Word Art When: Fallen and Forgiven (FREE Digis)

Welcome to Word Art Wednesday!  I've been given another sweet opportunity by our administrator, Karen Letchworth to offer this week's scripture art and devotion.  I always count it a joy to offer both on Word Art Wednesday, because I delight in exalting God's Word in a way that reaches out and touches others lives.  This verse is a powerful reminder of our human condition compared to God's glorious and marvelous grace!

The graphics are yours regardless of whether or not you use them to create your submission for our challenge.  Feel free to copy and paste for your personal use any time you want to encourage someone.  Please visit our challenge website for further information on how to submit your inspiration piece and browse the other designers' beautiful creations.

My Sample:

Devotional Thoughts:
Many years ago (a life time ago, it seems), when I was young, impetuous, and not walking close to my Lord, I fell...hard.  I grieved the Lord with my sin and I immediately felt the weight of His conviction.  I knew I broke my Savior’s heart, and when His Holy Spirit confronted me with my sin, I literally fell to my knees in repentance. I wept bitterly just knowing how I had grossly disappointed the One who gave His life for me that I might walk in holiness.  My unworthiness overwhelmed me.  As I knelt before the perfect Lamb of God, I washed His nail-pierced feet with my sorrow, regret and tears.  My love for Him ran so deep, but I had momentarily cast aside that precious love and traded it for the allure of the world.  Stepping into darkness, I turned from the Light that would have kept me safely on the path He had marked out for me.  

During those long moments of grieving as I poured out my repentance, God’s Spirit drew near to me. He certainly didn’t let me off easily.  I had to recount the steps of my downward spiral, each choice that had taken me farther from Him, every nearly imperceptible turn that darkened my way.   As I retraced my steps, my grief deepened.  How could I have let my Savior down?  The crushing weight of my shame was taking my breath away.  My tear-filled eyes were closed and squeezing out the intense anguish that coursed down my face.  I was so very, very sorry and I wanted it all to go away, to be right again, to feel clean again. 

Suddenly, a bright light exploded within my spirit and I knew my time of discipline was over.  God reached down to me, lifted my face toward Him and I felt my Savior smiling upon me once again.  He had accepted my repentance, and was flooding me with the light of His love, grace and mercy.  That grace washed over me and I deeply breathed in His forgiveness.  The weight was gone and His loving embrace was all I felt.  The feeling left me almost giddy...I laughed out loud, and immediately broke out into song and dance.  Surely had someone seen me, they would have thought me intoxicated.

As believers, we will fall.  But God has promised His indwelling Holy Spirit will confront us when we sin and will lead us to repentance.   Sin and darkness are earth-born companions.  We cannot sin and bask in God’s light at the same time.  God does not tolerate our sin, and He will withdraw His fellowship if we linger in it.   Sin is uncomfortable to the true believer; its allure quickly changes to guilt.  Praise God we don’t have to wallow in either the sin or the guilt.  He has made a way out from every temptation and provides forgiveness when we fall.  God ‘s magnificent grace covers us once for all.  We can access His grace at the moment of salvation, but He also extends it when we fail Him during our journey of sanctification.  We are not perfect, but praise God, we are truly forgiven!  We may fall, but through His grace we can rise again, and on our way up He shines His light of mercy upon us all over again!    

   

I chose a simple design for this card so the power of this verse could take center stage.  The verse used comes from a new line of sentiments called Inside-Outside sentiments that I'm creating for Daydream Designs. When I taught card classes at a local scrapbook store, and in my home as well, I received numerous requests to create sets that contained the inside sentiments as well.  Nearly always, I included inside sentiments for my class cards, and everyone seemed grateful they didn't have to search for the right thing to say.  So I decided to create a few sets to see how they fare in the store.

Here is the inside greeting I wrote to go with the verse above.  You may also copy it for your personal use.  Please let your friends know they can visit my blog to get their own copy for their use.  The sets are copyrighted and distribution is not allowed, so I appreciate you simply sharing the blog address.

FREE for a limited time...

 

I used the black inside greeting and recolored it to match the colored verse.  You can do this in most photo editing programs.  I do mine in Publisher.

Here are all the Inside-Outside sets available at the store.

Inside-Outside Sentiment Set 1-A and B

(both of the above photos depictONE set)

10 images / JPEG and PNG / 300 ppi / resizable

black images can be recolored in most photo editing programs

$3.00

Inside-Outside Sentiment Set 2-A and B

(both photos depict ONE set)

14 sentiments (color and b/w mixed) /JPEG and PNG

$3.00

Inside-Outside Sentiment Set 3-A and B

(both photos above depict ONE set)

15 sentiments / JPEG and PNG / 300 ppi / resizable

$3.00