Jesus Will Come!

Dear Friends-

The Bible tells us that Jesus will return. He will return for His church: 
"For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

And the Bible tells of Jesus' second coming where He will ultimately defeat Satan:

“Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." Matthew 24:29-30

When Jesus comes for the church, only the church will hear Him and respond to Him. (This is called the rapture.) There will be a time of tribulation for the whole world. And, when He comes at His second coming, everyone will know. He won't come secretly! There will be no question of who He is. 

As believers, we can look joyfully to the future even living in this chaotic world full of ugliness. Jesus is coming. He is our hope. Focus on Him!

When my daughters were taught about these passages at ages 4 & 5, they both said cute things in regard to how they interpreted the passages in the young-child minds. That's what I journaled on each of these pages- their quotes. And I used many alpha stamp sets. I thought this post would be a great post to highlight the alpha sets that Sweet n Sassy has. They have a great selection of alphas and some are on sale right now! For anyone who doesn't hand-letter or just wants to have a quick option to hand-lettering, alpha stamps are perfect. I use mine all the time! I used the following sets for each page: 

 My Friend, Send Me, Chunky Alpha, Rebecca Script, Sing Loud, Outline Alpha, Mini Grunge Type Alpha. On this page I also used watercolor crayons, stickers, and glitter glue.

 

These 2 alpha sets were used on each page.

Shake It Off Caps Alpha, Mini Grunge Type Alpha, Outline Alpha, Skinny Caps Alpha, All Your Heart. On this page, I also used watercolor crayons, and a white Sharpie pen.

 
Hope in Him, my friends! Have a blessed week. Andrea

No Other Name

{jane bosi}

Hello, Sweet Friends!  I've recently found myself reflecting on the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15.  Have you ever felt just like that son? I have.  Other times, I reflect on this parable from the vantage point of the father....praying to rejoice over the home coming of my own prodigal......

The great truth remains that He is God, despite our poor choices, despite our circumstances; despite the evils of this present world; despite the storms we travel through....He is Good.....Love....Light...Hope....Peace ....Joy... I will sing no other name.  I will praise him in the storm. My heart will sing no other name. 

I used many beautiful sets from Sweet 'N Sassy to complete this Bible journaling layout:  My Friend, Good Shepherd, My Comforter, The Good News, Sing Loud and Skinny Caps Alpha.

I have few words in my world right now....but my heart continues to sing the name of Jesus.  Sing with me?

TTFN, Jane

I Am Forgiven!

As Easter approaches, I can't help but think of how blessed and how loved I truly am. It is hard to believe that He loves me so much but there is no greater proof of His love than His sacrifice for me. That I am forgiven is definitely a sign of His love and His grace (meaning that I don't get what I deserve!).

Today's journal page is on Ephesians 1:7 "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,"

I used a few Sweet 'N Sassy Stamp sets to create my page today. I created the background with distress inks and filled in some of the images with Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens.

• Creative Worship: Sing Loud Clear Stamp Set
• Creative Worship: The Good News Clear Set
• Creative Worship: My Friend Clear Stamp Set

I hope you are feeling loved today. Thanks for stopping by.

Lyn

God Is More Than Enough!

Recently our family celebrated the second anniversary of my grandsons' arrival from the Philippines.  They had been waiting for over a year after my son married their mother to rejoin her here in the United States.  It seemed like it took forever to complete all the complicated steps of their legal immigration paper work.  Finally the day arrived, the plane was on the way and the entire family waited with breathless anticipation for the boys and their mother to walk through the airport gate.  The boys and my son had skyped many times, so they knew each other, but this moment would be a once in a lifetime moment.  They would meet for the first time face to face.  I expected the boys, 7 and 10, to be shy and a bit reticent when the moment to meet actually arrived. Imagine our surprise and delight when they came through the gate, immediately laid eyes on my son and broke out in a full run shouting with complete abandon, "Daddy, Daddy."  They opened their arms wide and both simultaneously jumped up into his strong, waiting embrace.  As you may well imagine, there wasn't a dry eye in the terminal.

Our heavenly Father waits with strong and open arms to receive us whenever we need Him.  He will never turn us away.  Sometimes we are at a distance, communicating with Him, believing Him.  Then there are those times when we need to run to Him with complete abandon, call out His name and jump into those arms to be near His heart and feel His protective embrace around us.  He delights our in our need of Him.

