Salvation and Righteousness

You heavens above, rain down My righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness flourish with it; I, the Lord, have created it. Isaiah 45:8

Hi Friends,

In chapter 45, God through Isaiah tells the people that He will return the Jewish people to the Promised Land from the Babylonian exile through Cyrus. God makes it clear in verses 1-8 that God is in complete control. It's not by Cyrus' power or because of him that the Jewish people are restored. It is by God's power and because of Him. He, and He alone, is sovereign.

I just love the word pictures in this verse 8! God, of course, created the heavens and the earth. He can make it rain literally, in the natural sense, but He can also rain down on us in a spiritual sense. When He rains down His righteousness, the only response is salvation! Again, God is telling the people, their restoration is from Him, and Him alone.

There is a lesson in this verse for us as well. Our restoration is also only found in Him. Righteousness and salvation are tied together. God sent Jesus, our Righteousness and Salvation. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we receive salvation and He clothes us in His righteousness. Just think about that- God rained Jesus on this world, on me, on you. Because of that, salvation sprung up in me when I accepted Jesus. But, not only that, righteousness also grows in me because of Jesus. And the same is true for any of us who accept Jesus. WOW! WOW! WOW! We serve such an awesome God!

Page Details:
I used the following Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps sets: Delightful Daisies, Armor of God, Women of Praise, Refresh My Soul, & Sweet & Simple Alpha. I used Salty Ocean Distress Oxide for the background. I applied the ink with a sponge dauber. I stamped the daisy on an address label and colored it with alcohol markers. Then I cut it out and stuck it to the page. I did this as alcohol markers will bleed through Bible pages, and that way it would look crisp against my blue background. I finished the page by highlighting "up" and "flourish" with a white pen.

 

Have a blessed week, my friends! Andrea

Restoration

A Life of Praise

Hi friends,

I've been really enjoying studying the Psalms this term at college and have learnt so much already about the nature of praise and worship, as shown to us in the examples of the psalms. One of the things I have found fascinating is seeing how the whole book of Psalms unfolds from a position in the earlier psalms of distress and lament to a posture of praise at the end of the book. If you read the last five psalms you will notice a strong theme of praise that includes every part of creation. This structure of moving from distress and difficulty to praise for God's love and faithfulness is also seen in many of the individual psalms.

This has really made me think about the way we praise God in our own lives. The psalms show us that it is totally ok - in fact encouraged - to bring all of our lives to God (warts and all!). We can pour out our hearts to him in total honesty about how we feel and what is happening to us. But here's the thing: it shouldn't end there. There should be a BUT moment, where we choose - despite the circumstances - to praise God for who he is and what he has done. There are so many reasons to praise our God (and the Psalms give us lots of examples that we can follow) that no matter how dark it may get, we can always lift our head in praise and allow his light to shine in our hearts.

I created this page in Psalm 146 as a declaration of my heart, which desires to praise the Lord at all times, for as long as I live, no matter the circumstances, in every season - because he is good, faithful and loving, and he is the Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer of all things. PRAISE THE LORD!!

I used the fun new Texture Tiles 4 stamp set (October's Stamp of the Month) for the panel at the side - I love how you can create your own patterned paper effects with this! I also used Armor of God, Refresh my Soul and Teeny Alpha along with some alphabet stickers to create the verse. The other fun new product I've used on this page is Diane's Starry Sanctuary Printable Bundle & Devotional. There are so many lovely images to print and use in a variety of ways. I printed mine on clear sticker paper, then cut out by hand and stuck on this page once I had stamped and sponged the background. Here are the new goodies I've used on this page:

I want to encourage you to pour out your heart to God, and in the process to choose praise as the final word in your situation. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!!

x Amy x

My Soul Thirsts for You

Hey Everyone!

Happy last day of May! I know by now you have seen a few of our new June release sets, so I thought I would share one of our May release sets before we jump into June! I was very excited when we got this set Refresh My Soul. There are so many applications where you can use the different pieces of this large set! For this page, I actually journaled the same verse that I used on my very first blog post as a member of the Creative Worship Team! Here is the page I created using the Refresh My Soul set. 

