beauty should not come from outward adornments, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 1 Peter 3:3-4

This verse speaks to self care and also speaks to the fact that you should never think that your hair, jewelry, or clothing defines who you are. I know we say take pride in your appearance a lot but I want you to know what I mean by pride which is by definition: a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements. 

Notice how this is all about self, thinking that your appearance is what defines you and that you care about your appearance so much that you take personal satisfaction in it or it is all you care about. AKA vanity.  This could come in the form of spending larges amounts of money on material items because you feel this is what makes you worthy.  A Christian who cares about their appearance wants to look nice but is not obsessed with it, it not materialistic about it, and does not feel that it defines them. And there lies the differences.

Which I also talk about in my video below where I talk in more detail about the importance of caring about your apperance but not being vein. Don’t forget to subscribe to my channel by clicking here.

I know it may seem like common sense but you would not believe how many women try to find validation and self-worth in their clothing.  How much they pay for their clothing and what type of brand names they wear all because they feel that these things make them somebody.

And that is not what self care as a Christian is about.  Self care as a Christian is more about knowing that you are someone because you are a child of God, not because of the labels you wear.  As we talked about you present your best self to the world because The Holy Spirit is in you not because you want to gain validation by the world. Huge difference.

What we can get from this verse is taking care of your appearance and self care does not mean being materialistic. Nice things do not define you, make you beautiful, or make you a better person. And when you think that it does, that is what it is called to be vain.

One thing that I always say is that beauty is subjective. You can be pretty to one person and ugly to the next.  That is not what taking care of your appearance and self care is about.  It is not about getting an unrealistic amount of plastic surgery so that you fit a certain standard but it is about being beautiful in your own capacity.

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Proverbs 31:30

This is not rocket science but you are not going to look young and be young forever.  Your beauty is going to fade and you will look different.  That is the natural process of aging. But when you are TOO obsessed with your appearance or when women are too vain they try to fight that process.

That is when you see people getting older and doing these insane cosmetics procedures all in an effort to stay young and beautiful. That is vanity. The difference is that a woman who takes care of her appearance will take care of herself despite her age, and will understand that her age will not define her beauty.

No matter if you are 20, 30, 50, 60, 70 when you can maintain a healthy lifestyle, you can wear matching clothes, you can comb your hair and you can look well kept.  That is what it means to take care of your appearance and have self care.  That is what we should be doing because we still love the Lord no matter what age we are at and no matter if our butt or boobs are sagging because of the natural progression of things.

If you are choosing the route of vanity, you may become supper obsessed with aging and have low self-esteem even though it is a natural process.  And that is because you feel your beauty defines you when you feel that way you have a problem because it is no longer about honoring your temple and the way God made you but becoming obsessive with your appearance.

So yes to answer the question. You can care about your appearance as a Christian, take care of yourself, your body, and have self care. AND I am trying to tell you that it is not a sin to do so. I am also trying to tell you that there is a difference between taking care of your appearance and being obsessed with your appearance.  One God approves of and one God does not. So wear makeup, look nice, God is not going to strike you down with lightning, and call you a harlot.  You are good.

If you know someone that could use this information then please feel free to share it with them.

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