He is the divine portrait, the true likeness of the invisible God, and the first-born heir of all creation. For through the Son everything was created, both in the heavenly realm and on the earth, all that is seen and all that is unseen. Every seat of power, realm of government, principality, and authority—it was all created through him and for his purpose! He existed before anything was made, and now everything finds completion in him.
He is the Head of his body, which is the church. And since he is the beginning and the firstborn heir in resurrection, he is the most exalted One, holding first place in everything. For God is satisfied to have all his fullness dwelling in Christ. And by the blood of his cross, everything in heaven and earth is brought back to himself—back to its original intent, restored to innocence again!
Even though you were once distant from him, living in the shadows of your evil thoughts and actions, he reconnected you back to himself. He released his supernatural peace to you through the sacrifice of his own body as the sin-payment on your behalf so that you would dwell in his presence. And now there is nothing between you and Father God, for he sees you as holy, flawless, and restored, if indeed you continue to advance in faith, assured of a firm foundation to grow upon. Never be shaken from the hope of the gospel you have believed in. And this is the glorious news I preach all over the world.
This is how Paul wrote it to the Colossian congregation.
In 2014, while I was lying in the sun on the beach enjoying my vacation, I read these lines and suddenly had a vision of the picture presented here. While looking at this picture in front of my mind, I understood these passages and I was so fascinated by those words. As I imagine the extent and draw all my conclusions from the truths above, I can only be amazed at how much our God loves us and has taken care of everything and wants to take care of everything.
More on that in a moment.
I saw the picture and suddenly heard the words in my heart: "Please paint this for me."
Anyone who has read my story will not be surprised at my reaction. "I can't, I can't paint what I see only in the spirit." The next moment I remembered different stories about how God enables those he commands to do something. How he is with Moses and how he puts someone at his side who is good at speaking freely, how he "put on Gideon like a glove" to work through him, how he helped Joseph and Mary raise Jesus by he provided angels and much more. Everything pounded on me at once accompanied by the words "if I ask you to do this for me, then you are also able to do that." Of course, I no longer argued against it and agreed.
Quotation unknown: "God does not call the qualified, but he qualifies those who he called."
The history of the painting
Back from vacation I went through a long phase of implementing this picture. Technically no idea how it should all work. So I started with what I already know. I thought about where the slightly oval globe should be, painted the oval and painted the rest of the canvas blackish. I looked for a reference picture of a globe so that I could set the continents correctly and painted the globe. Here I was. How do I paint on a black background? How do I paint a person, a face with acrylic and brush? How do I make it look transparent? How do I paint flowing fabric? How do I put the joyful, loving expression on Jesus' face that I saw?
By the way, If you are wondering whether such a picture, such a vision fades over time, well, it has always been the case with me. That's how human memory works. Frankly, the more senses and emotions involved, and the more insights and connections in the brain are linked to it, the longer it lasts. And yet it is like a memory in which you, in your thoughts, can actively go back to explore it, to look at the details again. It is not uncommon for the picture to develop by this “return visit”. That means details change, as one looks at other perspectives that reveal new details. It was the same with this picture and more to come.
At first this experience worried me a little. I worried if I would take in too much of myself and take away what I am convinced God gave me what he had shown me. I still didn't understand what it means to let him use me in this way. (Read more about my history with art here.)
In my first vision, Jesus looked down at the earth, at us, full of joy and love. He looked down at his heart. We filled his heart completely, actually we represent his heart. I saw stars, Jesus stood there with open arms and was transparent and he was shining a little. Later, in the process of returning to the image in my heart, I saw Jesus look me straight in the eye, and ultimately he is looking you straight in the eye. Galaxies joined the stars. His clothes began to melt with the stars because he contains not only our little universe, but everything. Just as it is described in the letter to the Colossians. I started to understand that I am the brush in God's hand and he must have the freedom to design. Of course, the type and quality of the brush has a significant influence on the texture and what is created on the canvas. Is it bristly, is it frayed, maybe even leaves hair on the canvas? This is natural and it is normal. Whoever God chooses to do a certain thing for him, it will always be shaped by the person and contain traits of that person. So I accepted that.
Concern or fear turned into awe and I gave him every brush stroke. Never before have I painted a painting in which I thought it necessary to pray continuously and to work with the Spirit of God to let him take the lead. But this painting was just the beginning for that. (Learn more about it here.)
For years this picture had no definitive name. It was always “the picture of Jesus”. I thought about calling it "King of Kings", but was not completely satisfied with it. It should get its name in 2020. I saw the series "The Chosen". In the fourth episode, in which Jesus tuned water to wine, I heard a blessing that the Israelites say before drinking the wine.
"Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, ..."
Religion versus relationship
I heard how it was said that all the different religions are trying to find a way to God, Jesus is the way from God to us.
Jesus himself says that he came to reveal the Father to us. But what does that mean?
