Word Art Wednesday

Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Anything Goes - Weeks #581-582

Praise God! It's time for yet another FUN and FABULOUS new challenge here at Word Art Wednesday - the best challenge blog on the internet. Why do I think it's the "best challenge blog" of all? Well, that's an easy answer. It's because here at WAW, our challenges are inspired by the precious holy Word of God, all our AWESOME sponsors are given to us directly from the hand of God's blessing and provision, we have encouraging devotionals to bless your life, we truly care about all our participants, and we praise God for everything that happens here. Let's jump right into this FUN new challenge and see what God has for us this week.

The beautiful scripture that was used to create our lovely piece of word art is John 13:34, and it says, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another". First, we need to understand just how much God really does love us. When God created mankind, He saw that we were sinful by nature. Because God is perfect and knows no sin, He knew immediately that our sin would separate us from Him and He didn't want that. He loves us SO MUCH that He made a way to bridge the gap between Heaven and Hell so that we don't have to be separated from Him for all eternity. He sent a part of Himself, His own flesh in the form of His holy Son, Jesus Christ, who came to earth to show us how to live. He lived a sinless life, performed miracles, and proved that He really was God in human flesh by taking the sins of the world upon Himself offering His perfect sinless life to pay the sin debt of mankind. That's LOVE. In this verse, God commands us to "love one another". Let's be honest, we're not always super lovable. We're sinful and we get downright grumpy sometimes. We need to remember that God loves us ALWAYS and UNCONDITIONALLY. He doesn't necessarily approve of some of our behaviors, but He never stops loving us. With that said, we have an obligation to love others that way. That doesn't mean we're to love just the people who we like or who are nice to us. It's a command to love everyone - ALL the time; the way God loves us - even if we don't agree with all their choices. Too many times our wicked hearts will judge others and immediately dislike them based on all sorts of different things. While we do need to live a pure life and separate ourselves from those with behaviors that would interfere with our fellowship with God, it doesn't mean that we can't love people. We need to genuinely love ALL people. In fact, we should love people so much that we truly remember to pray for them every day to recognize their sinful condition and find a relationship with Jesus Christ. You see, every soul matters to God. He created us all, died for us all and He loves us all. Now that you and I have been saved by the grace of God (and I sure hope that you have been), we have a responsibility to pray for the souls of others. Let's do our part here to love the way God loves - always and unconditionally. Let's each do our best to show love towards all people and to pray for lost souls every day. What this world really needs is more Christ-like love. A whole lot more of Jesus, and a whole lot less of ourselves. Endeavor every day, dear friends, to be the best version of yourself and to show God's love to everyone - through our thoughts and actions, through prayer and in our daily lives. Let the LOVE of Jesus shine through you. True love for others can actually be the difference this world needs to find peace through the ONE who bridged the gap between Heaven and Hell. Love people. It really is that simple.

As always, you are welcome to save the word art to your computer; but you are never required to use it in order to play along or to win in our challenges. We welcome you to share all of your art with us; remembering that Anything Goes as long as it's family friendly. This includes any type of altered or digital art (not just limited to cards). You may link up to five (5) projects each week for a total of ten (10) entries per two-week challenge. The more you enter, the more you increase your odds of winning. It is our desire that God's Word will be a blessing and an encouragement to you as we share it. If you have any questions about the rules, be sure to read the complete list of rules found under our Page tab marked "Challenge Rules". Because our ultimate goal is to honor God, we have no other choice but to delete any entries that do not adhere to our guidelines. Please know that this doesn't mean we are judging anyone. We're not. We are simply attempting to honor God and follow His rules. Please let us know if you have any questions about anything; and thank you for your understanding and participation.

Check out our AWESOME sponsor for this challenge:

Top Flight Stamps is a wonderful on-line store

that carries wonderful stamps, dies, stencils,

and lots of amazing and unique products. They

also have a talented Design Team who share lots

of great inspiration on the Top Flight Stamps Blog.

One lucky person will win a generous $25 gift

card to spend at Top Flight Stamps. Be sure to stop

by and check out all the amazing products at

Top Flight Stamps. You'll LOVE what you see.

AND NOW.....Another Lucky Winner:

The WONDERFUL, popular and much-loved

Avery Elle Designs was the sponsor for our last

challenge. This FAB store is filled with creative

stamps, dies, watercolors, storage options, inks

and SO much more. One lucky participant has now

WON a generous $15 gift certificate to spend

at Avery Elle. How exciting is that, everyone?

It's Lucky Entry #80 - Donna Perisic

Our Top 3 Honors Go to Our Friends:

Entry #79 - Lucy E.

Entry #89 - Stephanie S.

Entry #122 - Dawn E.

Please email Karen if you'd like a

Top 3 or Winner's Badge for your blog.

All winners must also email Karen

to claim prize (per the Rules Page). Thanks!

May God bless all our AWESOME sponsors.

We appreciate them all SO very much. We

pray for them, and for God's hand of blessing

upon their businesses. We're SO grateful.

Here's Some Inspiration to get You Started:

Our February Guest Designer, Beverly Jordan

Cynthia Olheiser

Jo Ann Atterbury

Natalie Houston

Coming Soon

Christine Miller

Ginny Maxam

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Anything Goes - Weeks #579-580

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Word Art Wednesday for another FUN and fabulous challenge. We're always delighted to have you stop by to play along with us. We've got a beautiful new scripture file for you, a brief encouraging devotional, a winner, a wonderful sponsor/prize, some inspiration, and lots of FUN awaiting. Let's get started with our new challenge.

