Back to it, and the countdown continues. Ever been made to feel small and unmanly because your palette was too unrefined to detect those notes of oak-iness or cinnamon? Ever questioned your own virility upon agreeing that you can totally taste those subtle red berry highlights in your glass of merlot, when you’d honestly prefer a bottle of vimto? Jesus has never been in that situation. If you’re unsure, check out John 2:1-11. Jesus makes the best wine.

There’s a wedding, and the wine has run out. All they have to drink is boring old water, and it will not do – so Jesus miraculously turns over 120 gallons of water into the best wine the guests have ever tasted. That’s around 420 litres for those of us in the UK, or in other words an exorbitant quantity of high grade plonk. So much wine. Jesus was anything but boring.

To what end does he produce this extravagance? To point people to his true identity – Messiah, son of God, lord of creation. Nobody else can generate half a ton of wine from nothing but six big jugs of water, because that’s not something humans can do unless they’ve got some significant divine heritage. Nobody else can forgive sins for that matter, nor claim to be the only way to Heaven. Jesus is the ultimate man.

A brief interruption to the countdown for an update on our book’s progress, and a bit of an art post. After several months and hundreds of hours of planning, sketching and drawing, work on He Was and Is and Is to Come is finished! We sent the final files over to the printers on Friday last week, and are expecting hard copies in hand by the end of the month. Now that my time is slightly less overshadowed by completing the book (although still occupied getting ready for shipping it out amongst other things) I thought I’d offer a little insight into the journey, and a look at some panels that didn’t make the final cut.

Typically when I’m illustrating, I can end up spending as much time sketching out rough ideas for what to draw as I spend on drawing complete panels. It’s a reasonably long process getting panels finished, so I can save myself a lot of wasted time by drawing a picture that really fits the text first time around. That said, sometimes I’ll work something up and find it just doesn’t come together properly – or Stef and I have looked at complete verses and felt that one or two panels weren’t quite strong enough. Here are a few of the completed panels I produced that didn’t make it into the book. I’ll leave you to work out where they were supposed to fit!

First on the list is the toolbelt at the top of the page. Those were some nice tools. You will not find them in your copy of the book however, because they have been replaced. No time for sentiment, on to the next!

It’s a tree. We can do better than that though. It was initially replaced with this:

And for a brief moment, penguins were represented in the book. Then they too were cut, in favour of a solitary egg. Life goes on.

Something of a Calvin and Hobbes-esque moment in the middle of a verse. I quite like panels like this because they can end up conveying a lot, and also are relatively quick to draw. This particular panel however, will not be immortalised in ink.

The immediate successor to the previous image. Sometimes I’ll draw something because I feel like adding a touch of levity, and because they’re simply fun to draw. They don’t always fit the tone that’s needed though – and this panel too is consigned to the digital scrapheap.

Things are getting serious for this guy. Rather than seeing his problems resolved however, he will remain cowering in his bunker for the time being.

Do you like dogs? Some people like dogs. This dog will still feature in the book, albeit in a much reduced role. If you were holding off on pre-ordering because of concerns that dogs would be totally absent, consider your fears assuaged. Don’t worry, there’s lots of other beasts in there as well.

I was rather pleased with what I had done with the lighting in this one. It won’t be in the book though.

This was one of those panels where I spent hours trying to draw a decent looking coral reef, as viewed from the air. It made perfect sense in context! Very hard for me to get right though, as it turned out. Not to worry, I replaced it with a different reef that looks considerably more convincing.

The last of this brief crop of would-be panels. Something very similar, but slightly more serious made its way into the final collections. If any of these editing room cuts has left you saddened, fear not – for every image cut, a significantly more comely and fitting illustration has taken its place.

I hope that’s satisfied some of your artistic curiosities, and whet your appetites for the soon to be released book – we can’t wait to share this with you and see what you make of the finished product! We’re pretty close to it, but we’re honestly thrilled with how it’s shaped up, and hope it will bless you as you read it.

