Consider for a moment the requirements given to King David for the building of the Lord’s House on earth, the Temple in Jerusalem. If you are a Christian, then your body is G-d’s temple. Just like G-d would be very unhappy if someone painted the outside of the Temple, He is equally unhappy when we paint our bodies.

I have never been one interested in painting my body or poking holes in it. I wonder why anyone would want to do so. I would think core to any reason would be “attention”. Like a living billboard. Is that how Christ wants His followers to live? I think not.

Most of the laws of the Old Testament are not invalidated by the New Testament. Those laws pertaining to the Sin Covenant and rules for the atonement of sin are COMPLETED in Christ. The blood of animals never took away sin. These acts pointed all followers to the day when sin would be removed by the Perfect Lamb of G-d. We are finding out the food laws found in the Old Testament are actually the best dietary rules for correct eating. The absolute best eating habits are those found in the Old Testament.

So here is a small part of my testimony.

In the summer I had a dream, possibly the most real dream of my life. I was about to get to heaven, I was praying and discussing the Bible with complete strangers but those who also loved God. We were feeling completely loved, knowing that one step around the corner and we could be with God forever, it was heaven, we would worship in truth and light and be happy in His glory. I remember saying something about a passage Phil. and how amazing it really was. It was then that I saw friends of mine standing outside this gate and they were all about to leave, they were calling me with them, but I wanted to stay with God. I didn’t want to be on earth anymore, I wanted to stay. But they were my friends and they didn’t know about this place, they didn’t know, I needed to bring them. I was in tears trying to decide what to do; whether to stay and look after myself, happy with God OR to leave, knowing I would return at a later date, but help my friends as best I could.
I woke up and my face was wet with tears. However, the passage I vaguely remembered mentioning was still echoing and so I grabbed my Bible and tried to think of anything Phil could be. I opened it and immediately saw this:
23I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.
It was exactly how I was feeling: torn between work for God, and death with God that somehow seemed so close. It is odd to feel like you’d be happy dying right there and then, but it wasn’t morbid, it was because of the love I felt for Him. And so the passage continues:
25Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.
So I decided there and then that if I was going to live, it would be completely for God. I had had this conviction before but never so strongly and in such a way. God taught me and guided me through a dream.

It was later in the Autumn that amazing things started happening, with prayer and fellowship with those around me, and a poem was brought to me “The Vision” by Pete Greig which I would definitely reccommend. That and much prophecy echoed through my life and god touched everything. It has been fantastic. But when a friend looked at it closely he noticed this:
“And the army is disciple(in)ed—
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.””
As you can see the last bit is particularly relevant to this discussion but I had just brushed over it. Richard (my aforementioned friend) noticed it and just asked “Isn’t that Philippians 1?”
Suddenly my dream came rushing back to me and it was the same part, the same discussion of Paul’s that had meant so much to me. This same friend once I had told him the dream part of my summer simply asked, completely dead-pan (he is by the way a pretty meak, conservative english boy, hardly likely to say this most of the time – hence my surprise) “So when you getting the tattoo then?”

It freaked me out for a long time. I am still terrified of needles and so anything like that would be a massive sacrifice, I would literally be forcing myself into it for God. I didn’t think I could do it. But God had been working on breaking quite a lot of my fear boundaries. He had told me through 3 different people to give my testimony and so I forced myself into it and spoke infront of over a hundred people. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done but I felt that shackle break with God’s help. He pushed me into taking a big leap of faith with mending relationships with my family and both broke a fear shackle and mended a home. So, is this the same? I have prayed for months over it and the answer has always come back to it being of God. Tattoos in general I am not a fan of, I do think natural beauty is the best and definitely an amazing show of God’s creativity, but I do think this tattoo will be for God, a sacrifice to myself, a cross to bear, and will never again let me hide my faith from those around me which I know I often do.
It is not for myself, it is not a piece of art: that specifically I am making sure of. I am an artist at heart but did not want to turn it into decoration. The truth is beautiful enough and so I did not want to seem to add to the truth.
The issue of money came up. I am very conscious of the fact that money should not be wasted on frivolities and so did not think I had the money to use on it. So I prayed it over and it actually somehow appeared: money was given to me that I didn’t expect and just when I needed it if I was ever going to get the tattoo.
The issue of the biblical warrant also came up. Leviticus is the obvious but after much study I found that the culture behind it was a idolising one where the ancestors of the people were praised so highly it got in the way of God. No man should be above God and this was understandable. The verses around it also include those mentioned above as well as instructions that if your children ever speak back to you, death was the response. I can’t imagine anyone now would suggest that as being the best way to go about discipline.
I spoke to many Christian friends that I trust and they prayed about it and came back with the opinion that only something to glorify God was worth it. 1 Corinthians 10:23 speaks of everything being ok, but not always being necessary. I had to think long and hard about all these things and do believe that God has guided me.

The words that will be tattooed on my back are: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” It is more for others than myself, I will not longer hide it, I cannot. I cannot be proud of myself, I will rarely really be able to look at it. It will not be decorative and this is me holding back my artistic and aesthetic instincts. It is not for the beautification of me, nor for the mutilation – if I could not have the pain and if it was anything less true I would not be doing it. I will probably also suffer persecution from my non-Christian friends and possibly even my own family. But it is not because of them I do it. It is God that pointed me in this direction. He gave me a dream, He gave me a passage, He gave me inspiration, He gave me the knowledge to decide, and He is giving me the strength not to fear anything but Him.
It is permanent and that is what I hope my faith will forever be. If I am too weak and stray from God, at least others might be touched by His words on me, showing them that I am truely His whether they, or I, know it or not.

I hope I haven’t rambled too much, I just wanted to share it all with you.
God bless x

No mention of with or without tatoo. HUMMM?? Must not have been too important?