We Stand IN Grace

Romans 5:1-2 is one of those brief passages that I've read many, many times but one small treasure gleamed and caught my eye on another reading.  I've just focused on other parts of the verse. But look at this..."Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

What struck me this time was the essence of grace in the life of the believer.  Grace isn't just something God dispenses as we repent.  We STAND IN GRACE.  Grace is a position we hold as a child of God.  Grace will not be withheld from the believer.  We are IN it...forever.  That is why His grace is sufficient.  His grace has covered everything necessary for our salvation.  I saw this as such a powerful part of the verse.  In grace we can stand and seize all God's treasures--life with Him forever, peace now in life and with God.  We don't have to come begging like a pauper.  We are already completely covered by His grace and that gives us the power to stand as victors!  I love it when Bible/Art journaling offers those beautiful moments when scripture comes alive all over again.

 

This is how my page started. I used my new jars of Distress Paints.  Oh, my! They are like melted butter.  LOVE them.  Then I did a little stenciling to add some texture.  Then I got out my Sweet 'n Sassy stash to see what I could find to help me share this amazing passage of scripture.

The verse is expressed in both stamped words/letters and hand-lettering.  All the stamps I used are listed below.

 I had a blast going back to some of my mixed media techiques to do this girl.  She is all from cut papers.  I didn't sketch it out...just started cutting so I'd get this totally casual artsy look to her.  Her hair is painted as is some of the light shading on her skin.  I used a Prisma pen to outline her last. The papers for her clothes are some from my stash.  Her flowers are stamped on painted paper then cut out.  The white outlining is the white sharpie paint pen also available through SNSS.

I can remember my preacher-daddy being so incredulous that people would actually resist God's grace.  My whole family soaked it up like a sponge and often needed more.  We caught a glimpse of how needy we were, how lost--were it not for grace. When we say "YES" to His amazing grace, we are at peace with God, reconciled and secure.  And that fact gives us peace in the here and now.

I hope this little nugget in scripture has given you a fresh look at grace and I hope my mixed media antics will give you some fun inspiration to try in your own art journals or Bibles.

Stamp sets from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps:

• All of Me Alpha (stand)
• Amazing God (amazing)
• Choose Faith (grace)
• He is Worthy-(yellow flowers)
• Message of Hope (forever, live in His peace, and forever. 
• Note This (say yes to, right where He wants me, ampersand) 
• Seek Him (corner designs, arrows, small hearts)

 All of Me Alpha and Amazing God

 Choose Faith

 Message of Hope, He is Worthy, and Note This

 Seek Him

( dianesdaydreamdesigns.blogspot.com )

Train Them Up

{jane bosi} Happy Wednesday, Sweet Friends!!  I'm excited to begin contributing here on the Creative Worship blog!  I was a slow starter to bible journaling, but once I began, it became as alluring to me as a day filled with worship music.  My thoughts often drift to my journaling---oh, if I only I had no other responsibilities!  I imagine these will be the activities of Heaven!

Today, I am sharing Proverbs 22:6.  The single greatest joy and hardest thing I have done with my life is to be a parent---I'm hearing ALL of your amens!!  My oldest will be graduating high school next year and starting his journey away from our home.  While I know he is ready and prepared for what God will set before him, my heart often does not feel ready.  I journaled these pages as I reflected on Mother's Day and recent times when I've struggled with my emotions.  I had first determined to only do the left side page, but as I prayed over the verses and sought my God, my heart and emotion just bubbled over.  I added the second page with some stenciling to make it more cohesive.  The verse I was concentrating on was Proverbs 22:6  "Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

To complete my pages, I used a variety of stamps from Sweet 'N Sassy Stamps.   Specifically, I used:  Little One, Common Words 1, Just Be and Note This.  Also, I used distress inks, a Tim Holtz stencil and Ranger Archival Black ink. 

It's a bit of a risk for me to share the cry of my heart, but the truth lies in the verse and from it, I will not depart--be blessed!

