http://thehauptgallery.com/
To begin to see myself in these paintings, is THE beginning. And, a sincere reminder of our sin and the full freedom we'll have when pride slips away and we can stand really humbled before God. I don't think, in our current form, we can really know just how much sin has affected us, or just how much Jesus means to us. We can act in a way that is a version of humble, but until we are made pure, we have no idea what humble fully means.
R. C. Sproul writes:
When Luther was asked the question, "Do you love God?" he replied, "Love God? Sometimes I hate him!" Sproul goes on to say, "Had he [Luther] spoken the full truth, he would have said that he hated God all the time."
What truth. My sister told me a funny story yesterday from the weekend spent with her friend whos son had ignored his mother's request to come inside from playing, and put his clothes back on, (funny too, he was completely naked, and had shed his play clothes while running and playing outside-some things don't change even from the Garden!) He had decided to "hide" from her by putting his face down into the back of a toy dump truck. All the while, his mother, stood amused and trying not to laugh, that her son actually thought that just because he couldn't see mom, that she couldn't see him either. We hide our faces from our sin, even as God has written his truth on our very soul, but it is in our shame and in this response of covering our eyes, that we can contrast the depth and power of God's truth and love. I think Scott Peck said that evil is the soul hiding from itself. Why else would "we" have had to beat Christ if we didn't hate truth, and hate the truth about ourselves? Thinking we would try and kill Christ, we were really trying to kill the evil we saw in ourselves when in his holy presence. Other wise we could have just ignored him. But his love is greater. As humans, we come into this world with our hands almost glued in front of our eyes, covering our vision. And Christ uncovers it, and helps us loose the pride, and bring our hands down towards the earth. I felt a flinch when I first saw these paintings, a desire to close my eyes because what I saw was true, but then the huge relief from seeing the truth comes in our freedom in Christ, when we open our eyes and hearts to it!
"Lord I believe; Help my unbelief!"-Mark 9:24
