There are tremendous joys and blessings that become ours when we commit to following Jesus Christ. But trying to figure out if this preacher, teacher, author, or blogger is speaking TRUTH to us is not one of them! Knowing how to spot false Bible teachers is a critical skill. Messing this up has very real and eternal consequences. Therefore, I chose this topic for my first blog post here on WingAbouts. Not only to help you decide if you should be paying attention to anything I have to say, but also to help hold myself accountable.

There are three basic benchmarks to always keep in mind:

1. Who is Jesus?
2. What is the Bible?
3. How do you get to heaven?

I’ve chosen these three questions because it is here that many go astray, false teachers arise, and cults are birthed. When put together, these three will determine if a teaching is true or not. This is not a game of horseshoes – getting 2 out of 3 right is not “close enough”. Jesus warns us in Matthew 15:14 that false teachers are blind guides… “And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” Heaven is at stake here.

1. Who is Jesus?

Simon Peter answered correctly when he proclaimed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Matthew 16:16). There’s a lot of theology packed into that one statement! But, suffice it to say, false Bible teachers often demean or outright deny the deity of Jesus Christ. Cults portray Jesus as an angel, political leader, mere prophet or good teacher. In II Corinthians 11:4, the Apostle Paul chastises those who have accepted teachers bringing them “another Jesus”, offering a Jesus who is not as the Scriptures reveal. Jesus clearly claimed to be deity and the Jewish people sought to kill Him for His supposed blasphemy (John 10:30-33).

2. What is the Bible?

The Apostle Paul tells us that ALL Scripture is God-breathed and profitable (II Timothy 3:16, 17). I want to emphasize the word “all” used here because false teachers often times ignore large portions of the Bible. They also portray the Scriptures as outdated or untrustworthy. Furthermore, false teachers will add man’s doctrines to the Scriptures. Jesus warned us about this in Matthew 15:8, 9 when He said, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.”

3. How do you get to heaven?

The road to heaven is through the cross of Jesus Christ, His sacrifice, His atoning blood, His death – burial – and resurrection… AND God’s grace to believe this is all true. It is by faith we are saved, not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Teachings about salvation that require us to DO something (anything) are coming from false teachers. Jesus is sufficient! He alone is the way, the truth, and the life – no one comes to the Father except by Him (John 14:6).

Conclusion:

Ultimately, spotting a false Bible teacher boils down to a simple question. Are they adding to, or subtracting from, the Scriptures? There are perhaps many more things I could address here. But these three are the foundational truths of Christianity. Together they form a framework by which you can know if someone is a false Bible teacher. It is also how you can now decide for yourself if WingAbouts is a spiritually “safe place” for you to hang out.

In closing, let me just add that the single most critical thing for me is to be biblically correct. If you ever have a concern that something shared here on WingAbouts is otherwise, please let me know!

“Happy New Year!” Even if you’re reading this at some other time of the year, everything here still applies. That old familiar saying – “This is the first day of the rest of your life” is very cliché, but also very true! The choices we make today will shape our tomorrow and even our eternity. In Psalm 37:4 we find a verse that sheds light on the choices we should make, whether today is New Year’s Day, or not.

“Delight yourself in the Lord;
and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

At first glance, this sounds like we are promised all our dreams will come true. And they will, but there’s a catch! Look closer, we first need to “delight in the Lord”. I’m not exactly sure what all that means, but I do know it includes aligning our will to God’s will.

Imagine you’re on a romantic date and trying so hard to impress your beloved. You delight in him/her and you want do what pleases them. A walk at sunset? OK, it doesn’t really matter that your feet already hurt from a long day at work. Picnic lunch or fancy dinner? Either way is just fine. A comedy movie or science fiction? Whatever, as long you’re together! Those emotions are your heart delighting in your beloved.

In a similar way, when I “delight in the Lord”, I go along with His plans. I approve of His choices for my career, my marriage, my health, etc. I’m open to doing whatever God wants of me. When this happens, of course God gives us the desires of our heart – because our desires are now His desires. As a result, we soon find our wildest dreams coming true!

