We're An Original

I was listening to a sermon (02/05/06/) today from Pastor Richard Sipe at First Baptist Church in Marshalltown, IA. Pastor Sipe is an amazing communicator, and in his sermon he made a neat analogy that I wanted to share.

Recently, Pastor Sipe had been on vacation and took a cruise. On this cruise he was introduced to a bit of the arts, a bit of "culture" as he says, and learned about lithography.

We all couldn't have the original painting "Daily Bread" on display on the walls in our home without lithography. He said that he learned that an original piece of art can be when someone else sees a piece of artwork and then makes a lithograph, which is a reproduction of the artist's original work. Then the creator of the artwork, the artist, comes along, looks at the lithograph and says "hey, that's pretty good" and then he signs it. With that artist's signature on the lithograph, it is now considered an "original".

Pastor Sipe went on to say that's the way it is with us:

We live our lives and then there comes a day where we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and we say yes we believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and we understand that Jesus cares so much, that He weeps for our pain, He weeps for our needs, He understands and He weeps because we have hopelessness and we need Him, and we turn to Him and the Bible says then we become a new creation and Jesus comes along and He signs His name on us. And we're an original. And we're an original child of God who has eternal life. We're an original.

I'm an original! Woohooo! I kind of like the image of Jesus signing His name to my heart. That's cool!

I'm an original!

Are you?