This is an image of revival being released through The River Church. The flury of God’s move remeniscent to the power and force of a hurricane in the spirit. Painted March 11, 2012 am service.
Category: Bible
Declaring Death Over Winter
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Genesis 8:22
Let the warmth of His love spring up hope in your heart. Nothing can stop life from blooming when the Holy Spirit moves. How amazing is our God!
Painted during morning worship at The River Church of OC, February 5, 2012.
Our Father
“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” Jeremiah 33:3
This is a promise that is woven into the fabric of prayer life, relationship with Jesus. There is a progression that happens, sometimes gradually and sometimes in breath-taking moments of revelation. This glimpse of heaven represents the Father and the simple fact that Jesus is the only way to the Father. He is so much more than a celestial orb or an open heaven. He is a person who deeply desires you not only to seek him and find him, but also be in relationship with him. Finding him, is only the beginning.
This was painted 1/01/2012 at The River Church of OC during our morning service.
“And His Glory Fills the Temple”
“Lord, please come in, enter this place that we might feel you near…We love you Lord. We want you here.”
The Lord,” I’m here with you. So, what now?”
This question demands an individual response from each one of us who so greatly desire His presence.
“What now?”, is an invitation to move your faith to the next level, beyond the four walls of the church.
What happens when you leave the sanctuary? Do you invite Him into your everyday moments? Or does the Lord’s glory disperse not to be seen or felt until next Sunday?
“Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim.” Ezekiel 10:18. He is so eager to leave the temple with you! His form is too large to be put in the box that is our church sanctuary. He desires to live out in the open, in and through your LIFE. In your heart is where he fits perfectly, because he made you in His image.
This was painted at The River Church of OC morning service, December 4, 2011.
“Highway of Holiness”
“And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness.” Isaiah 35:8
Have you ever known a person and you could feel the destiny on them? A friend who commissioned this piece asked me to paint something in regards to the “Highway of Holiness”, the Christian walk and specifically in regards to her friend whom she planned this for as a gift. I have never met the person and yet you can see her destiny all over it! I love how God does that. This painting was envisioned and planned to be done in shades of wine, burgandy and the road a dusty dirt path. This is what the Lord painted for his treasured daughter, the recipient of this painting. It is a journey marked out in many vivid colors, full of life and wonder in the blurred out rainbow shades. That is thrilling to see… my image becomes His image and seemingly perfectly layed out to fit the person in who’s honor this was painted for. Yay God 🙂
Heralding Angel
A couple of weeks ago at a church meeting I saw in my spirit an image of an angel above the building our congregation meets at, specifically an angel appointed to our church to herald when The River Church of OC is worshiping.
It’s no secret, our church loves to praise God through music. If you come to our church you may expect to find that our worship times usually go long and we love it. There is such a sweet, even tangible feeling that enters the building when we go into a wonderful time of singing praises to the Lord. He seems to come near in an even greater measure. We are lovers of Jesus, unabashedly and we are hungry for more!
We as a church seem to come into total agreement on this: We want more of God! I believe that because of this passion for God we have, our praise has the power to change a region. The angel above, seems to have the job of heralding when the River Church of OC is at work worshiping. Our great love of God carries beyond the four walls of our building. The impact on our region is great and real. In the spiritual sense, we have this angel heralding, broadcasting this out over the land… In the natural (in our everyday life), we who are lovers of God go out into the world and have the ability to change the world because of our passionate love of God.
Be BLESSED and sing praises to God with all you heart for He will come near!
Painted at The River Church of OC during worship August 7, 2011.
“Seek My Face, know My heart”
Jesus wants to share his father’s heart with YOU. In his eyes, you ARE worthy and you ARE significant!! Give him your heart so he can give you his!
I painted this during the evening service 7/10/11 at The River Church of OC in Irvine, CA.
