Faith, Hope, & Love

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. 

But the greatest of these is love. 

1 Corinthians 13:13

Hi Friends,
Today, I'm focusing on 1 Corinthians 13:13. This chapter is familiar to many of us. Many people refer to it as the love chapter. In chapter 12, Paul spoke of spiritual gifts. And he followed that chapter with a chapter on love to point out that if these gifts are practiced without godly love, they are worthless. The Corinthians were proud of their spiritual gifts. Paul wanted to remind them that the way of love is more important. 

The point of 1 Cor 13:1-3 is that what we do is not eternally meaningful if it is not done in love. If we are just going through the motions, or just doing what we’re “supposed” to do, we need to stop and re-evaluate. Our hearts need to be in the right place. God knows our hearts. And He wants us not just serving others, but lovingly serving others.

When I read 1 Cor 13:4-8, I see Christ’s love through and through. It is an amazing love that we can all strive for, but again, cannot achieve without the Holy Spirit. I pray often that God would help me see others through His eyes and help me to love them as He does. Prayer is so important- not only praying for the people we are trying to love, but praying for ourselves that God will help us love them. So don’t forget to pray!

Verse 13 says that faith, hope, and love remain. What that's speaking to is that the spiritual gifts the Corinthians were priding themselves in were temporary. But faith, hope, and love are eternal. Faith is an essential part of Christianity. Hope is a conviction that God will keep His promises. And all things need to be done in love. God is love, so that is central to following Jesus. 1 Cor 13:13 says the greatest is love. Why? The following came from the notes section in my Jeremiah Study Bible, "Why is love the greatest of these? When Christ makes all things new and His followers are ushered into the eternal state, faith will no longer be necessary because the redeemed will see face to face. Hope will no longer be necessary because their hope will have been perfectly realized. But love will remain, and it will finally be known without the taint of sin." Love without the taint of sin. That’s Jesus love.

Page Details: I used the following Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps sets: County Fair Alpha, The Good News, Made New, Filigree Hearts, Psalm 23 Background, Texture Tiles 1.



 Have a blessed week! Andrea

Heavy Hearted

Jesus heals the heavy heart!  Psalm 107 repeats three times, "Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble; He rescued [saved] them from their distress."  This verse is so important, it is repeated three times within one chapter.  The people of Isreal cried out to Jesus when they were troubled and heavy-hearted, and He heard their pleas, their cries for help, their distress.  He healed them!

I

 

I began this page by handpainting with watercolors from Dots'n Dust.  I then stamped the message, and the little words, and stamped the hearts from the Filigree Hearts set.  I loved how this page turned out! 

Healer of My Heart Stamp Set

 Thanks for stopping by!  

Your Steadfast Love

"Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever."(Psalm 107:1)

This verse is an easy one for me to remember.  I find myself repeating it over and over during my prayer time, or when I need to have more of a thankful attitude.  Perhaps its because of the Michael W. Smith praise song "Forever Faithful".  

This verse reminds us that we ALWAYS have something to thank God for:  His steadfast and forever-enduring love.  It is this love that makes God so good.  And it is for this love and goodness that we can be thankful.  This love was manifest in His Son, Jesus.  We can thank God always for Jesus.  In turn, when we give thanks to God continually, we begin to see more and more of God's goodness and steadfast love present in our lives and circumstances.  It's a beautiful cycle.  

I used the His Love stamp set to create the focal image for this page in my Little Psalm Book.  I stamped the heart onto a piece of white card stock, colored it with Worn Lipstick and Old Paper Distress Oxide Inks, and then fussy cut it out.  I also stamped the same heart onto a hymnal page, and cut out the insides of the heart .  Then I paper-pieced the hymnal page pieces onto the card stock heart.  

To create the background for this page, I brushed some Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide Ink onto the page with a makeup brush.  This allowed for a very light shading of color.  I stamped some texture in pink and black with two of the Texture Tiles 1 stamps.  I also smooshed some Dusty Concord Distress Oxide Ink onto the page, after spritzing it with water to activate the pigment in the ink.  

I stamped the title words with Mini Grunge Type Alpha and Chunky Lowercase Alpha Stamp sets, as well as one of the words from the Filigree Hearts set.  To achieve the two-tone letters of "forever" I simply inked the bottom of the letter stamps with the purple ink first, and then the top of the letter stamps with the pink, overlapping slightly to blend the colors.  I added some shading with a black precision pen, and then adhered my heart with some double sided foam tape.  I finished the page off with a black and white tab, some washi from my stash, and some black splatter painting.

This heart stamp is perfect for Bible Journaling, or for creating heartfelt handmade cards--especially with Valentine's Day coming!  Be sure to check out how the other ladies on the team have been using the His Love set.  You'll be amazed!

Thanks for stopping by!

Jules

His Love

Prayer 101

It’s great to know that when we need answers, we have a great textbook readily available to us. In the book of James, we are told if we need wisdom, all we have to do is ask. 

“If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.”
‭‭James‬ ‭1:5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Learning about prayer is the same way. It’s all laid out for us in the gospels. Jesus teaches a model prayer often referred to as the Lord’s Prayer. We often want to jump straight to it, but Jesus prefaces it with some specific instructions.

He tells us in Matthew 6:6:

“Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.” (MSG)

I love that He is so specific.

“Find a secluded place.”

