podcast

Your creative call is one attended by a great cloud of witnesses cheering your every faith-filled step, and watched over and directed by the chief musician, the orchestrator of every good thing – God Himself.

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I think one of the most remarkable people that we find in Scripture without any question and any shadow of doubt is Mary, the lady who Mothered Jesus about when she was visited by an angel and found out that she would be the one to carry the Messiah. It’s quite incredible the way that she responded in such a humble and such a faithful way. I honestly cannot even begin to even imagine what it must be like or what it must have been like for her and the questions that she must have had.

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And yet we hear this wonderful song that she sang the Magnificent as it’s now known. My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmade.

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It’s recording in Luke chapter 1:46 to 48. And this magnificent him of Mary really powerfully typifies the heart of worship that I think our Father is seeking a humble spirit rejoicing in the goodness of God. And really, however high 1 may seem in earthly eyes, it doesn’t matter who you are on the planet and where you come in the pecking order. We are all of lowly estate as low as Earth compared to Heaven. Yet the incredible thing is, regardless of who we are, regardless of our standing in the eyes of men, the God of Heaven regards us with limitless affection, knowing that you are loved, noticed, appreciated, and applauded by the only one who actually has the right to measure instils a confidence, to step into this adventure of faith with a great deal less fear and certainly a great deal less trepidation than if you thought you were stepping into the loan.

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Your creative call is one that’s going to be attended by many challenges, for sure, but it’s also attended by a great cloud of witnesses cheering your every faithful step and watched over ultimately and directed by the chief musician, the orchestrator of every good thing God Himself. I think a grateful spirit recognition of some of these truths rejoicing in the Lord spilled through the soul. As Mary said, Here my soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. This is her entire being caught up in this great story that we have now been invited into.

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It fills our mind, our will, our emotions with an appreciation for all that God has done and a keen expectation of the good that he has yet to do.

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God is generous and an attitude of gratitude acts like a magnet, pulling his blessings into your orbit. All things work together for good to those who are called according to His purpose. While the world really provokes people to grasp for every nugget of stuff that it produces, the Father instead gives an invitation. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t even pull, but he opens an invitation for us to step into a peace that passes.

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Understanding he allows us to make the decision and make the choice as to whether we will draw near to him or not and abounding or a base. We know as believers that we have an incorruptible inheritance, one that is far greater than all of the accolades the world might heap up on us. Our Father in Heaven regards our lower state and looks with love on our feeble frame bringing Godlike wonders to the world through weak and fallible vessels. Now, there’s certainly no way we can compare ourselves with Mary, but we can certainly learn a lot from her humble heart and her desire to acknowledge God in the work that he was doing in and through her life.

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I believe that we can certainly do that.

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The miracle that the glory of God finds expression. The perfections of God come into expression through imperfect humans like you and I make the Marvel of Grace all the more magnificent. Truly, my soul doth magnify the Lord. Indeed. Well, thanks for listening.

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Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website davidleemartin.com have a great day.

God encounters will always point to Jesus. Mark that one down. It will keep your feet from diversions and deceptions.

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Thinking about the story that leads up to the birth of Jesus recorded in both Matthew and Luke. There are some powerful encounters that people have, particularly with with Angels. Angels are not some tiny little fat baby sat on a cloud play in a half somewhere. These are incredible, mighty beings. Most of the time, when we come to the Scriptures, we find people.

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Anyone who meets an angel is left absolutely trembling in their boots. And of course, there’s the famous story of the shepherds out there watching their flocks. And then this spectacular suddenly takes place. The sudden leaves of the Scriptures. Something definitely worth giving some time to study out, because in our own generation and in our own lives, we can have faith for a few of our own sudden leaves.

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And when these sudden leaves occur when heaven breaks in, when ordinary lives encounter the extraordinary power and presence of God’s realm bursting into their existence, things are never the same again. And this particular night, Luke records there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared among them. And the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. And then this angel is then later joined by this host, this vast army of heavenly beings praising and glorifying God.

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Such encounters, I believe, are the invitation to go and seek Jesus and discover the doorway that made such a heavenly invasion possible. God encounters Mark this down will always point to Jesus.