The scripture used to create our word art is Psalm 139:23-24 and it says, "Search me, o God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting". This is a great verse to SAY out loud to God on a regular basis. I try to do it often because it reminds me (and humbles me) that no matter how "good" I think I'm doing, that my heart is still sinful, and that I still need to remember that God sees straight through to my sinful heart. Even though we may be doing well by the world's measure, and we may be doing well in comparison to (some) others; it's never good enough. There's always something on which we can improve, and it's a good thing to remind ourselves that we need to always be striving to become more like God. The more we repeat this verse to God, the more He will help us to recognize the specific things in our lives that we can work on and do even better. It's sometimes easy to become complacent in our Christian walk and to start thinking that we're "doing good enough". That's simply NOT the case. We can't measure our obedience by the world's standards. We must measure ourselves by God's standards; which are perfect. We can always keep growing in our faith, improving in our behaviors, and always keep striving to become more like Christ. When we ask God to truly "search our hearts and show us any wicked way in us", He will always help us to keep growing in our faith and helping us to become more like Him. This will allow us to be a better example to others and to help point others to Him. It will also bring us great joy and peace. I hope you will try saying this verse out loud to God often. It also reminds the enemy (Satan) that we want to be more like Jesus. And that, my friends, is ALWAYS a good thing.

Check out our AWESOME sponsor for this challenge:

The WONDERFUL, popular and much-loved

Avery Elle Designs is our sponsor for this challenge.

This FAB store is filled with creative stamps, dies,

watercolors, storage options, inks and SO much more.

One lucky participant will WIN a generous

$15 gift certificate to spend at Avery Elle.

And Now....Another Lucky Winner:

The awesome, unique, groovy and AMAZING

Seth Apter Designs sponsored our last challenge.

This crafty store is filled with cool crafting mediums

such as stamps, stencils, paints, rub-ons, adhesives,

washi tapes, various inks and many other unique

products. One lucky person has won a generous

$25 gift certificate to spend at Seth Apter Designs.

It's Lucky Entry #57 - Esther Asbury

Our Top 3 Honors Go to Our Friends:

Entry #30 - Becca Sadler

Entry #91 - Priya

Entry #126 - Wilma

Please email Karen if you'd like a

Top 3 or Winner's Badge for your blog.

All winners must also email Karen

to claim prize (per the Rules Page). Thanks!

May God bless all our AWESOME sponsors.

We appreciate them all SO very much. We

pray for them, and for God's hand of blessing

upon their businesses. We're SO grateful.

Here's Some Inspiration to get You Started:

Our January Guest Designer, Kathy Asper

Kathy has THREE gorgeous card samples

to share. You can see them all on her blog.

Cynthia Olheiser

Jo Ann Atterbury

Natalie Houston

Using Floral Frames Stamp and

Diagonal Stripes Die from Avery Elle

Christine Miller

Using Holiday Skates from Avery Elle

Ginny Maxam

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

Anything Goes - Weeks #577-578

Welcome to Word Art Wednesday for our first challenge of 2023. God has, once again, blessed us with a full calendar of AWESOME generous sponsors. You can see the complete sponsor calendar on the Sponsor Page so that you'll be sure to join us for a chance to win these amazing prizes. We praise God for all His amazing provisions for our challenge blog, and that includes all of YOU who play along and share your art with us. It's always a treat to see your lovely cards and projects linked in our gallery. We do hope that our devotionals will bless and encourage you and that you'll have FUN creating and sharing your art with us again this year.

Our word art scripture for this challenge is found in Titus 3:5 and it says, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. By the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." The Bible clearly tells us that there is absolutely NOTHING we could ever do that would allow us to "earn" our way into Heaven. Good works, no matter how good or how many, can EVER get us into Heaven. It's only by the mercy of our loving God that we can be "saved". What does it mean to be "saved"? Saved from what? Well, we (each and every one of us) are all born sinful. It's in our nature and our sin is unavoidable. We are inherently sinful people. That earns us a place in Hades (Hell) separated from God for all eternity. No matter how many good things we do, we simply cannot ever do enough to work our way into Heaven. Even "works of righteousness" that are done in accordance with the perfect laws of God cannot get us into Heaven. The next part says, "but according to His mercy He saved us". This tells us that even though we are, by nature, sinful; He was merciful towards us. God sent a part of Himself...His Son, Jesus Christ, to come and pay the price for our sins. Because He is sinless, only He could pay our sin debt and provide a way for us to reach God. That's His beautiful act of mercy towards us. The final part says, "by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost". This reminds us that we become a new creature once God has saved us and we've committed our life to Him. That's regeneration, which is a gift of the Holy Ghost. God left a part of Himself (the Holy Ghost/Holy Spirit Comforter) when He ascended to Heaven to prepare a place for us. We become a new (different/better) person and, with the help of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we become a new creature who desires and strives to be more like Him with every passing day. As we grow spiritually, we learn that His laws (rules/commands and statutes/way of life) are perfect, helpful and good. The Holy Ghost fills us, and we begin to grow closer to Him by understanding Him and His ways more clearly. As we become more like God over time by drawing closer to Him, we grow in our spiritual maturity. In doing this, He blesses and strengthens us, and....PRAISE GOD, He's preparing a place for us to spend all eternity with Him. I encourage you, if you're not 100% sure that you're on your way to Heave, this is the perfect day to get it settled. Don't count on getting to Heaven by "being a good person". It won't work. Call on Jesus today and simply tell Him, "I know that you are God, I know I am sinful, I know YOU died to make a way for me, and I desire to lay my sins at your feet and to follow you and trust in You alone the rest of my life and for my eternal security". He would LOVE to hear from you today; and let me tell you....the rewards are ETERNAL.