Painting Pictures of God’s Love
We’ve been talking about the pictures of God in the birth of Isaac – how his birth showed God’s grace, His guarantee, His greatness – and how my own story shows the same thing. Let me ask you this: do you read the Bible primarily trying to see yourself in the pages? Or do you try primarily to see pictures of God as you read the Word?
Seeing God in Scripture
I think both are legitimate – you’ll always see yourself in this amazing book. But I think the focus should be God. And I think if you seek God, you inevitably begin to see things that relate to your life, because God’s cause is always involving us humans, amazingly.
So, read to find pictures of God – and also, live in a way that paints pictures of God!
If you’ve followed me for a while you would probably have heard me use this song before – it’s called A Picture of Your Love, written by my friend good Richard. It convicts me every time I hear or sing it. Listen to how it begins:
I tried to paint a picture of Your love
But I couldn’t find the colours and my canvas was too small
The colours of the rainbow aren’t enough
To paint a picture of Your love at all
If you try to paint an actual picture of God’s love, you won’t get it right! It will always fall short. And Rich goes on to describe how songs written to describe God’s love, and words preached to tell of God’s love, these also fall short in trying to capture the essence of His love.
Living as His Artwork
But, listen to the last verse:
It was only when I reached our with Your love
To dry a tear of sorrow, and to help the sick and poor
It was only when I reached out with Your love
That the picture of Your love became clear to all
That always convicts me! Am I a walking picture of God’s love? Do my actions, not just my artistic and speaking endeavours, show God’s love to the world?
Consider today how your life might “paint a picture” of God’s love. Who can you reach out to with the loving and gracious attitude of God, so that they might experience something of Him through you today?
Like Abraham and Sarah, we can see pictures of God’s love in moments of our lives. But may it also be true, that others see pictures of God’s love, in our lives, as we live them in Christlike ways.