Psalm 63:1

"O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you,

my soul thirsts for you; 

my flesh faints for you, 

as in a dry and weary land where there is no water."

I used a lot of watercolor for this page and then added detail with colored pencil and pen on top. One new medium I tried was Texture Paste! I thought it would be fun to add some texture to the page in the sand below the cacti. My texture paste was white so I added some tan acrylic paint to tint the texture paste a bit, mixed it well, and scraped it across the bottom of the page! Pretty easy!

And just for a little #ThrowbackThursday fun, here is the page I did back in February for the same exact verse using our In The Morning stamp. It's so cool to see how the same verse can speak to you so differently at different times! 

I hope you guys enjoyed our a-MAY-zing May releases this month! Get ready for some more awesome new stamp sets in June!!

xoxo,

Stephanie Gammon

Refresh My Soul

Itty Bitty Blossoms

In The Morning 

Refresh

Do you ever just get weary? You know, the “my body is just worn out and my mind is cluttered kind of weary?” I don’t know about you, but this girl does.

When I read this passage last week, it brought such a sense of “ahhhhh” to my heart. God himself brings abundant rain that refreshes the weary land. Just reading His word brings such a peace.  Knowing that He provides brings such joy when I get weary.  

David couldn’t help but be filled with joy and had to write about it and sing God’s praises....and so did I!!

“But let the godly rejoice. Let them be glad in God’s presence. Let them be filled with joy. Sing praises to God and to his name! Sing loud praises to him who rides the clouds. His name is the Lord — rejoice in his presence!

O God, when you led your people out from Egypt, when you marched through the dry wasteland,
Interlude

the earth trembled, and the heavens poured down rain before you, the God of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel. You sent abundant rain, O God, to refresh the weary land.

Praise the Lord; praise God our savior! For each day he carries us in his arms. Interlude”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭68:3-4, 7-9, 19‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Art behind the story:

The Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps Refresh My Soul Set was perfect for this passage. I stamped the cacti and the plants, then drew the sand lines and the small cactus on the lower right. The sentiments are stamped used the word “refresh” from the Refresh My Soul set and the Bitty Minnie Alphas. The tiny word “joy” on the tab is from the Choose Faith stamp set. After I water colored the images and the background, I came back and added some sand using the Texture Tiles 1 stamps.

Thanks for joining me today. Pray you find refreshing by pondering His Word today.

Hugs,

Gayle
IG: patioponderings

When Life Gets Prickly...

"Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be moved." Psalm 55:22

Friends,

Life is full of burdens. And we can let them get the best of us. But God knows. And He is there. This verse has a wonderful promise. When we give our burdens to Him, He will sustain us. We don't have to bear them alone! We don't have to bear them in our measly power. Instead, He will bear them in His great power and sustain us. Amen! We have such a good God. It always amazes me how He cares for us.

For this page, I used the following Sweet n Sassy Stamps sets: Refresh My Soul, Bitty Minnie Alpha, Let's Do This, and Stop Drop Pray. I used watercolor crayons for the color. I colored in "PRAY" with a white sharpie.

When life gets prickly, and it will, tell Him all about it. He will sustain you!

Have a blessed week! Andrea

Don't Be Prickly...!

Hi friends,

I remember when I first read and really registered Philippians 2:14 - it was rather convicting!

Do everything without complaining or arguing

As someone who is pretty argumentative by nature, I found it quite staggering to comprehend doing everything without arguing! And then I had to admit that I wasn't exactly a non-complainer either, so there was quite a way to go in living out this verse...

When I was creating this page I started meditating on this verse and two main thoughts came to mind. Firstly, complaining and arguing come from a place of selfishness and pride ultimately. It is pride that insists on having its own way, being right, winning arguments and moaning when things don't go its way. I don't know about you, but that's really not the person I want to be. I don't want to be a prickly person who is difficult to get along with! Gayle Bond gave me the idea to use 'don't be prickly' text for this verse - totally perfect for this scripture!

