It’s rhyme time. This is the first of a four part series – drawing particularly from the final few chapters of Revelation. There is enormous encouragement to be found in those pages – we live in pretty unsettled times, and it brings much needed perspective to know that God will bring history to a dramatic, breath taking and glorious conclusion. There is both warning and hope for those who don’t follow Jesus. Warning – that God’s view of history is very real; that time is short and we have only this lifetime to determine what happens to us in the next. And hope – that WHOEVER puts their trust in Jesus will have a place in his new Heavens and new Earth.

It’s the nature of these passages that I’m trying to illustrate something that I don’t really have the visual vocabulary for – what Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 describes as an ‘eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison’ – so bear with me! I’ll do the best I can, and we’ll wait for the next life to fill in the blanks.

Another pretty quick one this week – like last week’s, I’ve just drawn it for my own benefit – if it’s of any use to you then have at it.

The full verse is from Romans 6. Verses 16 – 18 read:

Do you not know that if you present yourselvesto anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. [ESV]

It’s just one part of a very profound chapter, in what is a very powerful book of the Bible. Read the whole thing if you get the time, and take your time over it. If you’re a Christian and stuck in a rut in some area of sin, it can be an essential shift in perspective to understand that you were once a slave to sin – and that, having been freed from its power through Jesus’ cross, you are still a slave – but a slave to righteousness. The life you now live is one of surrender to God’s will. Am I still tempted? Sure! Can I still sin? Of course I can. But to reckon yourself a slave to righteousness is to declare that you no longer have the right to go down that path. You have given your rights over into the hands of one who has far better things for you.

I’m not expecting to be sinless this side of Heaven, and the Bible doesn’t give us that expectation – but it does give us an expectation, coupled with almighty power, for continuing sanctification – our characters and actions becoming more and more like Jesus as our lives go on.

If you would like a 5″x7″ .jpg of either this or last week’s, let me know and I can send you the file.

1 Corinthians 6:20 – You are not your own – you were bought at a price, therefore honour God with your bodies.

Not trying to be preachy with this one. Basically I wanted to commit a couple of helpful verses to memory for my own sake, and it helps me to illustrate them. That way I have to spend a few hours with them, make sure I understand what they’re speaking about and just have them rolling around my head for a good long time. So – this is aimed at myself, and if you get any encouragement from it then great. Next week I’ll be doing something similar – and both are intended to scale down to print at 5″ x 7″ so they can go in a standard picture frame near my desk and I can continue to marinate in them.

Nothing particularly high concept here. The internet is incredibly useful, but also full of all kinds of unhelpful avenues and opportunities to do a little sinnin’. It helps me to remember that God paid an incomparably high price for me – and I should honour him in return.

Just another controversial statement to add to the long list of fairly offensive things Jesus said.

Before his arrest and crucifiction, John 13-16 records Jesus spending some time with those who were closest to him. These 12 men, the disciples, had spent years travelling with him, learning from him, having their eyes opened wide by the things he said and did. They believe he is the messiah, or christ – the one God had promised to send to the Jews to fulfil his promises – but they don’t yet understand how he is going to do so.

Wanting to prepare his disciples for his coming execution, he gives them the following words of encouragement: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The destination is the Father. The end goal of our faith is not peace, health, comfort or even eternal life. The end goal is to be with the Father – and the more we come to know him, to see what the Bible says about him and experience what he is like for ourselves – loving, faithful, just, kind, holy, a father orders of magnitude more wonderful than any earthly dad – the more this comes to be our heart’s desire. Eternal life, even in a world with no death or tears or suffering – would still be hollow, if the Father wasn’t there.

Jesus, and only Jesus, is the Way to him. No one else – no person, no programme, no system or deity mankind has dreamed up since its dawning days can rival the Father, or grant us entry into his presence. It took Jesus – God himself, becoming human, shedding his own blood on our behalf to carve that way for us. Nothing and no one else will do.

Jesus is the Truth. He alone reveals what the Father is like. Just a few verses later Jesus is able to state that “whoever has seen me, has seen the Father.” Hebrews 1: 3 describes Jesus as the “radiance of the glory of God, and the exact imprint of his nature.”

And Jesus is the Life. In John 10: 18 he says of his own life, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” Now, anyone cane make that claim, but you do have to back it up by coming back from the dead. Jesus rose from the grave, and never returned there. He alone is the pathway to eternal life, and the statement is as real and extraordinary now as it was 2,000 years ago. If you want to get to the Father, there’s only ever going to be one way – follow Jesus.

