I'm going to tell you a story.  Six months ago, I got tattooed.  A radical procedure for a woman who is  75.  But there is background.  You don't just jump up and go get tattooed at my age.  My mother probably rolled over in her grave--as the old saying goes.

Five years ago, after a long illness, (I survived, praise God)  not only did my hair fall out, so did my eyebrows.  Permanently. Then a year ago one of the chambers of my heart quit working.  Stopped. So I had to have shock therapy and then they put me on a drug that makes me shake.  Which meant that every time I tried to sign my name it looked like  chicken scratching.  And every time I tried to use my eyebrow pencil it took forever and a day to pencil them in and was a mess.  Lipstick was even worse.  So I had my eyebrows  tattooed on.  Best thing I ever did for myself.  It was so great I decided to have my lips tattooed as well.

Yes,  I could  have given the makeup up, but my generation always makes up their face.  Our mothers instilled real fear in us if we left the house without looking our best.  And Seventeen magazine reminded us in every issue of all the things that were wrong with the way we looked.

James 4: 17 "Therefore to him (her) that knows to do good, and doesn't do it, to him (her) it is sin."

James is definitely not talking about tattoos. He's talking about doing good.  Not getting something good--like a tattoo.  He is saying that not only is doing the wrong thing a sin, so is not doing the right thing.  That divides sin into two categories.  Mercy.  Just when I thought I was almost there, I find out that there is an entire other category of sin.  This is getting serious.   I am certainly not doing enough good things for others.  I can do better.  And James says if I know it and don't do better, I'm in trouble.