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This will keep your feet from diversions and deceptions. If you recognise that God encounters are intended like this encounter that the shepherds had. The Scriptures say that when the Angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, let’s go. Let’s see this thing which has happened, which the Lord has told us about. Let’s go seek out this Jesus through your work as an artist, an author, an influencer, just a born again human being.

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You also act as a conduit for this wonderful world of God’s glory. Breaking into the world. Your work and your words are a doorway that offer glimpses to humanity of something greater. And like the Angels of old, we come with good tidings of great joy. 2 Corinthians 5:20.

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It tells us that we are ambassadors for Christ. And it’s as though God is beseeching people through and by us to be reconciled to God. Yeah, we represent Him. We are ambassadors of this world to come of this King on the throne. And through our artistic and creative works, we can open doorways that will open hearts.

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Your work goes way beyond the paint dorms on the canvas. It surpasses the ink splats on the page. Your song is more than just a few vibes in the ether. You Herald a new world, a new day, and a fresh hope with every expression of Christ in you and through you. Well, thanks for listening.

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Hopefully it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at davidleemartin.com. Have a great day.

The idea that God consigns His people to perpetual pewdom is foreign to the Scriptures. He is the commissioner of every great artistic work, and YOU are one of them.

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So here we are in December, and this December, I thought I would do a bit of a countdown as I come to wrapping up season two at the end of the month. Thought it would be fun to do an advent for adventurers. And here we are, day 1 December 1 and I want to talk about being God’s poetry. Now the creative life really is one intended to be an adventure. It seeks to cross boundaries and discover fresh ways to communicate the Christian creative, which is who you are really connects with, something, a purpose and someone the Creator bigger than themselves.

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And just in case you’ve not realised, God is not boring. He invites his children into a life of adventurous faith. It’s a life of stepping out, stepping beyond what we’ve already seen, already done, what we feel comfortable with and moving in to kind of fresh pastures, green pastures, a broad arena in which we can operate now by broad. I don’t mean a broad and dodgy way. I’m talking about the breadth of experience that we’ve been called into, and that experience is not limited.

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In fact, the greatest experiences are not limited to this world, this physical world. God has called you into fellowship with Himself in the spirit. You are seated in heavenly places. This idea that God consigns his people to perpetual pewdom is totally foreign to the Scriptures. He is a Commissioner of every great artistic work, and you are one of them.

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Ephesians 2:10 says, we are God’s masterpiece. He’s created us a new in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things that He’s planned for us long ago. God’s works of Grace, I believe, are made to be displayed. And that word masterpiece is actually the Greek word Poiema P-O-I-E-M-A Poiema from which we get our word poem. Now I know that there’s kind of controversy over how far we can stretch this word and call ourselves God’s poetry, but certainly within the context of us speaking as creatives speaking as writers, many of us ourselves speaking as communicators and artists in the world.

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There is something very beautiful about this idea that God that we are God’s poem, that His word is creative and you are a unique, still being written poem on the pages of time, an expression of God’s heart, not some dusty, mind numbing tome, not a replica, but a divine and winsome expression of our father’s heart. There’s something about poetry that kind of just slices away everything that’s unnecessary and just presents something refined and beautiful. Cs Lewis said. This we are a divine work of art. God has taken his finger and he has inscribed your life on the pages of history in the most beautiful, majestic manner.

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Your story, my dear brother sister, is still being written. Your path is unfolding with ever increasing glory as a work of art. You live out and display this new nature that you have in Christ and that nature is one that is vibrantly, creative. It is an adventurous nature, unshackled from mundanity. Even if you are stuck in a room, there are realms that you explore that are unseen by naked eye or unheard of by any darkened heart.

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You’ve been invited into a life, both one that will prosper here on planet Earth, favour with men, and one that will prosper and spread its wings in the Spirit. Favour with God. You are a favoured work of heaven. God’s work in Christ has taken what was just an unchiseled lump of cold stone. We read in the Scriptures about our hearts being of stone.

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But he, through the breath of the Spirit, through his eternal Word, has turned that into a heart of flesh beating with the rhythms of heaven. You’re set free for freedom, not for the sad and dutiful run of religion. I remember I may have mentioned it previously, but one year, the Holy Ghost spoke to me right at the beginning of the year, and he said, do you want the run of religion or the rhythms of Grace? Do you want the run of religion? Or do you want the rhythms of Grace?

