Cory james

From Death to Life

John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

My name is Cory James McLaughlin; I was born on Galveston Island, TX, in 1981. I now live in Houston, TX. My parents divorced a few years after I was born, so I grew up for the most part with my mother in San Antonio TX, where I lived for 9 years. Being that my mother was a single mom, we grew up pretty poor, now I don’t mean to imply that I grew up in the ghetto or the hood necessarily. This was not abject poverty, but it wasn’t middle class America either. After my freshman year in High School I moved in with my father and new step mother, he felt it would be best considering the events manifesting in my life and the severe lack of respect for my mom. I was somewhat of a troublemaker… After high school I went to college on an art scholarship to Southwestern University at Georgetown, TX. For a time, during college, I studied art in Florence, Italy… I came to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior about a year and a half after college. I have been painting to serve Him ever since. He has been with me through everything, He has never failed me, and so I serve Him still, I will never forsake Him. This body of work depicts the hardship and the cost, the love and the joy of knowing my Lord these past few years. The work takes you from hell to heaven and from the world to the Cross; it takes you from death to life. It’s not glossed over; it’s real, very real. It’s to the point, kind of in your face, that’s how I like things.
When viewing this work I ask only one thing, that you take it for what it says. In other words I am conveying objective biblical truths, these ideas are not based on my opinion, but upon the truth of the Word of God. They are not meant to be taken relatively but with the idea that truth is truth whether you believe it to be so or not. Relative thought and post-modern theory have plagued this generation of thinkers and the modern church as well, so in an attempt to make us aware that absolute truth still exists whether we like it or believe it, I have ventured to paint this body of work. Also understand that these paintings were painted through much prayer and fasting, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. I give all the honor and Glory to my Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings! These are His paintings not mine, He died for me, all I can do in return is give Him my life and everything therein. My prayer through these paintings is to edify the church and to draw sinners to Jesus; nothing else is worth living for.

My Testimony in Full

“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”

