David Lee Martin

Blame says, “I did wrong.” Rightly understood, blame is not a bad thing. Accepting our part and confessing our sins is part of keeping the slate clean and walking in love and truth.

Shame says, “I am wrong, faulty, substandard, and to be blamed because I’m bad.”

No amount of impassioned apology will shake shame. Shame clings to the soul like a chain holding the shamed to their mistakes.

Shame piles the perfections of others, their stock of success, and ensures that the shadow of their magnificence casts its darkness over your shaky self-esteem. They (whoever they may be) are so much better than you. You’re a failure. They (whoever they may be) have it all sussed out. We speak of pandemics. Shame is pervasive, the stock of hell unleashed on the soul of humanity. You are an underperforming embarrassment.

Shame hides the wonder of God’s image behind fig leaves of performance.

Shame shows up in all manner of pretense, dancing for the crowds like a shackled beast robbed of dignity.

Shame drives you to hide your light under a bushel afraid of what others might say.

Shame keeps its leash short. But not even the devil himself can keep you from the prayer closet!

In the place of prayer, we shake the shame.

Stepping across the threshold of the heavenly sanctuary, coming through the door of the cross, washing in the Word, shaves shame fully from the soul. Bathed in the blood of Jesus, more refreshing than summer rain, our soul is purged and the prince of this world, satan, and his schemes, are rendered powerless in the Presence of God.

So pure, so wholly worthy, we are invited into the holy place, there to fellowship with Father, Son, and Spirit.

The snake of shame and its poisonous accusations are shaken off and trodden underfoot.

Here, in the intimate, warm, embrace of God, the words are heard, “accepted,” worthy,” “whole,” and “holy”.

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God’s grace to create allows a constant flow to find its way to the page or the paper without the strain that often attends the process. The idea that the artistic life must be one of angst and torment is not the picture we see in Scripture.

Bezalel was marvellously equipped to create the intricate tabernacle of God’s presence in the wilderness. The anointing took his talent and made it something more.

Moreover, “God put in Bezalel’s heart that he may teach,” (Exodus 35:34 AMP). The blessing stretched far beyond the bounds of Bezalel’s life, spilling into the lives of others and multiplying God’s gracious anointing.

God can do the same with you.

He can take what you offer and multiply it.

In God’s Kingdom, the math of creativity begins when we seek first the King and His Kingdom. When we seek Him first, the promise is that God will reward, multiply, and add to our lives in remarkable ways.

Seeking first the Kingdom may seem counterintuitive.

The drive to lean on our own understanding and push with the strength of our own learning or expertise is strong. I think that’s why we see so many burnouts lining the creative highways and byways. Pushing hard is needful at times, and the opposite imbalance of never taking action is more common. Both are gullies creatives can fall into if we are not careful.

On one side it’s all us – our talent, our time, our efforts, our limited genius.

On the other it’s all God, but not in a good way. Waiting endlessly for God to do something but never offering Him any substance of faith to work with. Sitting under the proverbial tree, hoping a golden apple from Heaven’s storehouse will someday fall into your palm.

Grace to Create

The balance that walks between the two is “Grace to Create”.

Grace to create brings all of you to the table and places it at God’s disposal. It takes talent and the natural skills we have honed and sanctifies them to holy purpose. Grace to create uncouples from outcomes, leaving them to God, and humbly offers worth to the world in response to God’s prompting.

The writer dedicates his fingers to God and then punches the keys every day trusting the Holy Ghost for words that will work in the lives of his readers.

The painter, musician, businessman or businesswoman, believes God for the ideas and direction to build authentic outflows that bring in abundant incomes.

God is in the driving seat, but the passenger is not passive. We work together with the anointing to get to our destination.

Creative Flow

Rivers from the throne above.

The bible speaks of rivers that flow from the throne of God, gushing forth with healing powers. These waters are charged with the life of God Himself, and “wherever the rivers go, comes alive.” (Ezekiel 47:9)

Scripture also speaks of rivers flowing from another throne.

Rivers from the throne below.

Jesus has taken up residence on the throne of your heart. Ousting self and taking His rightful place the same life-giving rivers break forth in the heart of the believer.

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38 NKJV)

“… the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14 NKJV)

Connect the two and something supernatural occurs. Our hands become His, our mind operates with insights that proceed from a higher mind. Creativity flows without blockages and new and exciting things come into existence through us.

Walking in pace with God we jettison the nervous pursuits of the world and tap into. Kingdom flow of inspiration bigger and deeper than ourselves. So deep in fact that our feet don’t touch the ground.

