Hi, and welcome to Five Word Prayers Daily, a five-day-a-week daily devotional where we share the word, prayers, and our heart.

I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me, which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent.

So I have a tattoo on my wrist that means a great deal to me, and it's the topic of the show today, not the tattoo, but the meaning behind it,

and more specifically, the commitment that has nothing really to do with a tattoo,

but is beckoned by Paul in Romans and powerfully left for us to decide

if it's also a conviction we'll take on while here on Earth.

Today's show means a lot to me, and we'll get into it right after

this. Some years ago, I walked into a tattoo shop, and I got Romans 116 tattooed on my wrist,

for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation

to everyone who believes. It meant a lot to me then and means equally as much to me now because

I want everyone to know that I am not ashamed of Jesus. I identify with him. He is my life. He is

everything. His salvation is available to everyone, and this is the gospel. So Paul wrote

these words as a prelude to his visiting with the church in Rome to introduce himself, let them know

who he was and what he was all about. And we know from reading Romans, it's quite an introduction.

Since Paul's conversion, he has become quite a bold and outspoken preacher

of the gospel, and truly the gospel has become his life. He doesn't need a tattoo on his

wrist for anyone to know what he stands for. People know. He isn't shy. Since he turned his

life around and made a commitment to follow Christ, he is all in, all gospel, all the time.

I'm so moved by Paul personally, and I'm especially moved by his commitment to the

gospel.

Maybe Paul felt compelled to make up for his actions before he fell in love with Jesus.

Remember, he once persecuted Christians, so maybe that was part of it.

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