The narrow gate - Matthew 7:13-14

The narrow and wide gates
‘Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

- Matthew 7:13-14

I've read this passage dozens of times, possibly to the point that it's become less meaningful over the years. I know I should stick to the harder narrow path, with rules laid out by God, and not go to the wider everything goes path, but it can be hard to think of the end game sometimes when there's so much going on in the present.

As I was reading the passage this time this image came into my mind - a choice of two doorways, one leading to a beautiful countryside place and the other filled with fire and smoke. In drawing this, hopefully it will make the destinations stick in my mind better if I find myself contemplating trying the wide path sometimes.

As usual, I used my Derwent Inktense pencils, black Micron pen and white gel pen for this entry.

Bible flip through March to October part 2

I had a lovely blank page at the start of the New Testament to fill, so I wanted to do something to show the change from Old to New. The thing that leaped to mind straight away was 'a king is born' - what the New Testament is all about.
I painted the page with gold acrylic paint then added the text with black pen and used gel pens to colour the crown. I finished with washi tape along the edge so I could find the New Testament easily.

This was a page I did during Bible study on Isaiah 1..

The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
A rebellious nation

Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth! For the Lord has spoken:
‘I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.’

Woe to the sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption!
They have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him.

Why should you be beaten any more? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness – only wounds and bruises and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil.

Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you, laid waste as when overthrown by strangers.
Daughter Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a cucumber field, like a city under siege.
Unless the Lord Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
‘The multitude of your sacrifices – what are they to me?’ says the Lord. ‘I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations – I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!

Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

‘Come now, let us settle the matter,’ says the Lord.
‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.’
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

See how the faithful city has become a prostitute! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her – but now murderers!
Your silver has become dross, your choice wine is diluted with water.

 - Isaiah 1:1-22

I wrote the warnings from the passage in the margin and chose to use the idea of dilution and scarlet sins for the background. The red colour is diluted as it flows down the page - not a literal translation of the idea but it reminds me of the passage - don't become diluted and that sins are 'red as crimson' if we refuse to make ourselves clean before God.

This was inspired by an inspirational picture I saw somewhere. When I was reading the passage from Genesis about Lot escaping from Sodom and Gomorrah it seemed to fit perfectly.

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.’

When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, ‘Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!’

But Lot said to them, ‘No, my lords, please! Your servant has found favour in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it – it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.’

He said to him, ‘Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.’ (That is why the town was called Zoar.)

By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the Lord rained down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah – from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities – and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

 - Genesis 15:15-26

John 8:32 - The truth shall set you free

If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, ‘Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’ But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.

- Romans 10:9-17

The art is one of Shauna Bucaroff's whimsical girls and when I did the pages I really wanted to include it. In retrospect I wish I had done something different now - the pages when I copy other people's ideas and thoughts don't seem to mean as much to me as the ones when I come up with my own ideas.

Having said that, a few weeks after doing this page I had to preach at church and I found the verses coming back to me again. The following is part of what I preached - part of what the verses led to after I'd done some more in depth study.

The first part of the passage is one of those verses which often gets misquoted, or at the very least, misrepresented. “The truth shall make you free” is carved in stone on university buildings around the world, used as newspaper slogans, and quoted often – for the vast majority of the time, the people who use it ignore the first part of the verse.

Will your own opinions and the opinions of others set you free? Will knowing the latest gossip about soap stars set you free? Or having access to endless news reports online, on TV or in newspapers and magazines?

No. The verse is talking about knowing the truth about Jesus. That truth is contained in the Bible. Admittedly, the Bible can be hard and sometimes uncomfortable reading - but this is what will set you free.

We know that the Bible is true. All 27 books of the New Testament were written while the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry were still alive. Paul's letters were written 15 to 30 years after the death of Jesus. 1 Corinthians 15:6 he mentions the fact that 500 people had seen the risen Jesus at one time and that most of them were still alive. Most of the books were written before AD 70, within 40 years of the crucifixion, with the last to be written possibly only as late as around AD 90 – still within living memory. Think of it this way. If we were the writers of the New Testament now, for some of us Jesus would have lived in the late 1980s, for others the 1970s and perhaps for one, in the 1950s.  These aren’t stories of folklore that have been passed down for generations and changed with the retelling before being written down, these are contemporaneous accounts of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection.

If we accept that the Bible is true then that is the standard by which we can measure everything else against. I admit to struggling to get my head around this thought for a while, then I realised it’s actually very simple. Satan is the “great deceiver”, and I don’t know about you but I’ve heard a lot of sermons telling us not to believe the lies he whispers about us being not good enough, or not having done enough good, or having made too much of a mess of things to ever be salvaged. In the face of this, the Bible is the truth – we can never make too much of a mess of things to be redeemed, and we don’t have to work our way into God’s good graces. The Bible tells us the truth about who we are and where we’re heading.

In the second part of the passage, not only is Jesus offering truth to know our real worth in God, but He is also offering freedom. He talks about being a slave to sin, which is worse than physical slavery. Have you ever done something wrong and then been wracked with guilt, not able to forget it no matter how much you apologise or ask for forgiveness?

Jesus offers us freedom from this kind of slavery. In the next few verses he explains exactly what He means:

Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.

