Pastor Max Lucado, a beloved Christian author and preacher, revealed on Good Friday he received his first tattoo to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of his conversion to faith.
“I’m celebrating the golden anniversary of God’s great grace in my life,” he wrote in an Instagram post featuring a picture getting the word “tetelestai,” which is Greek for “it is finished,” tattooed onto his forearm. “[Fifty] years ago this spring, grace found me. My testimony is interwoven with my favorite word in the Bible.”
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The word “tetelestai” is a reference to John 19:30, when, on the cross, Jesus declared, “It is finished,” before taking His last breath.
“This was the message that changed my life,” wrote Lucado. “Friends, I was a mess. Not only was I drunk, I was a racist, a misogynist, a brawler, and a schemer. Worst of all, I was a hypocrite. I wondered, honestly wondered, could Christ forgive a jerk like me?”
Lucado, currently filling in as interim teaching pastor at Gateway Church near Fort Worth, Texas, said it was a spring evening in 1975 when he heard a preacher deliver a sermon on “a grace that is greater than sin.”
/**/It was during that service Lucado realized for the first time that Jesus “paid my debt” on the cross when He took on the full weight of humanity’s sinfulness.
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