Hope

Hope

Our son has been visiting us from Dallas Theological Seminary for the last week or so, and it has been such a delight to have him here! (His mother missed him!) He brought home a book that he thought I would enjoy reading, and it has been a good book, though I must admit it is slow reading. It is a study of epistemology  and is written using common words in uncommon ways. I think, though, that it is really teaching me some things about learning and knowledge. 

SOLD
20" x 20"
Painted with the finest quality heavy-body acrylic paint on deep gallery-wrapped canvas

Ready to hang

In my daily Bible reading, I came a few days ago to 1 Corinthians 15. I don't even have a guess as to how many times I have read this part of the New Testament, but this time through it has been challenging and convicting to me. I know that my heart needs to be tuned to understand what my Heavenly Father has for me in this section, and He is using common words in uncommon ways to catch my attention. 

As my mind has been stretching to grasp the concepts as presented in the book my son shared with me, I have been working on this new painting that I am calling Hope. It started out looking completely different than it looks now! It has been many layers, and a lot of thought and study of the canvas. I am finding that it is impossible for me to put into words the connection I have found between the new learning I have been doing, this painting, and these verses in the New Testament, so I will try to use common color and technique in uncommon ways to communicate eternal, enormous hope. 

1 Corinthians 15:50-58 
Brothers, I tell you this: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and corruption cannot inherit incorruption. 
51 Listen! I am telling you a mystery:
We will not all fall asleep,
but we will all be changed,
52 in a moment, in the blink of an eye,
at the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound,
and the dead will be raised incorruptible,
and we will be changed.
53 For this corruptible must be clothed
with incorruptibility,
and this mortal must be clothed
with immortality.
54 When this corruptible is clothed
with incorruptibility,
and this mortal is clothed
with immortality,
then the saying that is written will take place:
Death has been swallowed up in victory.
55 Death, where is your victory?
Death, where is your sting?
56 Now the sting of death is sin,
and the power of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ!
58 Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.