The Book of Life
This was painted yesterday during the morning service at The River Church of OC. It’s always a surprise what ends up on the canvas… the vision and the painting are always different. What’s even more fun is speaking with people in our congregation and finding they have been ministered to by the image in their own unique way. The artist in me would like to tweek certain things to fit what I saw in my mind as the inspiration, but the way I approach these paintings is that they belong to God. I want His image, not my image to be represented 🙂
Incidently I did have a scripture floating around in my head as I painted this:
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13
Be BLESSED!
Choosing to Trust God
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
At first glance, the image of a growing seed implies the promise of new life. The roots suggest a solid foundation that the seedling will rely on in the future to nourish it and keep it firmly planted. Those roots took time to develop before the seedling could survive above ground. Through this, God seems to be saying,”You may not realize what I’ve been working in your life yet, but your breakthrough is just about to come forth… and it will be in My perfect timing.”
As I compose this post, a very interesting revelation about this painting is developing in me. I feel that although the above message is very important, it points to something perhaps even deeper than hope. That is TRUST.
Every season or trial brings a very special opportunity. Regardless of the role we have played in our circumstances, there is one common decision we have the opportunity to make. Will we trust in God? Even when we don’t know what He is doing (that sure sounds like an accusation of God “doing” something to us, but it’s an honest feeling regardless if it’s right or wrong). That is the point. It’s a lack of trust in a loving God, that provokes those types of feelings. It can be extremely difficult to trust, especially when a lot of pain is involved. When we suffer, the last thing we want to do is hand over control to God who may or may not be a strong figure in our life…yet.
As with any relationship, knowing who God is can take time to develop for many people. When I shared about Jesus with my four year old several years ago, she instantly knew who Jesus was and knew His heart. It came naturally to her. I on the other hand, took much longer to even begin to understand Him. Indeed, I am still learning who He is and learning how to trust Him. It takes time spent in the presence of the Lord to know His heart. It may take many trials and tribulations for a person to understand how to trust God.
Trusting Him. At the very core of all of this is the fact that God loves us with an everlasting love. Yes, this is a truth without question. It is written in the Bible. I had read this in the Bible, but I came to know this more deeply through my experiences; the hard things in life. Through the many times I did not trust God and I chose to live my own way and my way ended in failure and pain. Also, through the many difficult seasons in my life that I had no control over but He brought me to the place I am today. The process of surviving as I clung to Him taught me how to trust in God with more of myself. I learned more about His perfect love during those times.
When I choose Him and His ways, when I choose to trust God, I begin to see that He IS always there regardless of what I do or think. Whether I can see Him or feel Him. He IS always working on my behalf. It begins as an act of will and in time turns into faith in God. I know that you love me Jesus. I trust you Lord, my life is yours.
God has promised to never leave us nor forsake us. He created us out of the love that He has for us. He did not have to do this, He chose to. He chose us before the foundations of the Earth. Just as we can choose to trust Him to work everything out for our good. We can choose to trust despite what our situations look like on the surface, confident that Jesus has a plan for our life that is far greater than we could ever imagine.
“The Seed” was painted during a morning service at The River Church of OC in Irvine, California.
Prophetic Image of an Oak Tree
“…and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”(Matthew 16:18) This oak tree is an overcomer. It is growing in the hardest of places, perched upon an exposed cliff, overlooking choppy seas and flanked by a dark mountain range. It has weathered many storms and yet it continues to thrive even in this difficult landscape. Much of life can be this way, but the resulting stregnth that God builds you up into is priceless.
I created this painting to honor the prophetic words given to someone very dear to me. When a prophetic word is given from one person to another, it can be incredibly faith building. He was given three seperate prophetic words from different people at different times and they all referred to his character and spirit as being strong and tall as an oak tree. These people were not aware of his life experiences and it made these words even more powerful and encouraging. I wanted to record these words and give the words a visual to reinforce the message. “It’s been hard, but look how strong you’ve become. Look at the foundation you are rooted in!” It is powerfully edifying when a word speaks into your life and you know in your heart that God is speaking to you and He sees who you are. He is FOR you!
Andrea Riley Arts 