When Adam and Eve had to get out of the garden, they were still so close that they continued to communicate with God. How do I know? Because the children of the two were still talking to God. Imagine the following example. If you are with someone in a garden, you have the chance to have intimate contact. If you are outside, you can still talk to the person "behind the fence". It was that easy at first. Over the years, however, they and their descendants moved away from the garden until nobody knew where it was and everyone did their own thing. The further away, the harder it was to hear God speak and have a relationship with him. Different ideas about God developed and some began to doubt their origin at all. Since then it has been God's wish that we get along with him and come back home. People remained stubborn and didn't want to. In that story in which God finally gave people "rules" about how they should live together, it was after a long time, he invited them again to meet him on a mountain. But they were afraid and preferred to have Moses meet with him and they would simply do what Moses passed on to them from God.Well, he did. But over the years it developed into a religion with many additional rules and regulations that God had never given and the religious leaders developed into rulers over the people.
When we look at Jesus walking on earth, we see things that we mostly don't hear much about. (I mean, unless you grew up in the church context where it might have been talked about.) We see him teasing these religious leaders almost every day. Everything he did bothered them and they portrayed him as a rebel and blasphemer. If you follow the rules and regulations you could mean Jesus broke them again and again. The religious leaders literally freaked out e.g. for every Saturday (Shabbat) on which Jesus did a miracle, which they simply regarded as “he works on the Holy Day” and they started thinking very early on how they could get rid of him. They were afraid of losing their power over the people and their reputation among the people. As clever and hypocritical as they were, they may have feared that their image of God, which they had cultivated and represented over the years, could be wrong and that they were in fact incomprehensible. Pride and greed for power made them so blind that they didn't understand what Jesus was doing or saying. They could not recognize or understand his words and actions.
In their eyes, he broke sacred laws and regulations, spent his time with the scum of society, those who were outcast and despised. At that time racism was a very big issue among the Jews, and women were second-class people. Not for Jesus though. He neither excluded women nor accepted class thinking of the people of that time. Jesus publicly exposed the religious leaders by repeatedly calling them hypocrites and the like. Their world was whirled up quite nicely by Jesus.
However, Jesus only wanted to show them that at all times, whether it is Holy Day or not, it is God's will that His children be healthy and well, which is why He healed on Saturdays. He wanted to show that it is God's will that EVERYONE can have a relationship with God. No matter whether man, woman or child, no matter what status. No matter how far someone was from the garden, that he wanted to welcome EVERYONE. One may be further away, the other closer, but ultimately everyone has moved away and every little distance is too much distance.
It becomes clear that apparently nothing was an exclusion criterion to take away the distance between God and man. Nothing, except man does not want and holds on to his own ways, to his religion with all its rules and regulations.
Jesus told the story of a son who claimed his inheritance when the father was still alive, so that he then left and knocked everything over in Las Vegas, speaking in today's image. Then he ends the story with the reaction of the father and brother, who stayed with the father, to the returning of that so called lost son. This fathers reaction was how he only feels joy and initiates a huge festival and does not speak a bit about the past, but receives him back as his son.
"This is the image of the invisible God"
Who is God? Someone who is above everything? Who is the father? Someone who only has good things in mind for you and is close to you. Jesus had compassion for people, answered their approaches, took detours if someone was in need for it. He didn´t wanted anybody to be expelled, didn't want anyone to go hungry or sick. He talked to people about identity, guided and accompanied them and taught them how the Heavenly Father really is. He explained the Heavenly Father through his words and deeds. He is the image of an invisible God, a God who is approachable, a God we can understand, in one sense, a God who decided to bleed as much as we do. He was born of God and went back to God. While he was here on earth, he was human. Among other things, Jesus took the human form so that we can understand him better and identify better with him, and ultimately with the Father himself. He was in pain and felt all other feelings we also feel. He showed us how to stand above those feelings. His love for us and for his father made him suffer all sorts of feelings without striking back. "Forgive them because they don't know what they're doing," were some of his last words before he gave up his life. Through his behavior and words we can see what God's will is, from his character we can see what God's character is, by what he does we can see what God is doing, when we see him we see the Father.
Everything has its existence in him
I could therefore go on now and say so much about every single line of the scripture of the letter to the Colossians and dive deep into each. It's like a three-dimensional puzzle. Every part, every sentence, every revelation is related to another and you can dive deeper and deeper - or you can stay on the surface. Sometimes we find it difficult to go deeper because each of us has our own experiences through which we value things. We have "stencils on our glasses", so to speak, whereby we see, according to the pattern that is shown on these glasses. This pattern comes about through our experience. Injuries, beliefs, learned theories, disappointments, joyful experiences. Nobody is free of it, this is a mechanism in our brains not to be overwhelmed with all the new information and simply helps it to work categorically and to cope. So through these perceptions there are actually many realities side by side - but there is only one truth.
We should all be looking for it, because our realities can be manipulated from outside, consciously and unconsciously. When we have found the truth, we should dedicate ourselves to delving deeper and deeper into it.
Since God is real and Jesus is the truth, I invite you to take the lines above and to invite him personally to take you deep into it. Ask him to help you recognize more than what the "experience patterns on your glasses" allow you to perceive, that he will help you to see beyond. I like to say to him: "Show me what you see here, explain what you mean by that verse or in this example."
It is more than theology, religion or doctrine, it is about your personal relationship with him and that you are reconciled with each other.
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