TTFN, Jane

Sing to the Lord, He is highly exalted

When Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground.

When Miriam realized God had saved her and His people they started dancing and singing, praising God. I wanted to highlight this part of the message. Immediately after these events they started praising God. They didn’t take time to rest or they didn’t wait to see what trials would follow. Of course, we know there would follow a lot more trials, but that didn’t stop Miriam to praise God in this moment.

Sometimes I tend to overthink things. When there’s one problem that’s solved I already think about the next (possible) trial that could be faced. But wouldn’t it be better to live in the moment? To praise God for everything he gives right now, instead of pondering about everything that could still happen. The people of Israel didn’t know what would happen next, where they would go or where they could stay. But the Lord saved them in this moment and He deserves all praise.

I didn't use a lot of supplies for this page. I just used the stamp set 'He is Worthy', a micron pen and a couple of colored pencils. There is so much information on this page that I wanted to use the other margins for other parts of this scripture. So I didn't use the entire page, but only a little part. I will add more notes on this page later.

- Lucinde

King of kings

Hello!

It's Tifany here from Ink Blots by TRD and I'm back today with another Bible art/journaling page to share. The "art" part of this one I have been wanting to do for quite awhile - a plaid effect. Usually when I do my pages, my art ties in with the theme...but sometimes I just want a colorful background to stick some words on. (This was one of those times.)

For the plaid technique, I took a few different colors of ink and swiped them onto my page (which had been prepped with matte multi medium) using jumbo sponge daubers. I let each color dry before adding the next so that the colors would blend and not just get wiped away. Coming back to a page over and over again to add layers was great - it kept me thinking about the theme for several days. 

For the wording on this page, I mainly used the His Name stamp set from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. I added in the ampersand (and those decorative 'x' marks on the background) using stamps from the Fill Me Up set. 

"God, the blessed and only Ruler,

the King of kings and Lord of lords,

who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light,

whom no one has seen or can see.

To him be honor and might forever.

Amen."

{1 Timothy 6: 15b-16}

As always, you can find my full supply list and all of my other Bible art & journaling posts here.

Hope & Pray...and Wait!

All my life my family has used the phrase, "hope and pray" when looking for the best in every situation.  I'd hear something akin to, "I just hope and pray you don't catch a cold," or "Let's hope and pray everything turns out ok," to "I hope and pray I shut the garage door."  We uttered the phrase rather casually not knowing for years that it is a God-breathed word of encouragement and instruction in scripture!  Romans 12:12 says, "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."

The hope we have as believers is not a whimsical wish as the world views hope.  Websters dictionary defines it, "to want something to happen or be true and think that it could happen or be true."  The Bible says if this is the only kind of hope we have, we are to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:19). The Christians hope far surpasses that.  1 Peter 1:3 describes a living hope, rooted in the certainty of our resurrection.  In other words, our hope is focused on heaven, not earth.

 I chose the verse in Romans to celebrate our certain hope, which helps us wait on God when we are in trials--difficult circumstances.  The hoping and praying--those are the easy parts of the formula!  It's the patience...the WAITING that gets hard.

Patient in tribulation?  Waiting is harder than we sometimes imagine.  And the more serious our circumstances the harder it is to wait.  So I came up with an acrostic for to help me remember what my time of waiting should look like.

W.A.I.T.  

W=Worship God for who He is in my life.

A = Advance in obedience to revealed truth

I = Imitate Christ before a watching world

T = Thank God in the midst of my need 

**I have more devotional thoughts on this on my blog at 

dianesdaydreamdesigns.blogspot.com

If we wait upon God, He has an amazing blessing in store for us.  We will be filled with joy and peace, and the Holy Spirit Himself will fill us with abundant, certain, unfailing hope.  I think that IS awesome!

I used acrylic paints on the left page and paper pieced words from the Seek Him set, and used water-based inks on the right page.  Here are the Sweet 'n Sassy stamp sets I used....all EIGHT of them!  You can find them all right HERE.