God is always ready to accept our need of Him and work on our behalf.  He is always accessible and always moving in our lives for our good.  He watches over us, stands at our right hand, intimately knows us and our need.  He will neither slumber nor turn from us.  He will always have eyes to see us and arms to hold us.

Since Jesus instructed His disciples, believers have experienced trouble here on this earth.  In fact, He said the world would hate us.  Christian brothers and sisters are being tortured and killed in some parts of the world just because they are believers.  Even here in our country, we see contempt and intolerance for Christians growing.  We need not fear.  God is for us, He moves toward us to keep us in His arms, and we can trust that God is more than enough for anything we face.  He may not remove trouble from us, but we can rest assured He will hold us through it all.

For these pages I used chalks to color the background, SU inks for stamping and Copics for coloring.  I set my work with hairspray so the chalks wouldn't dust off.   I combined the following Sweet 'n Sassy stamps.  More will be released this month and you will absolutely love them for Bible journaling.

My Friend                              Perfect Faith

God Is For You

(newly released)

Diane Noble, Daydream Designs

I am loved

Hello everyone! Today I would like to share a page from my journal with you. This is the first page of a new journal and I thought it would be good to start it with this message. Just as a reminder that I am loved by my heavenly Father, no matter what. Even when I don't really feel it, I know that my Father waits for me with His arms open wide.

I stamped the image with a waterproof ink in my 'regular' journal, that has watercolor paper in it. I used watercolor brushes to color the image and I drew a heart around the stamped image to emphasize the feeling of love. 

I used the stamp set 'My Friend' for this page.

- Lucinde

Called by Name

{jane bosi}  Happy Tuesday, Sweet Friends!

Today, I am sharing a canvas I made recently.  Quite a while ago I used some stencil paste to add gold stars to a painted canvas.  I'm sure I had an idea when I began, but time passed and so did the idea.  All I was left with was a goofy colored canvas full of stars!

And then, My Friend was released.  I am so in love with this image!!  As I continued to create and work on finishing the canvas, it assigned itself to a friend of mine.  I'm not sure if this happens to other people, but it has happened a number of times to me--I just instantly know who the canvas will belong to when I'm finished with it.

The sentiment piece was cutting using the Hillside Edges Die Set--all of the sentiment can be found on the My Friend sheet also.   So, when I was done, I wrapped it up and took it to work with me for my friend, Cathy.  She's been called by name, too.  I think art is just like God's Word....beautiful and to be shared.....

What are you sharing?
Be Awesome!  Jane

Then & Now

"Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God." Exodus 29:45

Hello Friends,

When I was reading chapter 29 and got to the end, the "then" in verse 45 really stood out to me. Chapters 28 and 29 of Exodus list all the things the priests had to do- what they had to wear, how they had to be consecrated, the offerings they had to make- all these things, very specific things done exactly the way God commanded. Why did they have to do all this? So that they could serve in the Tabernacle and be in God's presence. That's why the "then" stood out to me. After they did all these specific things, THEN God would dwell with them. If they missed a step or didn't do exactly as God said, the consequence could have been death. Pretty heavy stuff. But our God is holy and sinful people cannot be in His presence which is why He told the Israelites to do all this.

But, there's good news! Jesus ended the need for all these steps when He died for us. He was the ultimate sacrifice. And if we believe in Him as our Lord and Savior, we are cleansed. Through Him, we can boldly come into God's presence at any time. All believers are indwelt by His Spirit! Ephesians 2:18 says, "For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit." We don't have to wear certain clothes like the priests did. We don't have to make animal sacrifices. We don't have to be consecrated with oil. All we have to do is accept Jesus as our Savior. There is no more "then". We have access to God the Father NOW through Jesus Christ, and are indwelt by His Spirit. Can I get an "amen"?!

This page gives you a sneak peek of two NEW sets- Chunky Alpha and My Friend! These sets will be released tomorrow in the Sweet 'n Sassy Store! I also used His Name.

If you don't want to cover the Scripture, here's a tip. Use a plastic transparency cut to the size you need and adhere the letters or image on that. Then create a tip-in by taping it to the Bible page with washi. Then you can lift it up to read the Scripture! 

One last tip- add a little pizzazz to your letters with a black pen (or a white pen if your letters are black).

Have a blessed week! Andrea