Welcome to the new four-part series For Real. These many episodes are in collaboration with Podbean,

the podcast host for Keep the Heart, and many others. I'll say more about Podbean later.

Did you know that we all have our own versions of a tattoo? Some of us have the marks of choices

that we made before we received Christ as Savior.

Others have the visible ink designs on their skin, and yet they are born again.

When a tattoo is in a spot on the body that can be covered with clothing, some believers choose to keep them concealed.

Not everyone chooses this, though, and that's called keeping things real. Just because you

can't see a tattoo doesn't mean it's not there. And just because we didn't get a physical

tattoo with ink doesn't mean that we don't bear the marks of sin. Thank you for joining Keep the Heart for today's podcast with Francie Taylor.

Francie is an author, conference speaker, and teacher.

She is passionate about teaching what to do with what we learn from God's Word.

Now back to today's valuable study.

Somewhere along the line in Christianity, we took a detour and started focusing on appearance

over transformation. We were working hard on trying to get people to conform to a certain

image while just giving the Holy Spirit's transforming power a nod.

This resulted in a confused generation who took the pendulum and threw it as far in the opposite

direction as possible. I wonder if God ever shakes his head while he's watching us with all of our

bright ideas. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for this very same behavior

in Matthew 2327. He said this, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto

whiteed sepulchres, which appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness.

The Pharisees had tattoos and didn't even realize it. They had the image that people admired and

even imitated, but inside they were a mess. We're all a mess on the inside too, and unless we allow God to transform us, we stay that

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