Where to begin? Well, my name is Cory James McLaughlin; this is my testimony. I grew up in San Antonio Texas, where I lived with my single mother. She loved me but could not control me; my father was away so I didn’t have any real immediate disciplinary influence in my life as a child. We seemed to always be pretty poor, at least that was the idea I got, now I don’t mean to imply that I grew up in the ghetto or the hood necessarily. This was not abject poverty, but it wasn’t middle class America either. It was like a mishmash of many walks of life! Yet at any rate I spent most of my time outside on the streets getting into trouble. I began doing drugs at the age of twelve or thirteen with my best friend Jared; many of my friends began earlier, my mother’s love kept me from beginning any earlier I believe, yet still the overwhelming influence of the world overcame the influence of my mother. With swiftness I was consumed by my passion for the darkness and all that the pleasures of this world had to offer. I began having sex at a young age as well; from that age the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life consumed me. I continued on this road to destruction for the next 10 years of my life, battling staying out of jail, dying or even destroyed by some daunting STD. When I was seventeen I had been living with my dad at this point for a couple of years, things got to bad with my mother, yet still this offered no real guidance. There was never really any sense of church or religion or anything like that in my family, at least not that I saw very evident so I had never heard the gospel before, thus there could be no real guidance. Yet at this time I received a large art scholarship to go to the top liberal arts university in the state of Texas, this was only by the grace of God. I did not even apply to college, I couldn’t afford to go really; though once the school offered me a nice scholarship my father was glad to help where he could! So, I went off to school, yet things only got worse in my life, in short more drugs, more girls, more violence.
I’ll spare you the details and take you strait to my senior year; I was now twenty-one and deep in sin. I was selling some dope (cocaine) at the time, just to maintain my habit. At this point in my life I over indulged in pretty much every type of drug you can think of, and perhaps some you can’t. My life was at the “bottom,” “rock bottom” if you will. Now imagine if you can, this image, I had been up for a few days on various drugs, mostly cocaine and various forms of speed, and I finally had enough of my life. So imagine this from a bird’s eye view of my house; people passed out, guys, girls, drugs or alcohol everywhere, you get the picture. Then there’s me in my bedroom, a girl in my bed and I’m on the floor in a fetal position weeping, not knowing what to do. So I called out to God, any God at that point, I didn’t know what God to pray to, truthfully I didn’t even know if God existed at that point. Still I prayed for the first time, that I could remember, in my life, I cried out to God that if He would just show Himself to me I would stop doing the drugs and change my life.
Now, however, let me take you back a month earlier to a dream I had. This dream was amazing, it was so profound to me it never left my mind, so vivid! Well in this dream, I was running through the south Texas brush country at great speed down a path, as everything rushed by me I couldn’t hardly make out where I was and then suddenly I stopped and looked down to my left and there was this deer lying on the side of the path I was on. The deer had these antlers that went back and encapsulated his entire body and pinned him to the ground, he could not move. He was in great pain and anguish; his antlers tormented him and his soul was filled with sorrow. I could feel every ounce of pain and despair in his heart and soul, and then before I knew it I was off running again. This time I seemed to reach the end of this path and fell out into this vast beautiful field, and at the far end of the field, to my right, there was this massive grizzly bear, grazing in the field. He saw me and began to run towards me with great speed, and I became stricken with fear. So I turned and ran back the way I had come, and as the bear was chasing me I now turned and jumped into what had now become a jungle. As I lie there on my back, looking at the bear still looking for me, this leopard comes out of know where and steps on my chest, looks me in the eyes intently and then walked off, and then I woke up. This was no ordinary dream, I was convinced it had meaning, and from that point it began to plague my mind; it consumed my every thought. I began to do a painting of the bear, and wondered why is this dream still so vivid in my mind, what does it mean I thought?
So now here I am about a month later crying out to God on the floor of my bedroom. And the very next day after I prayed that prayer, I’m at work waiting tables, and these two guys come in and sit at one of my tables. They were very kind gentlemen and when I brought them their food they said this, “Cory, we’re Christians, and we pray before every meal and we are wondering if we could say a prayer for you today? I mean is there anything going on in your life right now that you need us to pray for?” Wow that took me for a loop, I was a bit set back by that, I mean no one had ever asked me if they could pray for me before, let alone the day after I cried out to God for I don’t know how long, only hours before that. So I said, “sure, I could really use some good heath and some good fortune.” And that was it, this really generic prayer, though I’m sure they prayed for me a bit more than that! But it was enough to get me thinking, so I went into the kitchen right after that and just stood there in awe of what just happened, and I was overwhelmed by this warm, glowing feeling that consumed my entire body, and I knew that God had just answered my prayers from the night before.
