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After that, some rapid fire thoughts:
@kina, your gospel-centric perspective is super refreshing! I love how every subject that catches your eye is an object lesson that somehow, some way, points back to Calvary. You can never have too many reminders.
@jamesstaddon I remember Foundations of Photography lesson 1, with its four principles: they all equated to loving the Lord, which is the first and greatest commandment. If our hearts are truly set on God, we won’t have any problems with sin. This is why heaven is going to be so amazing and us who know the Lord already have a little taste of it with a changed heart with the new, albeit imperfect, desire to love and fully enjoy God, which manifests itself in full obedience.
Ultimately, shooting for the glory of God would include photography that focuses on God.
How it focuses on God or what attribute it highlights is up to the photographer—but, while I’d perhaps disagree with you that we’d perhaps need to watermark photos to reveal the intention, I think you sum up well what it means to glorify God in everything. Not just in photography, but in everything we do, our focus needs to be on God (living Coram Deo, before God’s face), and our affections set on things above (Colossians 3:2-3).
@bennett-family I like your three principles, and I might need to print them out and put them somewhere where I can see them.
Our carnal relativistic culture has taught us that we can separate our religion and other aspects of our lives and live how we like, but that is certainly not what the Bible teaches!
Even in our everyday lives, it’s easy to keep the “Sunday best” in the closet Monday through Saturday. What we need to remember—and you seem to have a great handle on this—is that love doesn’t stop. As clichéd as it sounds, God doesn’t stop loving us Monday through Saturday. The gospel—that Jesus died for sinners who by faith cling to Him—is still true on Monday. Grace still flows to unworthy people on Tuesday. And God is still good the rest of the week. We can’t stop loving Him and obeying Him because He never stops loving us (2 Cor 5:14-15, 1 Jn 4:19). And when we do stop obeying Him, we must repent, because His goodness draws us back to Him (Romans 2:4). Every area must be submitted to the Lord. I hope that all makes sense.
Final couple of thoughts, though if you haven’t replied to this forum, please do so!
If you know the Lord and you’re anything like me, you need to get this one principle through to your head, especially if you’re hesitating to give up something that could be sinful. Maybe you’ve been living in an area of clear sin, with your photography or otherwise. I read this in one of my Old Testament Survey college course books, but understand this:
God is not a cosmic killjoy.
He doesn’t ask you to do things so you will be miserable. If you know the Lord, it is a real joy to obey the One who redeemed you and to please Him in all things. Go all in, and do it heartily.
—Logan