April 2025 Writing – Kingdom Arts

God’s Love

If we are made in the image of God, where has it all gone wrong? Have we forsaken our first love? Are we moving in the wrong direction? Do we need to turn around and take our stand at the foot of the cross?

God gives us gifts: Peace, love patience, self control, gentleness, kindness, goodness, all weapons to counteract the chaos and pain and death of this world and pointers to God’s eternal life.

Where is fear? Not in his Kingdom. Where is death? Not in his eternal realm.

Do we need to do the right thing, put our head above the parapet and believe in absolute truth.

Jesus died for us, rose again and lives for ever at God’s right hand. We need to hold onto that truth amid all the confusion. Trade wars are just a blip in history, but His sacrifice for us and resurrection to eternal glory never ends.

We have a soul that can be purer and higher than any earthly worries if we cleave to Jesus and are part of his vine.

Evil can never win. Yes, there will be skirmishes, but God’s love wins every battle and his peace will come and there will be a new Jerusalem where there will be no tears but joy and peace.

© Julia Holdsworth Kingdom Arts April 2025

What is faith

Is it complicated, requiring adherence to ritual?
Does it require a certain type of allegiance to rule and regulations?
Can it be experienced wherever you are?
Or is it always corporate, restricted to time and place?
How do you get it? Is it for everyone?
Or only a select few who have chosen to dedicate themselves, to live a monastic life, separate, apart from the world?
Is it a way of life, of truth, honesty, self-sacrifice.
Putting others first, resisting the pull of materialism?
I tried for years to find answers to these questions
I tried to be good, to do good, to not be anxious???
To believe in God, to pray, to love.
But I failed to sustain it.
Yet another failure on my list.
My failure to understand who I was,
Why was I here?
Somehow I knew faith had to make a difference.
Would make a difference if only I could find it.
But why was it so elusive?
I gave up, I pursued a different life
But things quickly fell apart
So what now? No-one to trust, hope eluded me.
But then I saw something different
I watched a life living with joy, living in peace and contentment, a life laid down preferring others,
Reaching out to me, valuing me, believing in me,
Trusting me, encouraging and hopeful, a living faith
And deep within I knew that faith had a source.
One I had not yet discovered or tried.

It had to begin with relationship.
A relationship with the source, the love of mankind
Whose life was spent in the service of others:
And who gave his life away for the benefit of many.
It was Jesus, the son of God, who was asking me to search for he answers I’d been seeking.
And so it happened, I found faith.
I asked him to come into my life, to take me as I was, and He came.
He changed everything, He gave me peace, and joy, hope for the future, ability to love.
And He began to walk with me.
Day by day, through ups and downs, and through faith in Him I have travelled, through life, looking to Him with eyes of faith.
Knowing that He’s always there for me and makes the difference every day.
Son of God, Prince of Peace, lover of my Soul, who gives me the faith I need to live this life for Him.

Grounded

As we stand on land
Do we feel the layers below us?
Created through the years
As faith has grown within
Like beautifying moss
Through faith filled friends.

Mind bursting sunsets
Clasping fingers of young and old
Prayers of love and forgiveness
Meeting many different minds
Years of God’s living baptism
Washing life’s painful cracks
Hearing God’s whispers
To allow the everlasting love to reign
And help us shout
JESUS FOREVER
Echoing voices from the beginning of time.