The second thought that I had while creating this page and meditating on this scripture was that the opposite of complaining and arguing is gratitude and humility. One of the ways I can begin to live in obedience to this scripture is to cultivate the qualities and practices of humility and gratitude in everyday life, choosing to give thanks rather than to complain, and to listen humbly to others, valuing their opinions even if I don't agree with them. That's the kind of person I want to become as I seek to follow Jesus' perfect example.

Here's a step-by-step of how I created this page:
1. Draw the top of the brick wall then paint underneath with pale grey/beige acrylic paint and above with blue acrylics (I used three shades to achieve a variety in the sky).
2. Stencil bricks on the wall using dark grey paint, then clouds in the sky using white paint. Add some shading to the top of the wall with a grey pencil.
3. Stamp the cacti from Refresh My Soul using Stazon ink so they sit on the wall, then stamp again on watercolour paper.
4. Cut out the watercolour cacti then colour with Inktense pencils and an aquabrush.
5. Stamp the words using Bitty Minnie Alpha and Refresh My Soul (I used Versamagic black ink).
6. Glue the cut and coloured cacti onto the stamped images on the page, lining them up.

Here are the stamp sets I used:

I hope you've been encouraged and/or challenged by this short but powerful verse (I know I have been!). May we all make daily choices to walk in humility and gratitude as the Holy Spirit helps us to be 'un-prickly'!

x Amy x

Stuck on You

"Know therefore that the Lord your God is God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations." Deuteronomy 7:9

God is so so good! I just returned home a few weeks ago from a bible journaling retreat that left me filled to overflowing with the goodness of God. So many 'God moments' (those moments that could have only happened because of God...you know the times you say "wow God!") happened to get me to the retreat and while I was there. The crazy, mind blowing thing is, He not only loves and is good to me but a thousand generations that will follow after me. I received this new set of cactus and succulent themed stamps (Refresh my Soul) and instantly the phrase 'stuck on you' jumped into my heart. 

This a really simple and quick page. I stamped one of the cacti on dark green cardstock, fussy cut it out then stamped the adorable face. To make the details pop a little more I used my white gel pen to doodle over some of the stamp line work. I created a little succulent garden on the page and watercolored the images. After stamping the title towards the top I added my prayer, some coordinating washi tapes and tabs. 

This was not a fancy elaborate page, but some days we need that. We need to allow ourselves the freedom to not feel like every page in our Bible needs to be a framable work of art worth of gallery walls. This is a personal place to reflect and pray. So today if you have five minutes or are blessed with hours of time pull out that Bible stamp a quick image use those pencils, watercolors etc journal a prayer and dig in. God is waiting for you... He longs to show you how much He loves you and how good he is. Press in friends and get stuck on Him!

Hugs and Prayers,

Jenn (@creativegurl85) follow me over on instagram to catch all my pages and ideas

Ask for Rain...

Hi friends,

I recently did a search for the word 'rain' in the Bible and came across this Scripture:

"Ask rain from the LORD in the season of the spring rain, from the LORD who makes the storm clouds, and he will give them showers of rain" (Zechariah 10:1)

When I first read this verse I thought it was a great encouragement to pray for God's refreshing and provision. While I think it does carry that meaning, I also noticed the part about seasons. I found it interesting that the instruction is to pray for rain in the season for rain. It made me reflect on whether there are things in my life that there are seasons for, and if I am praying for the right thing at the right time. You see, so often it's easy to get impatient and want things now, so we pray and ask and pray some more. But God knows when it is the right season for each provision we need. Living a life of faith in God means waiting for His timing and His seasons, all the while holding up our requests to God with patience.

I'm having a lot of fun creating with the a-MAY-zing new stamps this month! On this page a stamped the cacti from Refresh My Soul then masked them so I could sponge and stamp ink on the background. The cacti were then coloured with Inktense pencils and an aquabrush. The verse was stamped using the fabulous new Bitty Minnie Alpha set along with its big sister set, Skinny Minnie Alpha. I also used Texture Tiles 1 to create the stamped background effects.

May we all recognise the season we are in and bring our prayers to God in response and faith.

Many blessings.

x Amy x