The Portrait



The room is very large and a bit stuffy.  The overhead lighting is meticulously placed as to brighten everything.  Each wall is filled with paintings of varying sizes.  The place is bustling with curious people with seeking eyes that are trying to find just the right one to purchase and take home with them.

As I walk around the room drinking in the beauty of the artist’s masterpieces, my eyes fall upon a mysterious, but intriguing painting of a woman’s face.  There is no title like so many of the other pictures on display.  I look for a signing at the bottom, but there is none.  Is it a self-portrait?  I don’t know, but she is beautiful.  Her flowing ringlets of blond hair fall softly around her shoulders—nicely shaped nose with blue eyes.    

Though the portrait is black and white I just know that her eyes are blue.  Her lips are perfectly shaped; wanting to be kissed.  She is looking past me and not at me.  Many thoughts fill my mind… “At what are you looking?  What are you pondering?  Are you thinking of someone else or me?  You are mysterious, yet lovely.” 

With lips closed she is gently biting the inside of your bottom lip.  She is in deep thought.  Her eyes speak intense feelings of desire, or is it perceptions of my own desires that I see in her?  My mind thinks, “You are beautiful,” but my heart says, “I belong to another.”

I stand here admiring her beauty, but not permitting myself the pleasure of fantasizing; only allowing limited thoughts to prevail.  I would name her Penny, because a penny for her thoughts is what I would pay. 

She looks a bit tired—a look of sadness is in her face, or is it once again a perception revealing my own inner self?  My mind is quick to pose these thoughts:  “Why am I sad?  Is it because she is looking past me and not at me?” 

I perceive that she does not want to look into my eyes; because she knows the moment that she does she will reveal herself rather than my own reflections and revelations of supposed emotions being kindled within me.  The artist succeeded in capturing me.  I am impressed.  I have been touched.

How often do you see something, or read a book or article that touches you to the core of your being?  The beauty of the painting reminds me of the beauty of God’s Word, but rather than the words looking past me like the woman in the portrait, my soul is pierced as His Word peers deeply into my eyes and makes me see my relationship with God whether it is weak or strong. 

The Bible is not an ordinary book of well written words; it is a book that comes alive, much like the portrait that I saw.  It makes me to see exactly what my emotions and loyalty encompass; and most importantly, with whom my allegiance lies. 

Like the portrait, the Word of God causes me to take note of my innermost feelings and to consider the reality of truth when compared to the uncertainties of life and the many questions of the hereafter.  If gives direction and satisfies my questions.

God’s ability to touch, with words, the heart of a person that reads them, speaks of the magnificence of the Creator.  The captivating content that lies within the bindings of the Bible is a self-portrait of God’s undying love for humanity. 

The plan He has for each person is revealed in the Bible.  It saturates the innermost consciousness with truth as we read it.  God breathed upon holy men of old to write His words without error.  The inspired artistry of each stroke of the pen provided words of life to whoever desires a relationship with God the Father.

The man called Jesus was a self-portrait of Almighty God.  When men of His day looked into His face they saw the face of God, because Jesus was God in flesh.  God took the form of man and died on a cross for mankind that we might be saved from our sins through Jesus.

 

(John14:9), “Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?  He who has seen Me has seen the Father;’ ‘so how can you say, show me the father?’ ”    

(I Timothy 2:5-6), “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,” vs.6 “who gave Himself a ransom for all …”

(John 10:9), “I am the door.  If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

(John 14:6), “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.’ ”

Written by,

Papa Boyd