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This comic is available as a print

First of all: love. And second of all: love.

In these two short sentences, Jesus sums up the whole of the Old Testament’s teaching. All the laws, histories, psalms and prophecies were not meant to create a people who were full of self righteous pride for their religious box ticking. It was intended to create a people who wholeheartedly loved God, and then selflessly loved their fellow man. This passage comes from Mark 12:28-31, with very similar incidents reported in Matthew 22 and Luke 10.

It holds true for every Christian. We are meant to love God more than any other thing. To love him radically, passionately, and more and more each day. To desire more than anything else to serve and obey him, to know him better, and to give our lives for his purposes. And not because we’re just nice like that, but because he loved us long before we ever heard of him. Praise him, serve him, give him all the glory. Believe, repent, and be baptised. Break bread and share wine in remembrance of the sacrifice he made for us.

And then love one another. You can’t ignore this one – the first doesn’t make sense without the second. If you truly love God, you will want to do his will – and his will is unambiguously to selflessly love other people. Tend to the wounded. Feed the hungry. Comfort the oppressed, give rest to the weary, be mothers and fathers to the orphan. Tell them the gospel, because there is nothing more loving than to share the good news of Jesus. Just, you know, love people.

I’m self absorbed, prone to put my own comfort first, to put other idols before the God I love, to turn a blind eye to those in need. But by the grace of God, I’m slowly learning to love him more, and slowly learning to give more of myself to love others. How the world needs more men, women and children who would love – and then love.

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This comic is available as a print.

One of the most famous Psalms – and about the first thing I’ve drawn since the arrival of our new baby. It’s been a fairly wearying few weeks, especially with a toddler already in the house, but we’ve been extremely blessed by our family and church family – with support ranging from prayer, to taking our daughter off our hands for the day, to having meals cooked for us.

At a time when sleep is all too rare for my wife and me, I was encouraged by the words in this short passage. God provides rest when we need it most, and peace when the cares of the world surround us. Our situation can hardly compare to the hardships that David, the psalm’s author suffered, and yet these words are no less applicable to our own lives. Whatever troubles you might be facing, take a moment to read those words through or pray them out to God, and see if your burdens don’t start to lift just a little.

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This is available as a print

 

Here’s a poem I wrote, and a drawing I drew to illustrate that poem. Jesus really lived, he really died, he really rose from the dead, and he will go on living, loving, and interceding for us forever. He is our unbreakable guarantee of God’s kindness and love, and if we follow him, he is our guarantee of eternal life in the kingdom of God. That sounds worth celebrating!

The rhyme scheme is somewhat borrowed from Jez Alborough’s Duck in the Truck – in my defence, I’ve read it to my daughter about 20 times in the couple of months.

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This is available as a print

 

Just as a quick disclamer, I’m aware that someone who died in the BC period is a little unlikely to have known how many years they lived before the birth of Christ – and also that many of these individuals have distinct and well known graves, or no grave at all. The point remains – men and women come and go, and many make claims to godhood, to enlightenment, to the true path to salvation – but only in Jesus’ case were those claims backed up by the man proving himself to be the master over death.

If you’re in need of a lawyer, you look for one with a proven track record. If you’re after a guide for a long journey, you seek one with experience, who knows the way. If you want to know the path to life after death you’d best put your faith in the only one who has actually proved that he knows what he’s talking about.

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This is available as a print

 

I have a son!

We’ve got a nearly two year old daughter, who we have had for… nearly two years… and on Saturday our son Luke was born. Very excited, tired, happy and tired. Luckily we had about nine months notice of this particular event, so I was able to draw a couple of strips in advance.

This first one was a gamble – I didn’t actually know in advance whether our baby would do the normal baby thing of refusing his parents sleep, or if he would sleep through like a grown up. Turns out there was little cause for worry on that score.

I don’t know why, but I’ve drawn this with the light on in what is actually my daughter’s room upstairs, whereas actually my wife, baby and I are all holed up in the downstairs guest room for the next few weeks. I knew this would be the case and still I went ahead and drew something intentionally misleading! I’m not sorry. Artistic licence y’all.

If you want to support my particular kind of high end artistic stuff and/or help us pay for nappies, I’ve got this lovely design up for sale as a t shirt or jumper at cotton bureau for the next 13 days:

God bless

And a happy new year.

John 1:1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as awitness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Quoted from the ESV Bible