“Just be there simply and honestly.”

Then, when our posture, position, and place is right, He tells us that “the focus will shift from you to God.”

Without the preparation, our hearts and minds will still be on #allthethings instead of where it needs to be: on Him.

With my word of the year being “abide”, I knew that prayer would be an integral part of it. Not only is the Lord teaching me to draw near and abide with Him, He is showing me clearly just how to do that.

My hope is that this will challenge you to examine your posture, position, and place as you spend time with the Lord in prayer.  

Art behind the story:

With the release of Filagree Hearts this month as the stamp of the month at Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps, I knew I wanted to use this set everywhere!

The background was done with a wet on wet watercolor technique, and then the additional visual texture was added with stamps from that same set, as well as another favorite Grunge Elements 2.

I stamped several Filagree Hearts on paper and fussy cut them.  I wrote the verse out on some patterned cardstock, and then added the "aged" look with the Grunge Elements 2 and pens.  

Lastly, I added the title with the Happy Alpha and finished it off with a fabric clip and some washi tape.

Hope you enjoy all the new releases this month, but mostly, I pray that using them to create for Him will be precious time well spent.

Until next time,

Gayle

Patio Ponderings

Guard your Heart...

Hi friends,

Have you ever heard a verse quoted so often that it begins to lose meaning for you? Or maybe its been quoted out of context in an unhelpful way? I've heard the verse 'Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life' (Prov 4:23) many, many times. Unfortunately, it was often in a context of covering or excusing other people's words and behaviour and laying  responsibility at the feet of the person who had potentially been hurt. For this reason I got to the point of almost 'eye-rolling' when I heard this verse - which I admit is a very poor response to the word of God! It really is the opposite of 'guarding your heart' ironically!

So as we approach Valentine's Day (and I have heart-themed stamps to play with!) I looked up 'heart' in the Bible and this verse came up. Instead of rolling my eyes, I decided to illustrate this in my Bible and meditate on this scripture in order to hear God's truth. The thing that I realised is that guarding our heart is not about not letting hurt or disappointment touch or affect us. It's not about being robots that don't feel pain or about ignoring the hurtful behaviour of others (which many times needs to be addressed). This scripture is encouraging us to guard our heart with the word of God (read the surrounding verses that talk about paying attention to the writer's words).

You see, when the word of God guards out heart, it will act as a filter for what goes in and what goes out. When hurt or disappointment comes to our heart, the word of God gives us God's perspective, grace and healing. When praise and success come our way, the word of God guards against pride and self-sufficiency. When lies are spoken into our ears and want to filter their way into our hearts, the word of God guards against their impact, holding up the shield of truth to deflect the darts of the enemy. So how do we guard our heart? Fill it up with the word of God! Saturate your heart in the Scriptures. Meditate and memorise God's truth.

I had fun creating a background with gelatos on this page, stamping and using alphabet stickers over the top to create the verse. I drew the red heart first, adding layers of colour around it in rainbow order, then blended the colours with clear gesso and my finger (messy but fun!). When this was dry I went back over the top with some more colour, blending it with my finger again over the background to intensify the colours.  I used the new Stamp of the Month, Filigree Hearts, as well as Happy Alpha and All Your Heart on this page.

Let's guard our hearts with the word of God and allow his truth to shield every part of our lives!

x Amy x

Love is...

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  8 Love never fails.  (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

1 Corinthians 13 is a definition of love--God's perfect, pure love.  I'm a teacher.  When I assign my students vocabulary words, I often have them do it in a Frayer Model-style.  This is a model to help students fully understand a concept by identifying a word's definition, its characteristics, its examples, and its non-examples.  Basically, it helps to understand what something is by also understanding what it isn't. Here is what the model looks like for the word "turtle":

1 Corinthians 13, although not technically a Frayer Model in design, uses the same characteristics to help us understand the concept of love.  It describes love, giving examples, as well as non-examples.

Love is...

Love does not...

Love always...

Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, knew that describing what love wasn't would help them understand what love was.  And what it wasn't was more like the love this world has to offer.  Paul contrasts God's perfect love to the imperfect love that we usually see and experience in this world.  The only time we can experience this perfect love is when God is in the picture. This love is God's character; and only when we allow His character to reign in our hearts can we love with this God-character love described in these verses.  

Art Talk:

For this page, I used some patterned papers that a dear, sweet friend sent to me.  I stamped the letters L-O-V-E with the In Stitches Alpha stamp set and cut them out.  Then I stamped and fussy cut a series of hearts onto the papers using this month's Stamp-of-the-Month Filigree Hearts. I printed out the verses 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 onto card stock, cut out each phrase, and then pasted a phrase onto each of the little cut-out hearts.  I made a tag that says LOVE, and then used a vellum envelope to store the little hearts. I created a background on the Bible page with some Shimmerz Inklingz (A Rose by Any Other Name), some stamping and splattering.  I then embossed a heart and the cursive "love" (using the His Love set) onto the front of the vellum envelope.  I placed a scrap of hymn paper inside it, as well as all the little hearts.  I added a tag to the top of the page with some washi, and then adhered the large LOVE tag to the page.  

These little hearts can be removed from or viewed through the vellum envelope.

Thanks for joining me today.  I pray that you'll be able to experience God's true, perfect love today.  

Blessings--

Julie

FILIGREE HEARTS