“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” 1 Peter 1:18-19 NIV

Extreme Makeover

I’ve been watching a tattoo makeover show lately (which I am not recommending due to its graphic content and I also realize I lost some of you in those first few words). However, the Lord is telling me someone needs to hear this, so I’m writing it with the confidence that He will use this devotional as He sees fit.

On the show, men and women typically come in with tattoos they are totally ashamed of, brands they’ve put on themselves either when they were drunk, when they made bad choices in their youth, lies they believed about themselves which others told them or they told themselves. The artists are very talented and although you can tell at times they really don’t want to look at the tattoo even long enough to cover it up, they do. They replace vulgar and hateful images and words with beauty and light. You can watch the transformation of people from when they showed the piece they have to get rid of to when they look at the new piece that has covered it. Many of them cry. You can see relief, wonder and hope in their eyes.

Now I am not by any stretch of the imagination equating tattoo ink to the Blood of the Lamb, but this is definitely a picture of what Jesus does for us. He covers our scars and our wounds. He makes them beautiful. He turns shame into glory.

Those images that seem etched into our brains of things we’ve done or have been done to us, the labels we’ve put on ourselves or taken on from what others have said…blotted out by the Blood. Forever gone. God says as far as the east is from the west…that’s how far He has removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12). We are precious in His sight. No matter what we may have covered ourselves with in our past (or even our present), His love completely covers us and we are a new creation in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17).

I pray if you are feeling ashamed or without hope that you would allow the Blood of Jesus to wash over and cover those things with His love. He took all of our sins upon Himself on the Cross—you no longer need to be branded by them…you are His Beloved (Colossians 3:12). I pray you’re able to see the wonder and hope in that.

Father God, thank You for the extreme makeover Your Son Jesus gave us by the redeeming power of His Blood. May we let go of those things that have negatively branded us and be filled with the hope and wonder of the new creation we are in Him. Amen.