The people listening – the Jews – would have embraced their biological relationship as descendants of Abraham and so didn’t quite understand what He was talking about when He spoke of slavery. However Jesus explained it to them – they were slaves to sin, but if they were to become His disciples they would know the truth and Jesus would set them free. They would join the family of God.

And in order to join God’s family, Jesus tells them in John 8:31

If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.

And that brings us full circle. Where do we find Jesus’s teaching? In the Bible. And only by knowing what the Bible really says can we make sure that we’re really following Jesus’s teachings, being His disciples, and fully part of His family.

Why are you so afraid? - Mathew 8:23-27

This entry goes with the story of Jesus calming the storm.

Jesus calms the storm
Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!’
He replied, ‘You of little faith, why are you so afraid?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
The men were amazed and asked, ‘What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!’

- Matthew 8:23-27

I saw this technique on YouTube (created by Tai Bender - video here) and this passage seemed the right place to use it. I used blues and greens to represent the swirling waters of the storm, and in the centre kept a light patch - the eye in the centre of the storm where the calm presence is, in this case representing Jesus.

I added the text 'why are you so afraid?' to remind myself that Jesus can be a calm presence in my life any time I'm afraid - He is always there and has the power to control any situation.

I used watercolour pencils for the artwork and black and white pens for the text.

Ezekiel 34 - God the shepherd

For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land.
I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and make them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.

- Ezekiel 34:11-16

I loved the way the whole passage uses the shepherd imagery. I think we can get so used to Psalm 23 being the "shepherd passage" that we can forget the imagery is used in other places as well. The whole of Ezekiel 34 is about God the shepherd, and I encourage you to read it for yourself.

This image shows the shepherd tending his flock. I found a picture to copy on Google, and used my watercolour pencils and a black Micron pen.

Bible flip through March - October

I've done a lot of pages that I haven't blogged about. Here are a few of those which I wanted to talk about but not in as much detail.





I'm a musician so the psalms always strike a chord (pardon the pun) with me. This one in particular makes me feel joyful and inspires me to pick up an instrument and play to God, or just to sing worship songs loudly in the shower, car, kitchen or wherever!

A song. A psalm of David.
My heart, O God, is steadfast;
    I will sing and make music with all my soul.
Awake, harp and lyre!
    I will awaken the dawn.
I will praise you, Lord, among the nations;
    I will sing of you among the peoples.
For great is your love, higher than the heavens;
    your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
    let your glory be over all the earth.
                                                - Psalm 108:1-5

I used Copics on page prepped with gesso, stencils, black and white pens.

Psalm 7 - God is my shield, using pencil crayons and black pen.

Lord my God, I take refuge in you;
    save and deliver me from all who pursue me,
or they will tear me apart like a lion
    and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
My shield is God Most High,
    who saves the upright in heart.
                                                  - Psalm 7:1-2, 10

I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.
                                                                                                          - 1 Corinthians 1:4

I coloured in something from a colouring book using pencil crayons for this verse, but honestly it's my least favourite page in my Bible now because I didn't have to think about the verse as much and it's not something personal, it's something someone else created.

Psalm 59:16 - God is our fortress.

But I will sing of your strength,

    in the morning I will sing of your love;
for you are my fortress,
    my refuge in times of trouble.
                                           - Psalm 59:16

I used pencil crayons to draw a fortress wall then used alphabet stamps to add in some lyrics from Hillsong's song Made Me Glad (one of my favourite worship songs). They seemed to fit well with the psalm, which talks about God being our place of safety.

Matthew 6:25-34 - Lilies of the field.

Do not worry
‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
‘And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
                                                                                                           - Matthew 6:25-34

I used watercolour pencils to stamp the flowers and then create the background and highlight the words. I chose to write out lyrics from a song Special Kind of Love by the Malachi Trust. The song is a conversation between someone and God, with the person talking about their worries and fears and God telling them He's got it all in hand. The full lyrics of the chorus are:

Look now at the birds out there - do they worry? Do they care?
They trust that they will always be fed a special kind of love from Me.
See now how the lilies grow. Dressed in splendour they all know
more beautiful they couldn't be, clothed from head to toes with love from Me.

Isaiah 1:1-22 - Don't rebel!

A rebellious nation
Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth! For the Lord has spoken: ‘I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.
Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations – I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
‘Come now, let us settle the matter,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. ...but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.’
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Your silver has become dross, your choice wine is diluted with water.

 - Isaiah 1:1-22 (selected verses)

We looked at this passage in my Bible study group, and it was scary! The passage is a list of what will happen to Israel if the nation continues to turn its back on God. Two parts of the passage leaped out at me - the word 'dilute' and the verse which is probably the best known of this passage about sins being scarlet.

The passage is a warning not to be taken lightly, and I had an urge to use bright reds all over the page to signify the sins of Israel. I made them brighter at the top and faded them out at the bottom - diluting the colour with water as I worked down the page to signify the work 'dilute' which had jumped at me.

Although it's not in the passage, the phrase that seemed to sum up the passage for me was 'do not dilute your faith'. If you stay strong in your faith and stick with God's law, then you don't have to worry about any of the consequences listed in Isaiah. If you allow the world's values to dilute your faith, you'd better watch out!

I used watercolour pencils, which seemed appropriate for what I was trying to signify on the page, with white gel pen to highlight the verses and black pen to write the list of things which Isaiah warns of as consequences of sin. I didn't prep the page at all and there was no bleed-through.