Things start getting seriously manly here at number 6. As everybody knows, real men don’t need to ask for directions. It’s not that it can feel awkward at times to stop a stranger and ask the way, and it’s not that their pride is somehow wounded by admitting that they are lost. It’s that real men always know exactly where they are, at all times, and exactly how to get where they intend to go. It may be that you were hoping for a more direct route, well I’m sorry but we’ve chosen to take a scenic detour. Is he stuck at a crossroads with a puzzled look on his face? He’s probably just thinking about something very masculine and thought provoking, because he most certainly is not lost.

Jesus takes it to the next level. The scriptures do not record Jesus asking for directions. He knows all the best shortcuts. More than just physical geography however, Jesus claimed a level of navigational mastery that eludes even the very beefiest of gents: he knows the way to the Father. See John 14:1-6, where he comforts his followers that he alone can navigate the path home to our maker, the God of perfect love. Not alone does he know the way – he is the way. If you’re looking for directions to Heaven, to forgiveness, to acceptance and adoption by your Heavenly father – there’s honestly only man to ask.

Hot on the heels of Jesus’ well established love of the outdoors, it should come as no surprise that he was an enthusiast of the outdoorsiest method of cooking there is: the campfire barbecue. As just one example among doubtless many others, John 21:1-14 sets the stage for a classic cookout – good friends enjoying food and conversation around the warming glow.

Jesus has recently risen from the grave, and he’s naturally a busy man with a lot on his plate – but he’s not too busy to take a morning and spend some time with his friends. Peter is still choked with guilt, having denied he even knew him at the time of Jesus’ arrest and crucifiction (John 18:15-27). Jesus takes the opportunity to offer love and forgiveness to his beloved friend – setting him free from his recent failure and giving him a fresh commission. Because he’s a real man, Jesus is unafraid to express himself openly, to address painful topics and help his friends to find healing. He makes time for those he loves, he gives rest to the weary, and he doesn’t burn the food.

If there’s one thing that shouts manliness, it’s time spent roughing it outdoors. Your friend shows you a few photos of a week spent sleeping under the stars, grilling freshly caught fish and loping over hill and vale, and a primal instinct within you growls for adventure.

After all that time spent being rugged indoors, Jesus spent the three years of his public ministry basically yomping around the hills and valleys of Judea and Samaria. He was so decidedly itinerant that he told one would-be disciple, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:57-58). These days, the guy would have struggled to get a job interview for his lack of correspondence address. He hikes about, gets dirt and sweat on his clothes. He and his disciples find lodging where they can, or else sleep under the mediterranean sky. My friends – this is the ultimate man.

Jesus was a man. On this we can all agree. His divinity finds somewhat less common acceptance. Moving from this common ground, I’m starting a short series running down how he was not just a man, but actually the very pinnacle of manhood. The manliest fella who ever walked the dust of the Earth.

A disclaimer ahead of time: some of this might be just a little bit tongue in cheek.

So, number 1. Facial hair. Long the litmus test of chaphood, a full and rugged beard is an unassailable testament to the wearer’s man card. The Bible contains no explicit description of the man, but Jesus, raised a Jew, would have almost certainly had a sprouting of beardliness surrounding his mouth/chin/cheek region.

By any reckoning, a strong start – and the case only builds from here.

I’ve been doing a bit of preaching recently at Kingsgate Community Church in Great Yarmouth. They’re part of our family of churches and it’s been great getting to know a few of the people over there while helping fill a couple of preaching slots. If you’re in the area they’re a lovely group of people and passionate about Jesus.

The images above are from a Sunday a couple of months ago, speaking on Ephesians 6:10-20. They were going through a series called ‘we are’, looking at the various ways the church is described in the New Testament, and what that means for how we live and work. I was picking up the theme of the church as an army. It can be an underplayed theme – leading people to think of the horrors of the crusades, or the very present threat of militant religion – but the army the New Testament describes is of an altogether different sort.