How can this be so? Do we “earn” God’s favor? Do we now “deserve” these dreams and desires become reality? Certainly not, every good gift comes to us from God’s grace. Yet the Scriptures contain several clues, pointing us down a path where our dreams do indeed come true:

• 1. Begin by lighting your path well with God’s Word (Psalm 119:9, 11).
• 2. Let God take the lead and follow close (Proverbs 3:5-6).
• 3. Obsess, as Paul did, over your relationship with Christ (Philippians 3:13).
• 4. Seek the Lord’s wisdom and guidance in all your decisions (James 1:5-8).
• 5. Pray often and always according to God’s will (I John 5:14).
• 6. Keep heavenly thoughts and let your heart dwell on things above (Philippians 4:8).
• 7. Finally, delight in the Lord; let Him be your greatest joy and your daily song (Psalm 37:4).

Moving forward into 2020, I am doing a short daily devotion, going through the entire book of Psalms, one Psalm each day. Please consider joining with me on this journey as part of your New Year resolutions. You can find my daily Psalm posts, “Chapter by Chapter”, on Facebook.

How blessed are those whose delight is in the Law of the Lord!

Jesus described eternal life as knowing God (John 17:3). Unlike any religion, Christianity is about a relationship. It is the intimacy that exists between you and your Creator.

Yet how can the clay pot know anything of the Potter? First, God must reveal Himself to us, and He has done so in many ways. In Romans 1:20, the Apostle Paul makes it clear that knowledge of God can be learned by observing nature. The Bible is God’s written word, and it reveals details about Him we could never imagine on our own.

But even more startling are the names by which God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. I can think of four reasons to familiarize yourself with God’s names –

• 1. His names reveal God’s glorious character and the more we know, the more we will trust Him. Knowing His names will grow our faith.
• 2. Knowing God’s various names will correct our “wonky” theology and cause us to worship Him better – in spirit and in truth. We can’t properly worship Him without knowing Who He is!
• 3. Knowing the names of God helps us to follow Him closer and to live in a manner more worthy of His gracious calling. We will grow in our Christ-likeness as we see Him more clearly.
• 4. Knowing the names of God helps us share the gospel with others. We can’t really tell our friends and family about the One True God we serve, if we don’t truly grasp Who He is for ourselves!

To follow after, worship, or share anything about God, we first have to know Him. Otherwise, we practice idolatry as we worship a figment of our own imaginations.

The idea for this painting came to me in 2009 as I was “recovering” from being suddenly widowed. It had been two years and the gaping wound was beginning to heal. It felt strange; I didn’t understand how I could possibly find peace about this. Yet there it was – that promised peace that surpasses all comprehension (Philippians 4:6, 7).

The image in my head back then is pretty much how the painting turned out. It looks simple enough, but I did it the hard way. I’m not able to draw/paint realistic looking things without something real to actually look at. But this image was in my head and I really didn’t know how to get “that” onto the canvas.

I began by searching Google images to see what “walking away barefoot” really looked like. I searched “woman in a dress”, “girl’s arm”, and “back of woman’s head”. After a couple hours, I ended up with a computer folder filled with saved images, each one having a tiny piece of what I was looking for.

Then I “Frankensteined” it all together in Photoshop. Don’t ask. It was pretty messy!

Next came the part where I chose to do this “the hard way”. I could have simply drawn the girl from the Photoshoped image and then done the chaos painting around her. But instead, for some strange reason, I decided I would carve this girl to make a rubber stamp. Yup, that was definitely the hard way.

As I sat at my art table, hour after hour, carving away at this girl, I was reminded of how the Lord was carving away at me. He was taking all my hurt and pain and cutting it away, bit by bit. He was creating His Perfect Peace in my chaotic life. You see I’m well qualified to speak with you about peace. My life has not been filled to the brim with sunshine and lollipops. I’ve been through years of chronic pain, financial distress, stinging betrayals, loss of loved ones, and career upheavals. That list could be longer, quite a bit longer, but you get the point.

Through all these trials, there was (and still is) a solid foundation to give me “Perfect Peace”. I’ve put my trust in Jesus Christ to get me through even the most difficult times. I rest in the fact that God is on His throne, He is Sovereign, and He is my good and loving Father.
In my mind, those many hours spent carving this girl represent the years God has spent carving His peace into my life. It’s taken a lot of trials and some very deep cuts to create a trust in Him that will hold up under life’s storms.

