Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Reduced
By Ramone - November 8, 2008
My friend who works as a part-time pastor at an SDA church asked me if I could contribute some art for a show they were doing. As I prayed, I felt led to share four pictures, two of them new. This is the first new picture that came, and it is the most "forward" of them all, contrasting the heavy and complicated SDA "heritage" --pictured here in countless volumes of writings-- with the simplicity of the cross, of Christ and Him crucified. As much "fruit" as we tried to boast that our heritage brought in SDA, deep down we knew it was barren, but we kept trying to make it something, trying harder and harder. We've wandered around in the barren wilderness carrying the load of our heritage, feeling far less "assurance" than our literature advertises. I believe God is calling SDA to let go of this heavy "package" at the foot of the cross, and find freedom and life once and for all.
In a very real sense, it is the same picture that I painted later the same day called "Letting Go", which depicts the "root" of all that "heritage", and shows an Adventist believer coming face to face with the realization of the repentance that has been avoided since 1843.
I don't know what reaction the paintings garnered, nor reaction to the note which I sent with them (see below). I don't imagine it was received well, simply because the church has tried to focus on the gospel and function as a healthy part of the community, leaving the SDA heritage out of the picture as much as possible. In that way, merely speaking about these things may have been touching an uncomfortable nerve. And I don't like doing that.
All the same, I weep in God's heart about it. It is one thing to try to reach out to the "community" outside, but then to neglect the community inside SDA that is dying of spiritual hunger, yet thinking themselves as "rich" with heritage but truly clothed only in filthy rags... I know these things are uncomfortable, and we want to press on to see the gospel alone, not looking back. We want to worship in the Holy Spirit and move in His gifts and anointing. Yet the more we ask for Him, the more He will quietly nudge us because He is the Spirit of truth, and He is a consuming fire that will burn away things which hinder His testimony about Jesus Christ. Even things we've locked away in the closet. We lock them in the closet because we don't really like looking at them or don't agree with them, but we can't completely throw them out, and they continue to wreak havoc among us spiritually (the fear of throwing the heritage out being the principality of the demonic grouping which protects smaller spirits and grants them a measure of immunity).
I am grateful for the chance to have shared this picture and the others, and pray that God uses them for His purposes for those who saw them. I'm thankful to my friend and his church for showing them. I worry that the message may have been lost on some who might've seen these things as an "interesting view" or something for "good discussion". However, I leave these things with God. I should add that the sky color is "yellow" because the sun is setting because spiritually the hour is late and night is almost here. The reality of the time is very important, and is part of God's cry in calling us to come to the foot of His cross and release our heavy packages.
Below is the note I asked to have accompanying prints of the four paintings I entered into the art show at the SDA church.
When my friend asked me if I could contribute some art about the Apostles' Creed, I prayed and felt the Lord moving in me to make two new pictures (this one came first, and another one a few days later), as well as use two previous ones He'd given me earlier. I didn't know how they'd fit the Apostles' Creed at first, but as I prayed and began the new pictures, the "big picture" became clearer.
Like the Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed is just so basic, so simple, so apparently plain and perhaps even boring. Unadorned. Un-poetic. Un-complicated. But its bare, laid-out truth is astounding. The reality which it so plainly states is earth-shattering. It is the gospel. It contains the core, the essentials of the faith entrusted once and for all to the saints, that Christ is everything. He is the center. He is our salvation. He is the good news. It is about Him. He is the message.
Today, the Creed presents to us "Christ and Him crucified" and challenges us by calling us back to "the simplicity that is in Christ" (as Paul worded it). We have all been led astray. We have carried many things in addition to the Cross, and we need the simplicity of the Creed --"Christ and Him crucified"-- to bring us to our knees before the Cross. It is about Him, not about us. He has taken our sins. And if we are willing to surrender them at the Cross, He has even taken our efforts to adorn, improve upon and complicate the simplicty of His gospel. The Creed re-focuses us back to the focus of the apostles and all true disciples: Christ and Him crucified.
Re-centering on "Christ and Him crucified" causes us to realize that our salvation, deliverance and vindication are there on the Cross, accomplished 2,000 years ago. As Charles Wesley penned, "Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia! Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia! Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!" And we begin to see that the Cross represents an exchange --He took my sins and gave me His righteousness-- and that God now calls us to identify with Jesus Christ:I was crucified and died with HimI surrender my history, my "heritage" at the foot of the Cross. And in its place I receive His heritage, His inheritance that I did not deserve. I receive a crown of beauty instead of ashes, a garment of praise instead of heaviness, His free gift of righteousness instead of an earned righteousness of my own or according to the law.
I will live with Him
I am now seated in eternal places in Him
Because He lives forever, so do I
I pray that these four pictures, the Scriptures with them, the Creed, and the words I've shared here will bless you and help you hear God's heart crying out to you (and to all of us) to surrender our heavy "heritage" at the foot of the Cross, hear the heartbeat of the Father and know life eternal today in Jesus Christ alone because of the work He has finished for us 2,000 years ago.
Bless you in Jesus Christ,
Ramone Romero
November 11, 2008
Osaka, Japan
# posted by Ramone @ 10:42 PM 
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