THE PAINTING ABOVE IS A SERMAN....WITHOUT WORDS, ABOUT THE LOVE OF JESUS.......

IN THIS PAINTING, Jesus is tenderly holding and ministering love to a man who looks like he's spent his entire life in bondage to anger, perhaps addictions such as drinking or drugs and those other things that try to stop us and hold us down and keep us from finding God.

THE MAN LOOKS LIKE HE'S EXHAUSTED from "trying" and "fighting", and "battling life'.... and he looks like he finally has given up and is leaning on Jesus now and has just given everything in his life over to God.

YOU CAN SEE IN THE PAINTING the look of compassion on Jesus face that tells us no matter what we've done or where we've been God isn't going to hold it against us when we come to him.

THE BIBLE SAYS God FORGETS our shame, our sins, our mistakes JUST AS IF THEY NEVER HAPPENED. How do we become a Christian? It almost sounds too simple, but all we have to do is say a simple prayer in our own words asking Jesus to take over our life....that we want to get to know Him and love Him. You can do this ANYWHERE, in your kitchen, at a meeting, in your office, on the street. It doesn't matter. What matters is that once you do this, You will watch your life begin to change as God starts to work in your heart. If you decide to pray to ask Jesus into your life and heart after visiting my website, please e-mail me!
I'd love to hear about it and answer any questions you might have. Go to my "contact page" to e-mail me!

Although God loves it so much when we pray in our very own words from our heart, an example of a prayer might be something like this: "God in heaven, I believe you sent Jesus into this world to take away my sin and restore me to You. I believe Jesus died on the cross, and that You raised Him from the dead. Jesus, I ask you to forgive me and to come into my life as my Savior and Lord. And now I know that according to Your Word, I am born again, and heaven bound. Thank you Lord!"
Once you've said something like this to God and meant it with all your heart, you have instantly and forever become a
part of God's family...for all eternity!!!! This also means all the sins and mistakes and awful things we've done or said in the past are totally forgiven and FORGOTTEN by God, and we are SET FREE....or in other words reborn, or "Born Again".
Thats what Jesus means when He says, "You must be born again". He wants us in His family!! He loves us so much, we
can't even begin to imagine the depth of his love for us and how for and how long His love reaches through our lives.

ROMANS 8:38 & 39 SAYS: :

"FOR I AM PERSUADED, THAT NEITHER DEATH NOR LIFE,
NOR ANGELS, NOR PRINCIPALITIES, NOR POWERS, NOR
THINGS PRESENT, NOR THINGS TO COME, NOR HEIGHT,
NOR DEPTH, NOR ANY OTHER CREATURE, SHALL BE ABLE
TO SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD, WHICH IS IN
CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD."

THE PAINTING ABOVE SHOWS JESUS HOLDING THE SMALL CHILD AS THEY LOOK AT A BUTTERFLY TOGETHER. THIS IS A TENDER AND PRECIOUS ARTISTIC RENDERING OF JESUS.ALTHOUGH WE DON'T KNOW WHAT HE ACTUALLY LOOKED LIKE, THIS PAINTING SHOWS HIS HEART OF COMPASSION, TENDERNESS AND SENSE OF WONDER. AND HE DID TELL US TO "BE AS A SMALL CHILD"

I believe that means to let our skepticism and
facades, masks, and walls, DROP OFF and open our
eyes and look at each other and God's
creation with new excitement and appreciation and
discovery!

In other words, "As through the eyes of
a child."

THE WATERFALLS TO BELOW represent my personal fascination with Waterfalls. To me, they represent beautifully the OUTPOURING of God's love for us.

You can return to the place of a waterfall 30 years later and the water is STILL POURING OUT just as if we'd never been away...

THATS HOW GOD IS! When we come back or turn to Him for the first time, we discover that He's always been there, His love has been pouring out for us from ALL ETERNITY, before we were even born!

BELOW: THE RIVER OF LIFE

For many years I attended a ministry campmeeting called "Women of the Word. Later it was called "Camp Glory". They were usually hosted by Lynne Hammond, one of the senior pastors of my church, Living Word Duluth/Superior, and Billye Brimm, a teacher and prophet to Israel. Every meeting, we'd sing this song, over and over,. It's about the River of Life...and it goes like this:!

"Jump in to the river of the sweet Holy Ghost"
"Come feel the bubbles....come feel the flow..."
"Let the Spirit take you where He wants you to go.."
"Jump in to the river of the Sweet Holy Ghost"