Illuminated Calligraphy ~ Who or What is a Christian?

Hullo there everyone ...

Well, I mentioned at new year, I would try to give you more calligraphy this year, from illuminated works I completed in years before blogging.  
After all this blog is called Calligraphy and Cards. 

Two things to point out regarding this early work:

1. I did not have a digital camera .. actually I borrowed one, as I did not have decent one at all!

2. If you look carefully at top right of this you can see I have taken a photo of original photo (see tiny-teeny snip of doily in pickie) - the latter with my digital. Basically this was because it was so much better than a scanned image. 

It was so flat, even so colour is not as crisp or accurate. This is done in watercolour too not gouache like later ones, hence softer hues.

What are your thoughts as you read this verse? The meaning is not really hard is it?? perfectly clear!
We ARE (I am) what we think in our hearts.
YET here we deceive ourselves SO often!!

As God says through Jeremiah (17:6) "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

Who indeed can know our hearts?
Verse 10 gives us the answer:
"I the Lord search the heart, .. even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings."

Capital letter "a' is a combination of two letters {A + J) on calendars by Hong Kong Christian Book Room

The observant among you are probably wondering where I am going with this?
My title is:
"Who Or what is Christian?"

I have had this post on my heart for a long time. Folk, precious wonderful people, going about their everyday activity hoping they are "Christians", when they can KNOW for sure that they are.  This is really  missing heaven by eighteen inches. Eighteen inches (or 45cm approx.) is the distance from our head to our heart.

We can know about God's gift in our mind/head but if it has not changed our heart it is really quite useless.
Salvation is a precious blood bought gift purchased on the cross of Calvary, where the the LORD Jesus Christ died for you and for me. 
It is something we can be sure of!! :D not just vaguely hope we might have it.

If we could have this heavenly gift, called Salvation through what we do, what church we attend, etc. then where was the point of the Lord Jesus' sacrifice on the cross??
We can never ever earn it - we are too sinful, to make God's grade of perfection. As the hymn (There is a Green Hill Far Away) says:
He died that we might be forgiven..,,that we might go at last to heaven,
Saved by His precious blood.. and we must love Him too,
Trust in His redeeming blood and try His works to do.
God through His Only begotten Son, Jesus, made salvation so simple that even a **child can believe and follow it ~ yet we try and complicate it. 

I pray for all who read this if you do not understand what I am talking about to take the Bible and read it for yourself (start in Gospel of John) and seek a church, where the word of God is taught in its purity. 
In the meantime look at post (my earliest calligraphy post, see below) and also this site here.

So, what is a Christian?? - quite simply is a Follower, Disciple - a believer in the LORD Jesus Christ, trusting Him alone for their salvation.
If we love Him, He will shine forth in our lives, and that is what this illuminated verse is all about.

This illuminated text (above) was ordered from me by a mother for her teenage son in about 1994. 
Probably because she desired his heart to have God directed thoughts, not of the desires of the flesh, as is encouraged so much these days.

I pray for all who read these words.. 
For the LORD will meet you right where you are at now, so I pray you will reach out to Him, to seek Him:

• for comfort and grace to help if you know Him as your own
• or that this day might your day of rejoicing in your salvation by trusting Him for the cleansing power of His blood in your life - as simply as a child.

May God richly bless you where ever your maybe and thank you SO much for popping over for a peek and chat and making my day! 
Shaz in Oz.x  

** I came to know the LORD Jesus as my own Saviour when a child. This post shows the original place where I was saved, very near where I live now, and another illuminated verse connected with this day and the story of that day of rejoicing in heaven, over one sinner who repented.. SEE this post here.

I would like to link this post with:

1.  Birdee blessings 
2. Word Art Wednesday - Anything goes??

{EDIT - Comment by Victoria of Furry Tales - a great point made:
 Victoria said... A beautiful post explaining the Gospel so clearly. I think many Christians can relate to what you write about the head and the heart, and I also think the problem can work the other way, that if our faith is based on feeling alone without understanding then it lacks substance and will falter at an early hurdle.}