The journey to discover this creative grace begins when we take our first trusting steps into the shallows, believing that He can bring us across to our promised land.

We make something and send it forth like bread on the waters, believing that God’s grace will bring it back to us at His appointed time marvellously multiplied.

Turn on the tap, dear creative friend, and let the inner river flow.

Creativity unencumbered by man’s opinions is a strategy of heaven to raze resistance to the ground and glorify the Creator in the earth.

Has there ever been a time when authentic expressions from the body of Christ were more needed? You are uniquely created by God to be YOU! Not what the world thinks you should be, not what society says, but the genuine uncompromised outshining of Christ!

Zechariah saw a day in which God’s people would be scattered and their heads hung low.

“Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were four horns. And I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these?”

So he answered me, “These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”

And I said, “What are these coming to do?” So he said, “These are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no one could lift up his head; …”

God’s remedy is eye-opening.

“Then the LORD showed me four craftsmen …

Zechariah asked about the artisans, and God spoke of their warring purpose.

“…the craftsmen are coming to terrify them, to cast out the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.”” (Zechariah 1:18–21 NKJV)

Part of my own creative journey into fiction publishing was a response to the slew of dark supernatural themes filling the shelves of our children’s stores. Glamorizing witchcraft. Romanticizing shapeshifting. Desensitizing impressionable minds to the reality of the spiritual realm and its dangers.

False gods and erroneous worldviews sow confusion and scatter the people of God in the name of entertainment.

The Bible speaks of two ruling spirits at work in the earth, “the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error,” (1 John 4:6 KJV), and error is on display!

Dear creatives – God is sending craftsmen to terrify the enemy.

Stories to be told. Songs to be sung. Visions that carry God’s anointing on a canvas.

Prayers that are painted. Fashions that are fashioned in heaven’s courts and sewn on earth.

Beats that capture the heart of Jesus. Games that glorify righteousness and ride roughshod over satan’s schemes.

We live in days where the church needs to be distinct. Melding into the wallpaper so no one gets offended is wearing thin.

The time has come to terrify!

Terrify the devil with our songs. Slice him with our stories. Shame him with our sanctified self-expression. Let the world know that the Voice of the Church of living God will not be silenced.

What has God placed in your heart? Is shame or splintered emotion holding you back from stepping out? What would a 100% YOU look like if you were to step onto the world’s stage, and how can you begin to live with fearless abandon? What would you do if failure was not an option? Is it possible that there is a lion ready to roar?

Christianity is not a kitten to be petted and pacified, it’s the real and roarsome reality that the devil tries to mimic.

Like a lion, satan prowls around looking for those he can devour, but God has released the Lions of Judah, his high praising artful priests to shut his mouth and declare his demise.

God, release your artisans!

Send your craftsmen to the four corners of the earth. Let their overflowing devotion never deviate, their words and work touch the uttermost parts of the planet, penetrating hearts and minds with God-anointed ideas.

Men may push for preeminence, but we in the Body of Christ carry a new renaissance and feel no need to parade. Our wisdom and genius is not of ourselves. Pulling marvels from the world above we strike hard at the heart of the enemy, reaching far behind his lines.

Words we write break through to the hardest hearts. Tunes we sing shower grace on the hearer and usher in the presence. Poems that we pen strike like sharpened scythes reaping harvests of humanity for the King and His Kingdom.

As Zechariah said,

“The craftsmen are coming!”

Look out devil!

When Jesus taught the hillside crowds about prayer He said:

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” (Matthew 6:6 KJV)

Shut the door!

Don’t let your closet become crowded.

The closet is a picture of the space you construct for the presence of God to take priority and precedence in your life.

It is a holy place sanctified and set apart in holy expectation that something special and supernatural will occur.

Satan hates that thought. Your own flesh will fight against being dethroned. Carving out the boundaries of your closet and hammering the pegs into the ground to prepare your spiritual sanctuary takes work and will face resistance within and without.

The ground of your soul that you are possessing for the practice of prayer may have been occupied for many years, overrun by the cares and concerns of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, desire for other things, greedy pursuits, and devilish trespassers.

Brother, sister, it is time to give eviction orders!

The desire for other things must go and the door firmly slammed in the face of distraction. This does not mean that we neglect our responsibilities. We still build our businesses, bring up our children, love, and tend affectionately to our wives and husbands. But our totem pole of priority is radically rearranged so the idols of modernity no longer stand at its head.