I’ve learned that God doesn’t take shortcuts with His children. He refines us in the fire like precious gold. He builds into our lives “the hard way”, because He knows it is the best way to make sure we stand firm. This is what God has used for the making of “Perfect Peace” in my life.

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If you missed the earlier art/story for “Perfect Peace”, please click here.

Our lives are filled with chaos. Troubles surround us and threaten us on every side. Trials come as unrelenting waves, one after another; beating on our tender spirits like they were just another jagged coastline.

“Merry Christmas!”

What? That’s right, I said, “Merry Christmas!” This precious new born Babe in the manger is the answer to all of life’s threatening chaos. Jesus told us that in this life we will surely have trials and tribulations, as though giving us some strange promise of doom and gloom! (John 16:33) But He is also the Source of incredible peace in the midst of those trials.

The prophet Isaiah called this “Perfect Peace” (Isaiah 26:3). He also said the baby Jesus would be called the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). The Apostle Paul tells us that the peace we have from being in Christ “surpasses all comprehension” (Philippians 4:6, 7).

I know that “Perfect Peace” doesn’t sound very realistic. But what else could you call it when your waking hours are swirling with chaos, yet you always manage to sleep like a rock? The “perfect” here doesn’t mean you have to be perfectly at peace, no matter what. This isn’t an indictment against you for ever having a worry or a fear. However, there is hope, real and true HOPE. The troubles of this world do swirl all around us; but on the inside we can honestly be at peace! How? Because we know that the Lord will get us through these various trials.

It doesn’t happen because we think happy thoughts or because we repeat some uplifting mantra dozens of times every day. Inner peace becomes our reality because we are indwelt with God, the Holy Spirit, and He brings us this calm peace. Not mere resignation because “I can’t change this so I might as well learn to just live with it!” No, this is His Perfect Peace which surpasses all human understanding. It comes from God and it is definitely not of this world.

A word of caution here – notice I said He would get us “through” our various trials. The true gospel of Jesus is not about “health, wealth, and prosperity”. Quite the contrary! Jesus actually promised us that life would be more difficult if we followed Him. He said the world hated Him and so they’ll hate us too! (John 15:18-19).

I’m not sure how modern-day prosperity preachers can dismiss the factual church history of persecution and martyrdom. But I want to be clear, that’s not what I’m claiming Jesus promises. He gets us “through” our trials. He walks with us “through” the storms of life and the valley of death (Psalm23). There are going to be times in your life that are dark, scary, sudden, extreme, and loud! Ultimately, we all face death, but never alone. Remember, “Loneliness is a Lie!”

I’m praying that you are able to know the salvation offered by Jesus Christ and receive His Perfect Peace for yourself. I pray whatever is going on in your life right now, that it is not overwhelming you; that you are resting in our Father’s love and care for you as His child.

“Merry Christmas!”

Jesus told us three times in His Sermon on the Mount to not worry (Matthew 6:25, 31, 34). But why is it such a big deal?

Let’s begin by understanding what is and isn’t “worry”. There are various necessary concerns over the things of this world.

• There’s a time to sow our seeds and a time to harvest (Genesis 8:22). Proper planning will allow you to eat in the months ahead.
• It is good to consider the cost of a building project before we begin (Luke 14:28-30).
• Clearly, our Lord did not have His disciples sin when having them prepare for the Passover meal (Luke 22:8-13).

Therefore, mere concern for material things in not the “worry” Jesus had in mind. But there is a point at which we have crossed over from necessary and good concern to sinful worry. Exactly where that point lies can be difficult to discern. However, sinful worry is often accompanied by a lack of sleep, irritability, physical twitching, emotional eating, or just being unable to concentrate on the task at hand.

Now let’s look at why this excessive worry is actually sinful.