This army is not about physical violence, or conversion by threat of force. The point of the military language in the passage is to open our eyes to the fact that there is a war on – albeit not the kind we’re used to. Ephesians 6:12 makes it clear that this warfare is spiritual, and that we ignore it at our peril. What I felt most strongly were two things – first, the need for reminder that we have an enemy; that there is a war on. If we’re not in that mindset, we won’t understand why we’re losing ground or struggling to get anywhere; why prayer is so hard; why you can feel called by God to do something but find tremendous challenge in trying to see it through. We are opposed! If we aren’t aware of that, how can we be ready for it?

Once we know what we’re facing, we know we need to gear up for the fight. We’re in a spiritual warfare waged by forces we hardly comprehend, let alone have any chance of resisting in our own strength. We know we need help – so secondly, I wanted to get across that whatever might be arrayed against us, we are on the side of the victor. Take a look at Colossians 2:15 or 1 Corinthians 15:20-26. We’re up against forces that are beyond us, but totally inferior to Jesus. Through his death on the cross, he sealed their fates once and for all – and it’s him that we turn to for strength in the fight. Where Ephesians 6 lists the full armour of God, each piece in turn leads us to rely more and more on our saviour. To get up each morning with a warrior mindset, but to trust that, as has always been true, every battle belongs to the Lord.

As a side note, I found Dr Martin Lloyd Jones’ The Christian Soldier: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10-20 along with The Christian Warfare: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10 to 13 extremely helpful in unpacking, understanding and applying this passage. I would recommend them very highly.

Have a read through the Old Testament, you never know who will show up. Case in point, I was reading through 1 Chronicles in my current trip through the Bible, and in what can sometimes be a bit of a dry book, who should show up but Prince Adam, guardian of the secrets of Castle Greyskull, and freshly minted musician in service of Yahweh. Ok, it’s possible I’m reading too much into this one, all the same if you’re a fan of He-man you might find more than a thing or two to interest you in the Bible. We’re talking about a history with:

– Long haired muscle men
– Swords and shields
– Castles
– Romance
– Intrigue!
– Characters who can fly
– Men at arms

Not to mention that the main character is a prince (Isaiah 9:6) who transforms from a regular looking guy (Isaiah 53:2) into an absolute powerhouse (Revelation 19:11-16) and who absolutely, undeniably, has the power (Matthew 28:18). He might just be worth a second look.

Today you get a guest artist! This quote from Jeremiah 1:5 was illustrated by Claire Jones. She puts some of her work up on Instagram here. If you need a calligrapher, why not give her some work?

So, here’s a beautiful verse. It comes from the opening chapter of Jeremiah – a book from the Old Testament. Jeremiah is one of the major prophets in the old testament – and like all the prophetic books, it records the actions of a man called by God to be his mouthpiece to a group of people. Here we have God giving Jeremiah a job to do, but unlike most job offers you or I have received, the Father explains that he has handpicked his man prior even to his conception.

You can’t really say no at that point.

This God knows you

Through the mechanics of biology he himself devised, it was he that shaped you in the womb. He can say without hint of exaggeration that before your life began he knew you – and while this verse is aimed at Jeremiah, the same is true of you. Before you were born Jesus went to the cross and died for your sake – indeed, before the foundations of the universe were laid he chose us for adoption as his sons and daughters (Ephesians 1:3-5).

This God cares about you

You might feel lonely, unlovely, unnoticed, but nothing escapes his attention. No one is unimportant in his sight – on the contrary, he ignores all convention and treats the scum of the earth with the same love and tenderness as its kings and queens.

This God wants you

Before you were born, his eye was on you. Before your birth, and long before your death, his heart was for you, to bring you back to him. It may be that you’ve spoken to him before and felt no answer came – that no one was listening, or if they were they had more important things to do. The reverse is astonishingly true – the heart of a lovesick Father beats incessantly in Heaven for the sake of his missing children. He waits with baited breath for you to call.