The following is a collection of pictures and scriptures with commentary from the last few months of my blog. I use pictures with scriptures to bring the Word of God into an image that is used to share His grace and mercy. I pray that God is glorified and grace is shared in each instance. All images are free to share. I pray these are a blessing to you.
Psalm 107:29 God will calm the storms in your life to a whisper; the waves of the sea are calmed by His mercy. There is not one among us at one time or another that has not felt hopeless, discouraged or defeated in life. It is at those times no matter how dark and gloomy things may seem that we must never underestimate the vast expanse and power of grace. Put all your doubt, fear, indecision, hopelessness, anxiety and pain before the powerful Throne of Grace and let Jesus guide you in your decisions.
Matthew 28:20 Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Let me speak some truth to you. When you feel as though you are on top of the world, God loves you. When you feel as though the world is on top of you, God still loves you. When you are reveling in triumphant God loves you. When you are debased and vanquished God still loves you. In an imbalanced world surrounded by a cosmos of change the love of God is the greatest eternal fixed force in all of creation. A God who would forget us and abandon us in our time of need would not be deserving of our praise or worship.
Hosea 10:12 If you plant goodness, you will harvest faithful love. Plow your ground and you will harvest with the Lord. He will make goodness fall on you like rain.The hearts of those devoid of grace are lost, overrun with weeds, thorns and thistles. Their hearts are hard and callous. They are in need of renewing of their minds by the tender mercies of salvation that flowed from the wounds of our Savior upon the sacred tree. As we share Christ and Him crucified by spreading the seeds of His benevolent love on unbroken soil, we will reap a plentiful harvest through the efficacious grace of God.
To my soul grace is like . . . The feeling of snow falling on my tongue.The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ redeems our past and gives us hope for a glorious future. The grace of God turns Imperfect to I’m perfect in Christ. Without grace, I am a liar. Without grace I am self-absorbed, conceited, seeking my own recognition while putting my own needs above that of others. Without grace I am in this for myself. Without grace I am nothing. Without grace I am human and nothing more. With grace I am a child of the living God, heir to all eternity as the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
To my soul grace is like . . . The feeling of the ocean hitting the shoreline, kissing my feet. One could write volumes of books without end on the subject of grace and never scratch the surface on the depth of its power or definition. have its fill. To me the unending, unrestrained power of grace in its absolution, is its greatest form. The power of grace is free from ostentation; it is simplistic in its assimilation, yet full of grandeur in the magnificence of its absorption.
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him,and he will make your paths straight. God had plans for each one of our lives. We are recipients of plans of hope, founded in grace for a future filled with promise. In Christ we will have success. Success, like failure provides the platform for learning. We must learn from success by not overly celebrating it. When we experience success, by His grace we should reinforce our correct spiritual decision-making abilities as references for future use. When we attach our own self-worth and vain emotions to our achievements, we have the tendency to grow in our own ego. God’s plans for us are a manifestation of well executed, best-intended objectives emerging in grace; unlike our own superficial, egotistical goals.
Wrong teaching will lead to wrong thinking, which will lead to wrong living, which will lead to bondage – The very thing that grace is supposed to free us from. Grace does not bring bondage, it brings restoration and life. If you feel trapped and surrounded by your faith you are not experiencing the grace that Christ died for. The Bible tells us in John 8:36 –If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed. Christ has set us free to live in joy and peace. No one, nor anything can put a harness on the power of His grace. We are lucky to be beneficiaries of a gift that is so wondrous that the shallow, conventional thinking of mankind cannot fathom or fully comprehend the might, strength, weight, authority, power and endowment of what is grace.
John 8:32 - You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. The world tells us; “You can do it” – Grace says, “I did it for you”. The message of the gospel is that of God’s goodness and mercy embodied in grace. All the self-help in the world cannot earn even one ounce of grace. Concretized in the foundation of grace is a message that brings life and the forgiveness of sins by the blood of Jesus Christ. All the help we need is found at the foot of the cross. Any advice on how to make your life spiritually better that is not channeled by the message of grace affronts the gospel and insults the life laid by Christ on Calvary. The message of gospel speaks to our heart’s deepest needs filling us with God’s purpose and desire. Sometimes we see the gospel as not feeding us with “solid food,” but only with “milk,” thinking that we need to move on fuller maturity of knowledge. In truth, there is more than enough meat found in the message of grace that keeps us grounded in our infancy and in our maturity as Christians. Grace reminds us that everything we need for our past, present and future is found in the gospel.
1 Corinthians 10:24 – No one should seek their own good; but the good of others. In social and commercial media we are encouraged to pamper and live for ourselves first. We are encouraged to take care of ourselves first, placing our own needs and desires first. By keeping our eyes on self and disregarding our Lord’s directive to place others before ourselves, we become blinded from those who need our help and who can assist, encourage and uplift us in return. God did not create us to be isolated; he created us to share the gift that we have been given – Grace. When we place the good of others before ourselves, those we interact with are able to come face-to-face with our Redeemer.
Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God assures us in Romans 8:37- With God on your side, how can you lose? He did not hesitate to put everything on the line for us, but embraced us with grace by exposing himself to the tragedy and nature of man in order to rescue us from sin. There is nothing that He will not gladly and freely do for us. There is not anyone or anything that can drive a wedge between Christ’s love for us. Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not crisis, not hardship, not even the worst of sins listed in Scripture can separate us from the love of God. We have a new identity written by the Blood of the Lamb, documented in the Lamb’s book of Life and given all authority by the Creator in His Word. As recipients of an identity purchased by grace, we are to live it, breathe it, act upon it and use it to fulfill who we are in Christ -We are a child of the King.
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