Thursday, May 05, 2005
Repentance!
By Ramone - May 5, 2005
This was a picture that I originally sketched on April 16th and then did another two versions of. The original sketch captured more of the sheer joy, though, so today while Yoko painted on the watercolor pad, I used my new soft pastels to go over the sketch and make it fuller. I'm still not totally satisfied with it, but will leave it for now unless God has me pick it up again. (Perhaps it's similar to how we're never fully satisfied with our own repentance? Leave it to God, then!)
It's repentance! You know, usually we don't think of repentance as a joyful thing. Instead it conjurs up images of trying to feel more bad about our sins or ourselves, or telling others they need to do that. But it's not Jesus' idea of repentance at all, because His idea begins and ends with us in His hands! And in His loving hands we won't focus for long on darkness. A booklet from WCG really helped me understand Biblical repentance -- that repentance is simply seeing things as they really are: we can't do what we need to by ourselves and have been exhausting ourselves trying, and repentance is coming to see that and trusting yourself to His hands, letting Him be it and do it for you. It's awesome to realize that Jesus accepted John's baptism -- a baptism of repentance -- when He Himself had no business needing to repent! Perhaps it means we can never fully repent but must entrust ourselves to Him who will work it out in us? Because He has switched places with us and identified Himself with us, becoming sin for us so we could become the righteousness of God in Him!
I wrote more about this on my blog. I'd talked with Yoko about it the night before (4/15) and while I was in the shower God gave me the picture idea. In a little pen sketch I drew the hands on the side of the repenting man, but God told me they needed to be underneath, because He is holding us and He is supporting us. The small black lines coming from His hands downward are like angels' wings. He made me smile when I thought of that. The dove was an addition that reminded me of the words of Father over Jesus, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" -- and how He speaks these words over us because Jesus swapped places with us and we've simply fallen down, asked for forgiveness, and accepted it -- we've repented! HALLELUYAH! Thank You God for the gift of repentance!
# posted by Ramone @ 10:27 PM 
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