“What’s in your Closet?” (Part Two of the Series on Becoming a Proverbs 31 Woman)

 “She is clothed with strength and dignity….” (Proverbs 31: 25).

Closets. If I had to choose the household chore I detest the most it would be cleaning the bedroom closet. Because our house is on the market, it looks about as good as it’s going to get, but it’s not color coordinated or perfectly organized. My idea of a clean armoire is everything hung up with no clothes on the floor. What about you?

Fortunately, when Scripture discusses the Proverbs 31 woman’s attire, she doesn’t pull something off the rack in her Master bedroom closet. She finds it “ready to wear” in the Master’s closet.

Proverbs 31:22 says, she is clothed in “fine linen.” In the Bible, fine linen represents moral purity. Linen cloth is associated with Jesus Christ, the highest representative of the morally pure.

A pre-incarnate Christ appeared to Daniel twice dressed in linen, the first time in Daniel 10:5: “I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.” The second appearance was in Daniel 12:6: “One of them said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, ‘How long will it be before these astonishing things are fulfilled?'”

Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus in a clean linen cloth, again representative of the righteousness of Jesus. At the end of time as we know it, believers who make up the bride of Christ will be given “fine linen, bright and clean” to wear. The fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.

What is in your closet?

Are you clothed with moral purity?

The Proverbs 31 woman is also dressed in “fine linen and purple.”

Purple is the color of royalty and wealth but again, we can read more into the word “purple” than is on the page.

According to BibleHistory.com, “The color purple typifies Jesus as King of king’s and Lord of lord’s, but there is another important truth. The mixing of blue and scarlet. Blue speaks of that which comes down from above, and scarlet, as we shall see, represents blood and death, sacrifice. Purple is a combination of both, which speaks of Christ as both God and Man, the Man who came from heaven to die.”

When the Proverbs 31 woman clothes herself in purple, she is clothing herself with an attitude of sacrifice. Like Jesus, she doesn’t get too caught up in her noble status. Instead, she denies and humbles herself, something she can only do by mixing scarlet with blue, the divine with humanity.

Is purple in your closet?

In most women’s closets there are several things to wear and the same is true for the Proverbs 31 woman. In Proverbs 31:23, we are also to be clothed with “strength and dignity.” The Hebrew word for dignity is “hadar.” It is the same word we find in Psalm 9:3-5:

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor (hadar).”

It is a privilege to be clothed with dignity and “hadar” by our loving Father.  “Hadar” also means “majesty,” “splendor” and “nobility.”

Ladies, we must embrace our role as daughters of the Almighty King and we need to carry ourselves knowing we are royalty, not ostentatiously, but in humility, clothed in righteousness, purity, denying ourselves, crowned with the glory of God.

What is in your closet?

In order to become a Proverbs 31 woman, we must allow Jesus to be our personal shopper. We need to ask him to clothe us in everlasting garments, clothes that don’t have to be replaced every new season. Is it time for a wardrobe change? Are you ready to wear something new?

Part Three is Saturday.