Heart-Tattooed by God

Have you been heart-tattooed by God?  Has God written on your heart:  "I am your God and you are my child?"  According to Hebrew Bible Jeremiah in Jeremiah 31: 31-34, God says "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." (31: 33b). This is a promise for "days that are coming" (31: 31).  In other words, the timing is uncertain.  This is one of those now, but not-yet passages.  God's work has begun and will be completed in us at some point in the future.  This covenant is the hope of the future and is still in the process of realization. God will make or engrave a new covenant on our hearts instead of the law that is written (and still very much valid) on tablets that can be lost or stolen or broken.

This is another covenant of grace upon grace - grace beyond our own measure of accomplishment.  This covenant - at God's initiative - pours out unmerited favor on those of us who cannot accomplish this ourselves.  We're given help from within to faithfully keep covenant with God.  God will make a way where there seems to be no way - at least according to our own abilities.

There are several amazing aspects to this covenant.  That God will forgive and forget our sin is amazing.  Visualizing a world without sin feels like utopia.  Yet it is a promise from our God who is steadfastly loyal and capable of both writing such a covenant upon our hearts and enabling us to respond.  It's also amazing because Jeremiah makes clear that it's meant for all people:  "they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest." (31: 34).  Imagine our enemies or criminals or people whom we despise or reject or those on whom we deem inferior being tattooed with God's love.  The promise of a God-tattooed-heart takes lots of imagination.

Jesuit priest, Father Gregory Boyle, writes of the power of boundless compassion in his book "Tattoos on the Heart."  As he provides a service to help gang members (homies) have their tattoos of gang membership erased, Father G does the much more important service to restore the homies' hearts into hearts of compassion and love that reflect God's real intent of shalom for the homies.

If you understand yourself to be God-tattooed, how will you share God's boundless compassion to others?  Who will you welcome into God's family with your hospitality and sharing how God has tattooed you?

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley