Take Me Deeper - February Week 3

I know it's a recurring theme for me LOL but can you believe it's the 3rd week of February already?!
Shrove Tuesday has come and Ash Wednesday, and I am so thankful for the Take Me Deeper Project as well as all the lovely people at His Kingdom Come.

Remember, if you've not already joined us and would like to, you can find he Take Me Deeper Project and other classes HERE at His Kingdom Come!

So, to this week's study! I read the provided Bible quote in context. and then looked for commentaries. Within them I found three thoughts that stuck with me:

- a community of love shines as a light

- genuine love and unity among Christians was a major cause, perhaps the strongest single cause, of the spread of Christianity

- love acts in obedience to God's will, under the guidance of the Spirit.

Then I didn't have the chance to try and create anything for a week, and so went back to the readings and searched for Bible quotes about neighbours. I found:
Leviticus 19:17 - ...but love your neighbour as you love yourself
Isaiah 58:9-10 - If you put an end to oppression, to every gesture of contempt, and to every evil word; if you give food to the hungry and satisfy those who are in need, then the darkness around you will turn to the brightness of noon.

John 14:26 - But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Matthew 25:40 - ...I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these members of my family, you did it for me.

I have the jam jar with escaping butterfly representing us, through love, escaping from our little confined, self-centred worlds. Once I'd got that on the page I got a bit fed up as it seemed flat and I had zero ideas how to progress the page! So I prayed and it came to me to add in some extra darkness around the jar...I ended up making that into a wasteland-type landscape, representing the dark and miserable world we live in if we don't love our neighbour and care for others. I took out most of the colour from that area to make it more stark.
Then the bright butterflies of love and care, once released out into the world, bring 'the brightness of noon', shown by the blue sky and rays of light.
The representation of the Spirit is carried on into this piece as well.

Basically, a dark world can be transformed into a world of light and colour by one simple thing - love.

Jam jar brush from SpiritSigh at DeviantArt; the rest is created by me with CU brushes and a CU texture.
TFL!
Bernie x