At that point I really began to think about this God of Christianity, and wondered if perhaps this was the true God. You have to understand that at the time I was studying everything you could think of as far as religion and philosophy go. So suffice to say I was a bit confused, but I knew that it could be no coincidence that those two men were Christians. So I began to dwell on this whole Christianity thing, and so about a month went by and I had made a few people aware of my recent discoveries, one of them was a buddy of mine Dylan McCabe who had just been saved by Jesus, and my dad who had also very recently been talking about the things of God. Now one night I was driving home and decided to call my friend Dylan; me still being plagued by this dream I had had about two months earlier, asked him if there was anything in the Bible about bears and leopards? He said he didn’t know because he hadn’t been studying the Bible for very long and that was a pretty obscure thing to know, it seemed. So I told him that I was going to go up to the chapel at my school and maybe pray or something. I had just spoken with my dad about some trouble I was having with school and whatnot, so he said ‘well why do you go up to the chapel up at your school and ask God for some guidance.’ So I went, and when I walked in I saw a large Bible sitting on the pulpit, it was a King James Version; it was open, so I went to see what it had to say. It was opened up to the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, chapter eleven and so I read and as I got to verse six it read, “... and the leopard shall lay down with the kid, ...and the child will lead them. ...And the cow and bear shall graze in the field together.” Wow, this was amazing, my dream was written in the Bible and suddenly I knew what the dream meant, and I fell to my knees and thanked God for showing me that. I immediately shot a text to my dad and said ‘Dad I think I just found God...’ Still I didn’t know what to do so I went to my house and found a Bible there and looked at the study notes at the bottom of the page and they told me to see Romans 8:9-22, so I did. As I read, one verse really stood out to me, Romans 8:13, because this number 813 was very significant in my life. On this day I knew why, for Romans 8:13 reads, “For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” And so God at that moment presented me with a choice, the broad road or the narrow road, the world or Him, death or life. It was real simple, real black and white, you know, two choices that’s it, though the act of doing so was not so easy for me. I chose God at that moment, don’t get me wrong, I knew what I needed to do, so I did, I quit doing the heavy drugs and began to speak with many people about the things Jesus was doing in my life, there was much opposition but I knew what God had shown me.
However, I had no discipleship, no fellowship, nothing. So I didn’t know that what I was doing was wrong, though I had stopped some things, I had not given up all things. So I graduated from college after a long year of many trials and much travail, I went straight into becoming a professional artist. I began painting for some of my family and their friends who were all pretty rich people up in Austin, Texas; painting art on their walls and so forth. I would live with them while I painted and became engrossed by their way of life, and was making great money myself; it was like one big party. But the Lord was not pleased with my actions, so He took everything I had, I lost it all, there were no more rich clients, they all cancelled on me, there was no more money, I had only a truck payment to show for my life at the moment. So I moved in with my grandparents back in Houston, my dad was opposed to letting me stay with him and my mom didn’t have room and she couldn’t afford to support me at any rate. So I stayed with my grandparents, and sort of sulked in my own misery for about two months, everything was terrible with my family and my relationship with God, but I did begin to have some good fellowship with Dylan, praise Jesus! However, the Lord was still very unsatisfied with me, for I still had not come to true repentance, so early in the month of May at about 4:25 in the morning I became extremely ill. I had Vertigo, which is an inflammation of the inner ear that causes extreme dizziness, nausea, and takes away your sense of balance. I was bed redden for a month and couldn’t hardly walk for seven weeks until it finally passed. The reason I know this was God allowing this to happen was this, He gave me another vision, and this time it was actually a vision and not a dream. About a week into the illness, which was the most intense part, the Lord woke me one night out of my sleep and suddenly I could see clear as day, there was no dizziness. And what I saw was a field, a vast field that was barren and dead, there was no life in the dirt of the field, and on the horizon there was this beautiful white light shining as the sun, yet it was not the sun. And in this field there were all these people of all different vocations, some were doctors and lawyers, cops and firefighters, servers and laymen. Every kind of person really, and they were all plowing this field, some had hoes in their hands, others had pick axes, and some women had seed baskets sowing seed, yet there was no seed; none of them were getting anywhere, they were just plowing this dead field. Then the Lord spoke to me saying, “This is the bane of your existence, the bane of human existence, fruitless labors that do not glorify Me (God).” Then everything went back to spinning and I went back to sleep. Then the next day it hit me, that’s it, my life is nothing without Jesus, without the Lord, and all is for nothing if I do not glorify Him. About a week later, Dylan came by and I told him about the vision and he asked me if I had ever read the book of Ecclesiastes, I said no and then read it a couple weeks later after I could see again. Sure enough Ecclesiastes speaks of the futility of labor that does not glorify God, so I knew then that it was from the Lord and I repented and made Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior! It was shortly after this that I went on my first mission trip to Africa; we went to Ethiopia. It was life changing also; I had never seen the power God move like that before, so in a period of about three months my life had been catapulted into full time ministry for the Lord. I have since been back to Africa in Eritrea and the Eastern Sudan, and to Argentina. I live to serve the Lord; it is my only purpose, to save souls for Jesus. My greatest fear is to die having not completed the ministry He has laid out before me. I currently pursue that ministry, trying to stay faithful to His will, daily dying to myself that He might live in me, that I might share His great love with this dying world.
