{"id":1861,"date":"2022-08-05T08:25:58","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T12:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1861"},"modified":"2022-08-05T08:26:40","modified_gmt":"2022-08-05T12:26:40","slug":"tattoos-on-the-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/05\/tattoos-on-the-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Tattoos on the Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Throughout the month of August, we\u2019re taking a close look at 23 verses of the New Testament.  They comprise Ephesians chapter one, which paints one of the Bible\u2019s most comprehensive pictures of what it means for ordinary people to be \u201cin Christ.\u201d  <\/em>
 
Once when an American pastor was traveling in Hong Kong, he walked into a tattoo shop.
 
One of the tattoos for sale displayed three words: \u201cBorn to Lose.\u201d  Astonished, the pastor asked the artist if anyone ever actually requested that such dark words be permanently etched onto his skin.  The artist replied, \u201cBefore tattoo on body, tattoo on mind.\u201d
 
People display for the world what is already branded onto their hearts.<\/em>
 
Even after reading Paul\u2019s assurance in the opening verses of Ephesians that we are eternally loved and wanted by God, there may be something within us \u2013 a kind of ancient impulse \u2013 that screams, \u201cDon\u2019t be stupid; God wasn\u2019t talking about you<\/em>!\u201d  That\u2019s what we\u2019re up against when we open the pages of Scripture.  Will we believe that we are actually one of God\u2019s chosen ones, or default to the familiar assumption that our not-good-enoughness will always make that impossible?   
 
Note that Ephesians doesn\u2019t begin by saying, \u201cIt\u2019s time for you to come face to face with what you feel and what you fear.\u201d  Paul\u2019s words aren\u2019t about us at all.
 
The good news is all about God.  We belong to God because of his<\/em> character, his<\/em> plans, and his<\/em> actions \u2013 not because of our character, our plans, and our actions. 
 
The next component of this message comes in verse five: \u201cIn love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.\u201d <\/strong><\/em>
 
Now, just in case your blood pressure shot up a few points when you read the word \u201cpredestined,\u201d please know that we\u2019ll come back to that semi-scary subject when we tackle verse 11.  That will happen on Monday, August 15.  It\u2019s good to have something to look forward to on a hot summer day! 
 
In the meantime, let\u2019s turn to the central promise of this verse \u2013 that we have been lovingly adopted into God\u2019s own family.  Adoption is a wonderful reality in any culture in any generation.  But adoption at the height of the Roman Empire \u2013 the very time Paul was writing this letter \u2013 was something uniquely special.  When the male head of a Roman household adopted someone as a son, at least three things happened to that young man.
 
First<\/em>, he got a new father.  He lost all the rights pertaining to his family of origin, but he gained all the rights of his new household. 
 
Second<\/em>, he became heir to his new father\u2019s estate.  Even if his adopted dad gained a dozen additional children by one means or another, nothing would ever affect the certainty of his new inheritance. 
 
Third,<\/em> his old life was completely wiped out.  All of his debts were erased.  It was as if he had never had that former life<\/em>.  He was now regarded as a completely new person. 
 
Paul is saying that this is what has happened to each of us.  Since you have been adopted as the child of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (and Paul makes it abundantly clear in Galatians 3:26-28 that this applies to men and<\/em> women, Jews and<\/em> Gentiles, servants and<\/em> masters), it means you have begun an entirely new existence.  You have been granted the ultimate spiritual do-over. 
 
God doesn\u2019t suffer identity crises, and he doesn\u2019t want us to experience them, either.  We can actually know who we are in Christ \u2013 today, tomorrow, and the next day.
 
And as that reality sinks in, it will change us.   
 
Malcom Muggeridge was widely regarded as the most gifted British journalist, satirist, and social commentator of the past century.
 
By his own admission, he threw much of his life away.  He pursued toys.  He craved honors.  He drank, smoked, and womanized without boundaries.  During World War II he served Britain as a spy, even while contemplating the merits of communism.  He attempted suicide.
 
Something kept eating at Muggeridge.  He yearned for life to mean something. 
 
After personally encountering Mother Teresa\u2019s ministry to the poor of Calcutta, he wrote a book about her life.  Something Beautiful for God<\/em> clearly signaled a change in his sense of what mattered.  In his later years Muggeridge reflected: 
 
\u201cI may, I suppose, regard myself or pass for being a relatively successful man.  People occasionally stare at me in the streets.  That\u2019s fame. 
 
\u201cI can fairly easily earn enough to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Internal Revenue.  That\u2019s success. 
 
\u201cFurnished with money and a little fame even the elderly, if they care to, may partake of trendy diversions.  That\u2019s pleasure. 
 
\u201cIt might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time.  That\u2019s fulfillment.
 
\u201cYet, I say to you \u2013 and I beg you to believe me \u2013 multiply these tiny triumphs by a million, add them all together, and they are nothing \u2013 less than nothing, a positive impediment \u2013 measured against one draft of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are.\u201d
 
That\u2019s transformation<\/em>.
 
We may struggle with an old \u201ctattoo\u201d on the heart that says, \u201cStories like that happen to other people, but not to me.\u201d 
 
But God\u2019s Word can change your heart.
 
And that will change your life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout the month of August, we\u2019re taking a close look at 23 verses of the New Testament.  They comprise Ephesians chapter one, which paints one of the Bible\u2019s most comprehensive pictures of what it means for ordinary people to be \u201cin Christ.\u201d   Once when an American pastor was traveling in Hong Kong, he walked into a tattoo shop. One of the tattoos… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[484,480],"class_list":["post-1861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adoption","tag-ephesians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1861"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1864,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions\/1864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}