What Does Your Tattoo Mean?

Beloved, On this Wednesday, September 1st, we have officially passed thru two-thirds of 2021. We have the last four months of the year before us and then we will prayerfully usher in 2022. God has truly blessed us during this period of time in dealing with Covid-19, social unrest, economic upheaval, political high drama, personal issues, situations and concerns in our health, wealth, and relationships be they physical, mental, emotional and/or spiritual. If you are reading this message right now, consider yourself to be blessed...no matter what you have gone through, are going through, or will go through. You are blessed. In being blessed, you should pray blessed, feel blessed, think blessed and say and do blessed. You should be a walking billboard for our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. In this current generation, as some people pursue body art as a means of messaging something to the world, how you present yourself says something to someone about you. Many get tattoos to represent something about themselves to the world. Some tattoos are fun and flirty. Some tattoos are spiritual and deep meaning. Some tattoos are memorials to those who have been impactful on the bearer's life, be they memorials to the living or the dead. Some tattoos are markers for where some have been and some for where they are going. Some tattoos are inspirational and some are confrontational. If you have a tattoo, what does your tattoo mean? Personally, I do not have a tattoo. It is not so much a statement. It is my preference. But, when I share that I do not have a tattoo, I want you to understand, as a Christian, no matter how much or little body art you bear, we all have a common tattoo. You see, our tattoo was inscribed upon our minds, hearts and spirits with evidence in how our body speaks and acts in the world. We were penned with nails with the ink being the blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. And, the message that God inscribed on us is a simple message, love. The Apostle Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 3:2-3, "You yourselves are our letter (tattoo), written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter (tattoo) of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God (made only possible by the blood of Christ shed on the cross at Calvary), not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." Beloved, if you have tattoos, seen or unseen, that are meaningful to you, I dare you to compare any of them to the tattoo that you receive when you become a child of the Most High God. When others ask about the meaning of your physical tattoos, you have your story. When you live out the tattoo of God on your mind, heart and spirit, you tell His story, the Gospel story, the Good News story. Of all the tattoos that you have to represent you, I hope and pray that, as a Christian, the one that you are most proud of telling others about is that tattoo, not the one that you paid for, but the one that God paid for with Jesus' life and blood. You see, when you tell that story, you are affirming that Christ did not die in vain. He died because He loved you and because of you affirming your relationship with Him because of your tattoo from God, you love Him too! Beloved, the inked up saints will be gathering for Noonday Prayer. Beloved, the inked up saints will be listening to our sermonic message on The Light radio/internet station at 3pm. Beloved, the inked up saints will be coming together on Sunday morning at 11am for worship service. Beloved, we, the inked up saints, will do this so that we can show and share our tattoos as we breathe meaning into what it means to be a child of God. What does your God-given tattoo mean? Remember, God loves you and I love you too! Be blessed, Rev. Cain