The Artist Must Die: Scribbling, scribbling...to no avail?

Oct 20, 2008

Scribbling, scribbling...to no avail?

The Bible is very specific about being born again...

What does this mean?
What is faith?
What is belief?
What makes a person a Christian?

Repentance is the first step in regeneration...
repentance is turning away from sin and towards God...

Real repentance is evident in our everyday lives...repentance and faith enter our hearts at the point of re-birth...

Is our faith visible?

In James, it tells us that faith without works is dead faith.(James 2:17) The idea is also conveyed in the parable of the fig tree. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. (4 times in the books of Matthew and Luke)

Simply believing that there is a God is not salvation...The book of James tells us that even the demons believe in God--and shudder.(James 2:19)

FAITH, Faith is the currency of Christianity(for non-believers, it is skepticism, isn't it?)

Faith is a bold trust in God. Faith is a leaning into the unseen with thought and action. Believing is faith + trust. It is in fact "knowing". If you are a Christian, you "just know" the way that everyone just knows that the sun will rise in the morning. Belief (knowing) is a result of Grace... we are "saved by grace through faith."(Romans 5:2, Ephesians 2:8)

Grace is God's gift of repentance. Grace is supernatural ability to "see" when before we were "blind." Those who are not a recipient of God's grace are unable to bear fruit. They might be "bad trees"or dormant trees waiting for regeneration... What is the fruit? It is the fruit of the Spirit... love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control... right? (Galatians 5:22)

The HOLY SPIRIT is the mark of salvation.(Matthew 7:16 & 20)

So here is my word picture...

Knowing ABOUT Jesus, and agreeing that He existed makes us no more a Christian than knowing world history and the story of Hitler makes us a Nazi.

Here are my questions:

Do we think that having a right answers will save us?
Can we recall or account for the reality of the Holy Spirit in our lives?
Are we applying the Bible to our lives or are we hoping that we get a chance to say "Jesus, forgive me, come into my life" right before we die?

It would be nice if we knew for sure that we would get that chance... still, don't forget Essau...
The new testament tells us that Esau sought repentance with tears and never got it (Hebrews 12:17)..

Seek Him today while it is still today.(2 Corinthians 6:2)

And one more thing, if we think that God is "mean" because He does it His way...because He doesn't just let everyone into heaven then maybe we should check out our thinking... If you paid $100,000 for your new sports car, and actually sold everything you had and went way into debt to buy it, wouldn't it make you so angry to find out that the car dealership was also just giving them away to anyone. Grace is not free. It cost Him to give it, and it costs us to receive it...

Jesus said to the rich young ruler that he needed to count the cost of following Him...

God is God and we are not.

Can the vessel question the will of the potter?(Isaiah 29:16)

NOTE TO SKEPTICS:

"You cannot go on seeing through things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. . . . If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To see through all things is the same as not to see.”
—C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”
—C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

2 comments:

AnonymousOctober 21, 2008 at 1:09 PM
amen
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AnonymousOctober 27, 2008 at 9:09 PM
I just recently was show that repentance is actually a gift...says that in Timothy somewhere... and repentance is necessary to actually see the Kingdom of God. Interesting post today Kacy...
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Some Warnings to the Christian Artist

"However, there are dangers in exercising one's artistic creativity. One danger is idolatry. the worship of the work of one's own hands, Another is jealousy of other, perhaps more talented or more successful artists, A third is the prostitution of one's artistic talents in the service of evil causes. Yet another is the falsification of artistic visions received from God, This danger is unavoidable in our sin-perverted world, as any godly writer or artist will instantly admit. Because literature and art can be so influential in society. Christian writers and artists must take very seriously the Scriptural admonition to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" as God is "working out His good pleasure in us" (Phil. 2:12-133. Christian writers and artists also should bear in mind that their work is in many respects of an instructive or teaching nature, The writer or artist as teacher `~ill be judged more strictly' by God (James 3:1). Lastly. Christian literature and art should "bless our Lord's holy name with all that is within" the artist (Ps. 103:1). Our creativity must glorify our Creator (Rev.t:1 1). To glorify our wonderful Lord we must forsake mere "Christian utility" aimed at mere entertainment. How sad that Franky Schaeffer, son of the late Ltr .Francis Schaeffer and a talented painter and film maker, could rightly accuse today's Christians of "addiction to mediocrity' and shoddiness in craftsmanship in the arts, This cannot glorify our Creator (Rev. 4:11)."

click here to read the whole article

DYING TO SELF

When you are forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don't sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take in all in patient, loving silence.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any impunctuality, or any annoyance; when you stand face-to- face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility-and endure it as Jesus endured.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you are content with any food, any offering, any climate, any society, any raiment, any interruption by the will of God.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works, or itch after commendations, when you can truly love to be unknown.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

Are you dead yet? In these last days, the Spirit would bring us to the cross.

OTHERS MAY, YOU CANNOT !

If God has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful, may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it, and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their successes, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence upon Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

The lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He may let others get credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, which other Christians never feel distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own. He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but if you absolutely sell yourself to be his love slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.

Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He must have the right to tie your tongue, or chain your hand, or close your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others. Now, when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.