• Worry says we don’t believe God is really in control, that He is indeed sovereign. Worrying about the things of this life means we don’t think God is capable of handling whatever comes our way.
• Worry means we don’t trust God truly cares for us and will act on our behalf in times of need. Our worrying reveals doubt regarding God’s goodness and His compassion toward His children.
• Our worry about the things of this material world indicates our hearts are not fully focused on loving God above all else. We are being too earthly minded to be of any heavenly good.

So what is the remedy for worry? Prayer! Pray that God will increase your faith in His absolute sovereignty and His great love for you, His child. Pray that your daily desire will be to “love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5).

God is our great Provider, Jehovah Jireh, and the Lover of our souls. May that bless you today and always.

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If you’ve enjoyed this story, please be sure to read “What’s Your Obsession?”

This painting illustrates the burning bush that Moses saw. On that day, Moses chose to investigate the peculiar sight before him and came face-to-Face with the holiness of God (Exodus 3). In December of 1982, I had a similar experience while visiting a local church. No, there wasn’t a plant burning away on the stage. But I did witness a group of 3,000 people, all fully engaged in demonstrating their faith. As I sat there considering the stale religion I’d grown up with, their reverence and intentional worship created a truly peculiar sight for me.

Over the next few weeks, I chose to investigate the faith of these people further. I soon found the Lord speaking to me through the fire of their very authentic lives. On February 6, 1983, I joined their number and was baptized into Christ, dedicating my life to His service.

I’ve since learned that anyone choosing to truly live for Christ automatically becomes a peculiar sight in this materialistic and self-centered world. With Christ as our passion and obsession, we can’t help but shine forth with His holy fire. Let this be our goal: to live a life so “peculiar” that the lost and dying world comes closer to investigate the all-consuming fire of our faith.

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If you’ve enjoyed this story, be sure to check out my art/story “What’s Your Obsession?” where I write about keeping the focus of our lives on the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Luke 22:20, the Lord Jesus tells His disciples the blood required to ratify the New Covenant will be His own… Out of the thousands of religions in the world, only in Christianity is the god sacrificed! Staggering thought, isn’t it?

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Here are a few other examples illustrating how God’s thinking is so very much different than ours:

• Would a man come up with a plan to conquer a city by shouts and trumpet blasts? Read about the walls of Jericho falling down in Joshua, chapter 6.
• Would a man think the best way to preserve someone’s family during a famine was to have his favorite son betrayed, beaten, sold into slavery, and imprisoned? Read about Joseph and his brothers in Genesis, chapters 37-50.
• Would a man tell the tale of an animal that speaks and expect it to be taken as truth? Read about Balaam and his talking donkey in Numbers 22:22-41.

These examples, and many more, form substantial evidence that the Bible was not conceived in the minds of men. For indeed, God’s ways are not our ways. Only in Christianity is the god sacrificed!

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To read another example of how God’s ways are so very different than ours, check out the art/story “Are You Running to Win?“

How can you ever hope to remove your sins? By laying them at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. When John the Baptist saw Jesus walking toward him, he loudly exclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). John knew that the sacrifice Jesus would make on the cross would be truly complete and sins would be forever removed. Jesus alone is the once-for-all-time perfect sacrifice that forever removes ALL the sins of those who put their trust in Him.

By contrast, the Jewish priests were required to perform the ritual sacrifices of the Day of Atonement year after year. But “atonement” simply means “covering”. So those sacrifices never actually removed Israel’s sin; they merely covered it up for one more year. We read in Hebrews 10:4 that “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Jesus is not our atonement; He doesn’t “cover” our sins. He is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Hallelujah, oh what a Savior!

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“Lamb of God” is one of the many names by which the Lord is called. As I consider various names of God, I am reminded that we must look at the names and titles He gives Himself. It is absolutely critical to our proper understanding of God that we focus on how He has chosen to reveal Himself to us. It is much more important to know what God says about Himself, rather than what we think of Him. This is the only way to have a correct view of God and not be worshipping something of our own imagination.

For more information, please see my art/story “The Importance of Knowing God’s Names”.

