Fight the Good Fight

Fight the good fight of the faith. 1 Timothy 6:12a

Hi Friends,

Today we're in 1 Timothy 6 where Paul directed Timothy to "fight the good fight of the faith." What exactly did Paul mean by that? To fight the good fight of faith is to stand firm in Jesus by abiding in His Word, no matter what we may feel or what we think we understand. Our feelings can get us into trouble. Many people say,"Follow your heart." That's the last thing we need to be following! The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 17:9 that the heart is deceitful and sick. We don't need to follow our hearts. We need to follow Jesus and stand firm in Him. How do we fight the good fight? Ephesians 6:10-18 is a good place to start.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

We must be strong in the Lord. We can't fight on our own. We need to depend on Him 24/7. We must put on the armor of God. This is the only way to fight for Him. We must believe in His authority and in His promises. As I said earlier, our hearts and our feelings can lead us astray. Feelings aren't truth. God's Word is truth no matter what we may be feeling or think we know. And we must pray. We need to pray for His help, His strength, His wisdom.

Our world is hurting so badly. Some people think the fight is against each other. We need to remember who it's really against. Stand firm. Fight the good fight.

Page details: I used the following Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps sets: The Lord's Battle, Send Me, Walk by Faith, Be a Flamingo, Mighty Fortress, and Itty Bitty Blossoms. The Lord's Battle is part of the August release and it's fantastic! Don't ya love the boots??!! I added a flower and heart to these boots. Who says military boots can't be cute? I keep my pages pretty simple most of the time. This was just stamping and using watercolor crayons to add color.

Have a blessed week! Andrea

Fear not!

Hi friends,

I want to talk about something today that I believe is really important to reflect upon for those of us who engage in creative worship. I have lost count of the amount of times I have read comments from people on social media, often commenting on my artwork, that express worry or fear about doing something artistic in their bible.

These kind of comments make me sad because fear should not play a part in our creative worship of God. I've thought a lot about what is behind those fears, and the main driving reason for fear seems to be fear of making a mistake, fear of failure, fear of 'messing up' the bible. In response to this I want to share a little of my journey and what I've learnt about why we do what we do when we draw, paint or stamp in our bibles.

I started Bible journaling over four years ago with simple stamping and stickers. I look back on the pages I did then and some of them I like, others of them I most certainly do not. There are even a few I wish I could tear out because of the disaster they were artistically! But for me this has been a journey in overcoming perfectionism. My natural disposition is one that never wants to make a mistake, is petrified of failure, of looking foolish. This would be the case even if I wasn't sharing my art on social media, but with that added factor the perfectionism tendencies are even more of an issue. But as I've consistently created in my Bible, I've learned a few lessons along the way...

1) It's about the heart before it's about the art. The purpose of this artistic activity is not primarily the production of beautiful artwork. It is about spending time meditating on God's word and hiding it in our heart. It is about creating time for God to speak to us through his Word and for us to respond in praise, prayer and obedience.

2) Mistakes remind us that we are not God... and that is a good thing. When we hold on to the desire for perfection we forget that only one is perfect and that one is God. We are most certainly not perfect, whether artistically or behaviorally! This is good to meditate on because it keeps us humble and it reminds us of the grace and love of God, who loves us unconditionally, despite our glaring imperfections.

3) Skill in anything takes time to develop - time and a lot of practice! I know this with playing and teaching the piano. Many people would like to play beautiful piano music but are not prepared to put in the practice required to be able to do so. The same goes for art. To colour beautifully, stamp accurately and design pages with balance and creativity requires practice, practice and more practice. Often we learn best when we make mistakes and we realise that certain things don't work. That's all part of the journey of increasing in knowledge and skill!

I used the sweet Be a Flamingo set for the images on this page, and combined the Sweet & Simple Alpha and Walk by Faith sets along with some tiny alpha stickers for the verse. I couldn't resist adding some Faith Wordfetti for finishing touches! I used Inktense blocks from Derwent to colour the images, using an aquabrush to pick up the colour. The background was also created using these blocks by spritzing some water on my glass mat and rubbing the block into the water to create a little coloured ink puddle. I then picked up some of this colour with a piece of acetate and 'smooshed' it onto the page until I was happy with the overall effect. Here are the stamp sets used on this page:

Can I encourage you to say 'no' to fear when it comes to expressing your faith in creative worship and instead to embrace the process of learning about God, yourself and creativity?

With every blessing...

x Amy x

Faith minus Love = Nothing

Hi friends,

The Bible has a lot to say about faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). Faith can move both mountains and fig trees (Matthew 17:20; 21:21). Faith in prayer is both vital and powerful (Matthew 21:22; James 5:15). But in 1 Corinthians 13 Paul makes it clear that there is something that is needed alongside faith, without which, faith is null and void.

We can have faith that can move mountains, that achieves things, gets results and is impressive to those around us. But without love, this means nothing. In fact, Paul says that without love 'I am nothing'. Lack of love nullifies all the other things we think are important or impressive. Having come from an environment in my past that emphasised faith in a big way, but had catastrophic gaps in the practice of love, this scripture really speaks to me.

This verse is challenging because I think a lot of the time it is easier to focus on faith than to walk out love. This may be because things that we have faith for could benefit us in some way and therefore we are more motivated to believe. It also could be because loving people is difficult, messy and usually unspectacular. But without love, all that faith can achieve is pointless, because without love, we aren't representing the God who we claim to have faith in. What a sobering challenge to our priorities in our daily walk with God and others.

I created the background on this page using a brick wall stencil and different shades of pink paint. I layered another stencil with broken lines using white paint over the top and sponged a little white paint over some of the bricks to create a distressed look. The verse was stamped using a combination of Walk by Faith, Teeny Alpha, and Seek Him stamp sets along with some alpha stickers.

I pray that God would continually enable us to demonstrate his love with those around us as we walk by faith in him.

x Amy x