All's Fair

In love and War...

Battlefields.

The Armour of God! Ephesians 6:10-18

One of the main reasons why I draw is to meditate upon the passages in the bible that I find the most interesting. I have always found the idea of spiritual warfare was meant for those parts of the where people get possessed there are demons and stuff. 

It took me a long time to realise that spiritual warfare is as alive now as it was in Jesus time. Our enemy is still the same but he has different guises. we have to be on our guard people! God has given us so many things to protect us the helmet of salvation protects our minds ( I will come back to this) the Breast plate of righteousness it protects our heart, the belt of truth keeps us all together, the shoes fitted with the gospel of peace protect us from the sharp stones on the floor, but also keep our path smooth.  the shild of faith is hte first line of defence and the sword of the spirit is our only attack weapon. 

We are in a spiritual war! wake up smell the gun powder, the devil attacks us in so many ways through our physical bodies, through wayward thoughts and through our situations.  So polish up your armour you are going to need it!  

Take every thought captive!

we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ 2 Cor 10:4-5 

This picture comes from the idea that we should take our thoughts and be critical of them just because they are in our head doesn't automatically mean that we chose to put them there. It took me a long time to realise that. our mind is not our own and the sooner you can get your head around that the better. 

I have come to think of it like Havant Station (this is a railway station towards the south coast where I grew up) Havant station is 'owned' by south west trains (SWT) and most of the trains that go through there are SWT trains but there are lots of lines that go through Havant station that are not southwest trains - Southern service to Brighton or littlehampton or the First GW service to Great Malvern via Bristol go through that station. Occasionally there are frieght trains too. just because the stations signs are all south west trains signs and they  might own it doesn't mean its their exclusive station.

In the same way most of the thoughts that go through our heads are our thoughts but some are not some are from God or the devil but ultimately we are the fat controller ( if you excuse the Children's TV analogy ) we can determine which thoughts stop and which just pass through we can divert our thoughts away from our actions and we can tell them to leave. We need to be making sure that all the thoughts that we have are obedient to Christ. This is something I struggle with, it is part of this spiritual warfare business  the idea in the painting is to cram your thoughts into the cross shaped hole in the jar to make them fit with Christ.  

 [If you struggle with this area I would really recommend a book by Joyce Meyer - Battlefields of the mind]

This passage tells us to destroy the strongholds( bad thought patterns) that hold us to ransom by taking the foreign thoughts that are of the flesh or the world and making them obedient to Christ. This week a friend told me that there are so many creative ways we can do good in this world and yet there are few unimaginative bad ways that we keep coming back to. 

Your mind is an important part of your human infrastructure, no wonder it is a target, be prepared for attack there!

Nurture and Grow Love.

Nurture and Grow Love. 

This picture was born from the idea that love is delicate, like a flower. As Christians we are called to be a people of  love by Jesus ' love the lord your God with all your mind soul and strength.... love your neighbour as yourself'. 

Love of the kind Jesus describes is quite a fragile thing. I mean its not easy to love the homeless person on the street enough to give him your lunch or to love the person who has somehow pushed in front of you in a queue. we are called to love because it is the closest thing to Godliness we get on this planet. I have discovered that you need to nurture and grow a culture of love. It is not easy to make love intrinsically part of who you are. It involves the changing of habits and growing in so many ways- it involves being who God created you to be. I believe that we are called to make love our default position, to make it an automatic response.

Problem is the kind of love we are called to is not the kind of love that merits return it is Agape unconditional love. From what I remember of RS at school ( that was a long time ago!) In ( possibly ancient) Greek the word love has 4 different meanings there is Phillia which is the superlative of like for example I love Chocolate  means that I like all other sweets but I love chocolate, it is usually used to describe the love of some thing and is the origin of words like bibleophile ( book lover). Then there is Eros the romantic love that is shared between two people in a committed relationship. There is Xenia which is hospitality/ service and there is Agape. Agape is the love of a family member or friend it is selfless and truly giving.  The latter two is what we as Christians are called to be in our character.

So in the picture I tried to draw/paint the  nature of our love, That it takes care to nurture but it is delicate like a flower.  We shouldn't hesitate to care for our habits that are rooted in love because they are what makes us grow.

Sink your roots into God's love. 

So leading on from those thoughts this picture takes the passage 

I also pray that love may be the ground into which you sink your roots and on which you  have your foundation.' Ephesians 3:17b GWT

The idea of us having roots from our feet sinking into God's love was the predominant image I got from reading this passage, as I meditated upon it I realised that I should label the roots Faith, Grace, trust, peace, wisdom and hope.

Then the thought struck me that God's Word and his spirit are the things that we need to use to nurture these roots just like the love picture before. we can't have strong roots and foundations, without their nutrients. That is why they are represented with the water and fertilizer. 

My word for 2012 was roots, this year I have felt that God has been telling me I need to get my roots firmly fixed in his foundation. The passage that has prevailed in my prayer life this year has been Jeremiah 17:7-8

Blessed is the person who trusts the Lord. 

The Lord will be his confidence.

   

 He will be like a tree that  is planted by water.

 It will send its roots down to a stream.

 It will not be afraid in the heat of summer.

 Its leaves will turn green.

 It will not be anxious during droughts.

It will not stop producing fruit. (GWT)

I have a painting for this one that I have done but I can't find a picture of it, it hangs in my office to remind me that whatever I work on it is  for God.

A Blog... That's original!

A few questions to get us started 

Why do you want to blog, Why now, Why this blog?

I would say that naturally I am quite a talkative person, I like to muse on things and it always surprises me that people want to listen. I have not really understood blogs until fairly recently, I really am starting this blog to share more about my artwork and what inspires me to paint and draw what I paint and Draw. i also thought it would be great to review some books and share some of the things that I muse on sometimes when life gets a little interesting. 

Why should I read this blog? 

Considering this is the first blog I have ever done I couldn't really tell you but often things just go round and round my head that God tells me or I think upon that are amusing or interesting. also my art work is usually thought through from things I have read in the bible and I hope that I am offering fresh insight into scripture or life. So you should read this blog because it is a little different ( because I am) it is unique and fresh and i hope you will enjoy it. 

Allie