I paint for Jesus and as He decides. However, I have painted on occasion for commission. I was approached to recreate a complicated photograph of a tree that reflected into a pond. It was beautiful! And I agreed. As I began to study the picture and began to think about how to sketch it out, I noticed it was a reflection of a reflection and heard a big "NO!" from the Holy Spirit. I questioned Him, and He replied that nothing of God is a reflection of itself. That is the devil's domain as he tries to imitate the Father's beauty by creating a perversion of it. Sneaky! Since I had agreed to create a piece for the person, I asked if it was still okay to do something from Him for them. He agreed. And this piece came about with my first big lesson on strongholds. I heard its name, Balm, as in a sweetness that heals wounds or reduces pain. When J. C. Philpot preached on Jeremiah 8:22 in 1852, he pointed out that God's grace is always greater than our sin: "There is more in the balm to heal than there is in guilt to wound, for there is more in grace to save than there is in sin to destroy." Strongholds are defensive structures and can be either a good thing as in 2 Samuel 22:3 My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge; My savior, You save me from violence." (KJV) or a bad thing as in "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." 2 Corinthians 10:4 (KJV) The devil calls us by our sin. God calls us by our name, and I was shown fifteen apples representing sins bobbing down a stream of honey, reminding me of Proverbs 16:24, "Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." And God's grace is always greater than our sin:" (KJV) All these apples were going the same way, some floated higher, some seemed entrenched, yet all were interconnected by the ripples each other made. All reflective of Adam and Eve's original sin. Yes, that apple. Entrenched. A pretty good description of a stronghold. Not budging. Dug in. Adamant. Fixed. Deep-seated. All keeping the barriers to God in place. They are readily seen in ongoing arguments with the people who ruffle our feathers. If we look at ourselves, we may find the culprit hiding in these same feathers. But those are the easy ones. If God is walking with you, He is also teaching you to align your thinking to see Him clearer, that it may be you and not them. The harder ones come off an enlightened, politically correct, divisiveness, fear, health-related thinking, control issues, any extreme thinking, and so on. I finished the painting and presented it to her, free of charge and she was dismayed and would or could not accept it, which is okay. She still saw it. She cannot unsee it. As in all things God, His light never dims. Ever.
For more information on strongholds, please see Max Lucado as he describes dealing with strongholds at https://maxlucado.com/strongholds/
Now lets get to the good part!! Romans 8:38, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 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." Woot!
See you on the other side!!
🎶 Row row your boat. Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream. 🎶
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