The Choice

I had the opportunity to paint this mural at a youth center in International Falls on my mission trip a couple weeks ago. It was really cool how God planned it all ahead of time by giving me the idea and bringing me to a place where they could use it. It was also very cool that the YouthWorks staff gave me charge of painting whatever I wanted inside.
This mural has a powerful message. You are faced with a choice: life with Christ or life without him which will lead to spiritual death. You can either stay in the darkness where no one will see the junk in your life, or you can give up that junk and surrender to Jesus. He will forgive your sins, no matter how many or how bad. ("As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." Psalm 103:12) He will take away your guilt and fear. Through him alone do you find real joy and peace and purpose. He can free you from your slavery to sin. Jesus offers true life. He is the only way to heaven, the Truth, and the Life. Life with him isn't always easy, but it's so much better than living it on your own.

This is the most important decision you'll make. It's your eternity.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes[trusts] in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."