I am still an artist by vocation, though only after much refinement through the fire of God, and well, I should say that I believe this to be the calling on my life, to “preach Christ and Him Crucified” through my artwork. There is no greater calling in this life, I believe, than for a person to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in whatever vocation might be called to, to as many people as they come in contact with. I have serious convictions about my faith that can be backed up with the Word of God, and are made evident through my artwork. There are many things I believe to be lacking in Christianity today, dealing with the church and how we as a body interact with the world, and allow the world to influence us. We are not called to be of the world, in the world yes, but set apart for the gospel of God; that is, the preaching of the gospel. I find a terrible work at play in the church today; subjectivity and post-modern theory or philosophy has penetrated the church, and slowly destroying it from the inside out. So I intend to preach to a culture overcome by relative thought and truth, namely the art culture. In doing so I plan to bring objective biblical truth to the art world through my paintings, not by way of abstract form, or compromised images, but by way of bold, uncompromising images, proclaiming boldly the truth about Jesus Christ. Leaving no room for interpretation to water down or somehow distort the truth being conveyed through the piece. I do not mean to change the way people view art, only the way they view Christianity and most importantly Jesus Christ. I want to see the church awaken from its slumbering and false representation of the King of kings. I want to see Love and discipline reign not apathy and relativism. I want to see Christ glorified and people drawn to the cross. I wanted to see souls repent and follow Jesus, not souls make decisions for Jesus. We need brokenness and true penitents, not countless church activities and 10 minutes of “quiet time” in the morning. We need hours of people on their faces before the thrown of God pleading with Him, with tears in their eyes that He might heal our dying nation. My hope is in Jesus and that He might change lives through my artwork; this is my intent.
This is where I currently stand; the world needs to know Jesus. And I intend to do everything I can to perpetuate it. Not only am I an artist, but also I am involved in street ministry. I have been going downtown and to the Montrose since I’ve been saved, ministering to the brokenhearted, the drug addicts and the poor. I feel it necessary to get into the lives of the destitute by bringing the Kingdom of God to them, not bringing them to the church. I don’t see enough people out on the streets as they have been called, but rather being encouraged to bring the streets to the church, which is not, what we are commissioned to do according to the bible. However, my brothers and sisters and I spend much time praying to the Lord of the Harvest that He might raise up laborers to go into the field that revival might come to our city. I was called by the Lord up to Austin last Halloween to open-air preach on Sixth Street in front of thousands of people, I met my cousin up there, and we preached. I have never felt an on pouring of the Holy Spirit so heavy as that night, I could feel the power of God moving through me, it was intense; people throwing things knocking us over, cursing us and Jesus, but lives were saved and changed forever. So since that night I know that I have been called to a ministry of open-air preaching, thus I have recently been open-air preaching downtown Houston, we need a revolution for Jesus and unless we hit the streets, and our work places and where ever we can, we’re not going to see it.
I also do prison ministry with “less than the least ministries,” I have preached in the prisons with Dylan and Zeke, and have been walking Ad Seg for almost two years now. This ministry has helped to build my faith and walk more than anything I believe. You go there, thinking you’re going to minister to the inmates when you end up getting ministered to ha it’s amazing. It’s quite humbling to see a murderer, and ex gang member burst into tears at the calling for repentance, Jesus moves in the prisons, what a battle it has been. Without laboring in prayer that place used to just eat me up, but after the Lord revealed the authority we have over unclean spirits through prayer and fasting, I’ve seen many lives changed including my own.
In the future I hope to see my art reach the masses throughout the nation, and Lord willing the world. I hope to continue to preach the gospel and complete the ministry the Lord has laid before me. I hope to someday be apart of starting my own church, not to pastor but perhaps to lead the street ministry side, evangelism if you will. I want to see the church grow, and would love to be apart of further church growth in other countries as well, I have a great love for the body of Christ, and to get the name of Jesus to every person I can. “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but those which are not seen are eternal.” So I press on looking to that which is eternal and unseen, thus by faith living on in the flesh the life bought by the King upon that old rugged cross. I hope to serve my King all the days of my life, that I might fight the good fight, finish the course and keep the faith, which is in Jesus Christ, my Lord.

Contact:
email @ cory@coryjamesart.com
coryjamesart@me.com
Tel 281-910-5005