If the door is not closed to disturbance an entourage of concerns, comparisons, and competitive notions will creep into the closet with you. What is intended to be a holy space becomes crowded with personalities other than the One you are seeking.

Yesterday’s concerns will bustle in, seeking to fill the atmosphere with worry. Tomorrow’s uncertainties will goad you out of the sanctuary to seek and sort them in your own strength.

If you are not careful, the prayer closet becomes a thoroughfare for any thought that chances by.

This kind of distracted atmosphere is not conductive to effective prayer. The heart and mind bounce here and there, never landing upon any subject long enough to harness it to the will of God and pray it through.

In an age of 3-second attention spans the old school practice of “praying through” is foreign to most men. We want answers and we want them now!

Fervency gives way to urgency and pressing present concerns relegate real Kingdom priorities. In the life of a fierce man or woman of prayer this tendency to dance around must be subdued.

Ferocious focus is needed.

Prayer requires your full attention. There is no half-hearted approach to God. He is a consuming fire, and the idea that we can balance worldly ambitions and the wilds of the Spirit is foreign to Scripture.

The first commandment is to love God unreservedly in mind, body, soul, and spirit. There is no room for maybe.

Amusements will seek to barge into your prayer time. Thoughts will push for attention. Niggles will rise to the surface. Negative emotions will elbow their way into your closet attempting to divert your gaze.

Keeping your eyes firmly fixed on Jesus is not easy when your soul has been trained to jump with every ping and vibration.

The life of prayer is not a hurried one. Prayer life is counter-culture. Today’s lifestyle of rush, hurry, consumption, accumulation, competition, and comparison conflicts entirely with the pursuit and attainment of the rich, unhurried, and hearty inner life that you crave.

To honestly become a man of the spirit is not something you can conveniently cram into your Daytimer.

Prayer is life. It demands change and transformation in every area, not just the small space behind the door of your closet for a few minutes of quiet. Prayer is not a box that you tick.

Fierce focus doesn’t happen by accident. Your inputs throughout the day must change, or they will crowd into your closet even with the door has been closed. Priorities and pace must be made subject to the demands of the sanctuary, not the other way round.

Too often prayer is crammed around our day, not our day shaped around prayer.

Prayer is not something you can ‘fit in’ to your furious over-busy schedule. It will take time, attention, and costly devotion. If you want God’s presence and Voice to be more than a side dish, you must sit at the right table.

Jesus is not going to barge into your schedule and force your hand. If your life is crowded with a multitude of minor affairs, He won’t push them aside demanding your attention.

Shoo the crowd from your closet and open the door to the King.

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20 KJV)

The door that He’s knocking, and wants to step through, is the door you shut to the noise and hurry of the world.

This precious place of prayer will soon become your most treasured place on earth because it’s here that Heaven breaks in and you get to sup with the Savior.

You are far more capable than you think. Put you into a demanding situation and remarkable production is inevitable. The capacity you carry is merely hidden underneath layers of doubt and self-consciousness.

You doubt the incredible value you have to bring to the table.

You are conscious that others will judge your efforts, and that such judgments can be less than gracious.

How do I know?

I’m human too!

But the remedy to your reluctance to step boldly onto the field is simple.

God-consciousness.

Take a look at David the teen shepherd. Here’s the scrawny red-faced boy whom even his own father didn’t deem worthy of mention when the prophet came knocking. Faced with a foe that crumbled the courage of an entire army, the unarmed youngster strode onto the field with nothing more than a thong of leather and a few smooth stones.

Talk about lack of capacity! Talk about out manned underdog!

Yet David’s perspective towered above his growling adversary. From a God-conscious royal box, far above the world stage, David looked down and exclaimed:

“Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (1 Samuel 17:26 KJV)

Yes, he was still stood in the shadow of a giant on earth, but in the spirit realm he was the one with stature. This tiny teen stinking of sheep, bedecked in simple shepherd’s garb, towered like an edifice over the battle field.

We all know the story. The giant ended up headless in the dust.

What are the giants that prevent you from striding forward? What capacity-building connection can you make today with the Creator? It could be time spent in His Word, time in prayer, time waiting on His presence. When you hit your knees and take the elevator to the eternal the bigness of God himself infuses your inner man.

Paul prayed the following for his folks, and my prayer is that this same anointing will spill over you…

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know … the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead … And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” (Ephesians 1:17–23 KJV)

Exceeding greatness!

Mighty power!

Wrought in Christ!

Raised from the dead!

The fullness of Him who fills all in all!

Now that’s capacity!