I have some basic rules for my Art classes students hear these principles quite often. I was thinking tonight about how these can apply to our lives as Christians.
1. BE STILL we can not begin until you can show me that you are ready, we can continue the next step when you show me that you have mastered the first step. We don't use paint until we first learn how to hold the brush. Often times in life God wants us to just simply BE STILL. Until we learn this truth he can not introduce us to the tasks that he has for us to do. PSALM 46: 10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
2. LISTEN WELL I don't grade the project by how it looks rather by how well you followed directions and worked. God doesn't care what we look like on the outside nor does he care if we are involved in seemingly "good" things if that path that we took was in opposition to his instruction. Proverbs 2:1My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; 2So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;3Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; 4If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;
3. LOOK Eyes on your own paper, not on your friends paper. So often we are so busy looking at lives around us that we don't see what we are doing. We are like the 4 year old staring at another's paper and coloring wildly without realizing that we destroyed what could have been a work of art. Matthew 7: 3And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
4. WORKS Don't wave you paper in the air, you will ruin your beautiful hard work. So often we are busy waving our own paper in the air in self promotion and fail to remember: Proverbs 16: 18Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
5. GIVE Only touch 1 crayon, don't take more than you need. We fail to realize that it is better to give than to receive. Acts 20:35 we race past those who are dying and slipping into eternity on our way to bigger and better things that will benefit us on this earth alone.
6. MISTAKES are opportunities, you have not failed until you give up. Students often frustrate themselves into a funk and sometimes use a mistake as an excuse to stop being productive. As adults we are often frozen by mistakes until we just stop moving forward, and eventually slip backwards. Proverbs 24 16For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.
7. FINISHED The project is not complete until class has ended, there is no reward for rushing. Excellence takes time and steady plotting. We often find ourselves trying to rush to attain spirituality we run so fast that we burn out and return back to the MISTAKE PHASE and sit frozen in defeat. Hebrews 12: 1-3 1Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
1. BE STILL we can not begin until you can show me that you are ready, we can continue the next step when you show me that you have mastered the first step. We don't use paint until we first learn how to hold the brush. Often times in life God wants us to just simply BE STILL. Until we learn this truth he can not introduce us to the tasks that he has for us to do. PSALM 46: 10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
2. LISTEN WELL I don't grade the project by how it looks rather by how well you followed directions and worked. God doesn't care what we look like on the outside nor does he care if we are involved in seemingly "good" things if that path that we took was in opposition to his instruction. Proverbs 2:1My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; 2So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;3Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; 4If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;
3. LOOK Eyes on your own paper, not on your friends paper. So often we are so busy looking at lives around us that we don't see what we are doing. We are like the 4 year old staring at another's paper and coloring wildly without realizing that we destroyed what could have been a work of art. Matthew 7: 3And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
4. WORKS Don't wave you paper in the air, you will ruin your beautiful hard work. So often we are busy waving our own paper in the air in self promotion and fail to remember: Proverbs 16: 18Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
5. GIVE Only touch 1 crayon, don't take more than you need. We fail to realize that it is better to give than to receive. Acts 20:35 we race past those who are dying and slipping into eternity on our way to bigger and better things that will benefit us on this earth alone.
6. MISTAKES are opportunities, you have not failed until you give up. Students often frustrate themselves into a funk and sometimes use a mistake as an excuse to stop being productive. As adults we are often frozen by mistakes until we just stop moving forward, and eventually slip backwards. Proverbs 24 16For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.
7. FINISHED The project is not complete until class has ended, there is no reward for rushing. Excellence takes time and steady plotting. We often find ourselves trying to rush to attain spirituality we run so fast that we burn out and return back to the MISTAKE PHASE and sit frozen in defeat. Hebrews 12: 1-3 1Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
I love this.
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