How Much is a CHOICE Worth?

I was reading an article in the lastest Women's Day magazine about a mom who was pondering over the idea of young mothers getting tatoos. That somehow tatoos have become more mainstream and how she was not buying into the idea of tatoos and body piercings. Me either. And I had to totally agree with her that beauty comes from within not from all these tatoos and hardware everywhere on ones body.

It isn't my place to judge these people, but rather to get people in general to see that our bodies are the temple of God and that by using it as a billboard or hardware store, so to speak, is like putting graffiti on our bodies, thus defacing them. We need to respect our God given bodies because they are designed to be the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.

It is like when we junk up neighborhoods with graffiti, it sends a wrong message and then the wrong sort of people hang out there, thus degrading the neighborhood. It doesn't make the neighborhood nearly as inviting.

So now which one would you be more inclined to be attracted to?

Here is a before and after picture of the same fence in our neighborhood. The picture on the right is before and the one on the left is after it has been cleaned off.

"Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple; God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple." I Corinthians 3: 16-17

" Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have recieved from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." I Corinthians 6: 17

These verses are speaking to believers of course, but everyone has the potential to become a believer at some future point in their life time and what if suddenly they become a believer in spite of what they currently believe, and want to undo all the "graffiti" they have put on their bodies?

The truth is...there IS HOPE and that is my point here today.

Psalms 51: 7 says "Cleanse me with hysop and I will be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

Acts 22: 16 says: "And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name."

"For God SO LOVED (you) that he gave his one and only Son, that (if you) believe in him (you shall) not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world (for you) to condemn (you), but to save (you) through him. Whoever (and that can mean you my friend) believes in him is not condemned. but whoever does not believe in him is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son (Jesus)"

John 3: 16-18

It goes one to say that: "The verdict is this: Light has come into the world. but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." John 3: 19-21

I will challenge you to consider these thoughts BEFORE you decide to put tatoos or piercings on your body because once they are on they may be more difficult to remove than when they were put on. "A LITTLE forethought is better than a LOT of afterthought."

Have a great day!