I want to share with you how my painting, “Shattered Silence”, came to be. But it is so weird I almost cannot believe it myself – and I was there, holding the paintbrush! Some time ago, probably around 2006, the muddy mess “painting” shown above on the left was done by me playing with watercolor paints; swishing colors onto the paper to see what would happen if I did this or if I did that. Then this sheet of painted paper was stacked and stored with other paint experiments, waiting for a time when I might want to use it. Below is the story of the eventual re-making of “Shattered Silence” as written in my 2013 journal…

Last week I was going through a stack of old papers and came across this watercolor experiment from a few years ago. I was immediately attracted to the colors and pattern. Within the abstract shapes, I noticed a purple person with an outstretched arm and thought, “Hey, this art is me – speaking up for my faith and defending the cross!”

So I set about trying to crop out the distractions and focus on the person. Next I re-aligned the picture to get rid of the weird angle so you can recognize the person is actually a person. As I was looking closely at the painting, I began to notice the colors were all muted and muddy. They were bright at first glance, but I’d really over-worked the painting and I know I wasn’t being careful to keep my brush clean. The yellows were brownish and the blues were too, even the pinks. It seemed that everything had a yucky, swamp-water cast to it.

I decided it was worth trying to do the painting again, this time being careful to keep the brush clean and using better quality paints. Yesterday, I spent about five hours trying this and trying that. Things went wrong, to say the least. I could say it went from bad to worse, but truth be told, it started out “worse” and just stayed there the whole five hours!

In total frustration, I was ready to call it quits and just resign myself to the idea this wasn’t meant to be. I took a break for dinner and began to pray. I wasn’t willing to let go of this image in my head and I really felt God had put it there. So why wouldn’t He help me to paint the picture? Bit by bit, the idea came to me that I didn’t need a new piece of paper, just fresh and vibrant color on the old piece of paper.

So for the next three hours, that’s what I did. Painstakingly, I scrubbed out the muddy areas with a clean brush and let them dry, then filled in with bright new, clean colors. I made the person even more “person-like” and took out competing purple blotches so she became the focal point. Then, finally, a severe amount of cropping happened! The resulting picture is a fairly good match to what I imagined it could be. But I’m so amazed at what I had to start with.

This morning the Lord helped me realize why this story is so important to tell: God didn’t start over with a new world when Adam and Eve first sinned. He worked – labored – to redeem them and He made something glorious out of their sin-stained, messy, and muddy lives. The most glorious part is that it was all according to His plan. He knew before the foundation of the world that His Son, Jesus, would need to die on the cross for reconciliation and redemption to occur.

Moreover, for my life to match up with His plan for me there would need to be a lot of scrubbing, a drastic re-alignment, a severe amount of cropping, and fresh colors poured over me from His Holy Spirit. But the result would be that I could indeed shatter the silence with His praises as I report to my people all the Lord has done for me and how He has had mercy on me.

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

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If you missed the original post of “Shattered Silence” on Novemeber 11, you can read the full story here.

“Life Without” is a prison term for people who are given a life sentence without the possibility of parole. My husband worked at a maximum security prison before he died. He used to come home and tell me how empty and hopeless most of those inmates’ lives were. The term seems fitting here because this painting is of a life lived without God – there is no yellow glow coming from time spent with the Lord, there are no heavenly blue thoughts nor priestly purple deeds.

This ugly horse is imprisoned by his sins; black bars keep freedom out of reach. Everything surrounding this horse is worldly green; his thoughts, his time, and his treasures are all spent on earth-bound pursuits. The orange represents selfishness, anger, and bitterness – hurtful words drip out of his mouth and hang in the air around him like a destructive wake. The red represents sins of every sort, each one being an affront to the holiness of the Lord.

The black thing in this heart, whatever it is, is simple idolatry. All sin is just that easy to explain. If we wanted Him, we wouldn’t want “that” – whether it is pride, power, passion, prosperity, or privilege. It all comes down to a life without the Lord Jesus Christ and something black is sitting on the throne of this heart instead of Him.

Choosing a life without Jesus is choosing a life without the possibility of parole. Sin reigns relentlessly and the consequence is eternal. However, unlike those prison inmates my husband spoke of, the prison bars that hold this horse have but one key: the cross of Calvary. The Lord Jesus is always ready and always willing to pardon and to save.

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If you have enjoyed this art/story, please be sure to check out the related artwork, “The Color of Time“.