Fill Me Up

Be Wise

Hello Bible journaling friends!  Did you know that Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps has a Creative Worship Bible Journaling Group on Facebook for those interested in learning more about Bible Journaling and sharing their pages, tips, and techniques?  Each Friday, Rebecca Rios will be posting a Bible Journaling Challenge for for anyone who wishes to participate.  The challenge this week is to complete a page in Proverbs.  

The first word that popped into my head when thinking about the book of Proverbs is wisdom.  I don't know about you, but I've made enough bad decisions in my life that I need to pray for God's wisdom every day.  James tells us that if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God and He will give to all liberally and without reproach. (James 1:5)  The book of Proverbs tells us that apart from God, there can be no wisdom.  In today's world, we need all the wisdom we can get.  Since there are 31 chapters in the book of Proverbs, we can read a chapter a day and read through the book of Proverbs each month.  Almost every day I am challenged by something I read that day.  

Here is the page I did for the Proverbs challenge:

After stamping and masking the owl and branches from the Owl Be There and Love Birds stamp sets, Distress inks were sponged over the page to create a night sky.  White acrylic paint was splattered over the page to look like stars.  The masks were removed and the images were painted with Intense Color Blocks and shaded a little with Prismacolor Pencils.  Seek Him and Camden Market Alpha stamp sets were used for the main words while the notes were hand lettered.

The following supplies from the Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps Store were used to create this page:

Wisdom helps us understand the fear of the Lord which in turn helps to preserve us and deliver us from the way of evil.  Wisdom is more valuable than silver, so be wise…seek wisdom!

I hope you will join us in the challenge this week, and if you do, please be sure to share your journaling page with us…we'd love to see how God spoke to your heart through His word!

Hugs and Blessings,

Cathy

Fill Me With Peace

Good Morning- or should I say Good Afternoon!

(I wrote this sipping on my Sunday morning cup of coffee- cheers!)

This week I have been spending quite a bit of time licking my wounds and feeling a bit sorry for myself.  Unfortunately, I did not get the job I had my hopes set on.  I really felt like this was THE JOB I had been waiting for and was meant for me.  Keep in mind, I found this out a week ago Friday and I spent my entire week allowing this to bring me down and spiraled from there.  

With the spiraling not only did depression set in and questions of why I am not good enough? What could I have done differently?  So came into question- "what is God's Will for me?".  Did I not pray enough? Do I not say the right things when I pray?  Am I praying for my wants versus His will for me?  All of these questions tend to stir doubt in my soul.  In my heart I know He has a plan and the bible tells me this plan is much bigger than my own.  I just question whether or not I am worthy enough to be privy to this information anytime soon.  I get it- everything happens in His time.  When will His timing and His will be in sync with my own?  I guess I just don't understand what God wants from me. 

In all of this self pity and wallowing, I ran across a post yesterday that questioned whether the sadness we allow ourselves to sit in, is a result of (simply) a bad moment that we've allowed ourselves to "milk" into an extended amount of time.  Is this a bad day or a bad life- so to speak?  Am I bummed because I didn't get the job or is this really depression that I'm allowing to take over?  I find that I tend to do this.  Rather than picking myself up and dusting myself off, I tend to wallow in the mud.  I also find myself losing faith.

The page I did this week is a reminder to myself that prayer is powerful.  On this journey of faith that I am on, I am learning to trust and have faith- (I wish this was something that came to me easily).  Why does it seem God quiets when I feel I need to hear him the loudest?  All of these questions, I am taking to prayer with me.  I pray that Jesus will fill me up with peace, faith, trust and hope.  That he does in fact hear me and helps to open my heart to allow me to hear him during the silence.

Micha 7:7
"But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me."

 To complete this page I used "Fill Me Up" by Rebecca Rios stamp set.

Peace, love & blessings to you all,

Jamie