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That wonderful relationship that we’ve been invited into with God? I know which one I want for sure. I pray that your artistic adventure, the poem that you express through fearless living, will be boldly displayed in this coming year. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today.

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If you wanted going to connect any further, you can do so through my website at davidleemartin.com. Have a great day.

The desire to be happy is universal. The avenues to happiness are multiplicious. Yet why are the people who actually arrive at contentment station so few?

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So this week I’ve got some guys in remodelling the bathroom upstairs. So if you hear a lot of banging, that’s what it will be. You’ll have to forgive me for my kind of not got some kind of nice little hideaway studio somewhere. Everything happens right here in my home. But today I just want to talk about supernatural strength through joy.

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The desire to be happy is universal, and there’s nothing wrong with that. God created us to be happy, fulfilled individuals. When God first made man, he placed him in a garden called Eden, which literally means delight. He placed him in a garden of delight. And the avenues that people seek to fulfil their happiness are multiplicious.

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I know that multiplicious is not a word in the dictionary, but it certainly should be. The thing is, despite everyone being on the train, how many people actually arrive at Contentment Station? Very few is happiness even something we should strive for? Or maybe there’s something a deeper vein that we can drill. Perhaps this idea that the world wants to foist on us, that happiness is just one purchase a holiday away is false.

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Maybe the lie that more will make us marvellous is really part of the problem. Certainly not the solution. Drowning under deluge of deals that have been shipped out in the Friday investive sales leaves one wondering if there could, in fact be more to life than a new spin dryer or a new air fryer of whatever it is, whatever your poison may be. Can I contend here with an itchy thought, yeah, that’s going to scratch something on the inside. Maybe these soothers that we reach for tranquillizers that we take to try and keep our heart numb to reality.

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And that reality is that the world is not what it claims to be friends. It is burning to the ground. I hate to break it to you if you didn’t already know, but this entire world system is a house of cards that will one day come very royally, tumbling down. There will be weeping and crying. Babylon.

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Babylon is fallen, and we do not want to be part of that company who was so entwined and so twisted into the fabric of the culture in which we live, that we are also the ones crying and lamenting its demise. The life you desire, however opulent it may be in your imagination, will never scratch the relentless discontent that scrapes at your insides. If I ask the question, where are we? Here’s the answer that Peter gives in his first letter. It says in one Peter, one one.

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And I’m reading from the Wuest New Testament. W-U-E-S-T new Testament. A great translation kind of. And he says that Peter wrote his letter to those who have settled down alongside a pagan population. Sown as seed, we live in Babylon.

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We live in the world, but we cannot be of it if we want to make a real difference. I’m so aware, actually, of my own immersion in this smash and grab culture that seeks only its own pleasures, this Covenant breaking constantly on culture that craves only the next thing and is never satisfied with the present.

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It reminded me of Lot. And here we find Lot in Genesis chapter 13, he’s able to choose where he pitches his tent. And it says that he settled alongside camping toward Sodom, facing Sodom. And it’s way too easy to become Lottie in our love for this world’s. Accolades and trinkets.

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If we’re not careful, if we camp our tent with that in view and we have that in the frame as our frame of reference, it’s not going to be long before we’re inside the gates, handing over our sons and daughters. Now be careful, creative brothers and sisters. Culture is pervasive. It creeps up on you and then into you into your thinking, into the way that you respond and react and into the way that you view reality. We’re urged as Christian men and women, Christian creatives were urged as to be armed and dangerous representatives of another Kingdom and to guard our hearts and be renewed in the spirit of our mind.

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I love that in Ephesians 413, it doesn’t just say think positively. It talks about being renewed in the very spirit of our mind. The essence of our thinking has to be different. It needs to be uncoupled from the feed of Liberal modernity and plugged firmly in to eternal truth. The media is the slew skate for a million doctrines, shovelled into the atmosphere of our homes, even with the force it switched low.

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The drip drip of false doctrine eventually seeps through into everyday conversation and values. I don’t need to go into details. You know very well how culture has been crumbling and Christian values and Christian foundations have been really decimated over these past decades. And then Peter speaks about he speaks about where the people are there in the midst, sort of seed among an unbelieving culture. And then we find this when question, when are they living?

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Peter not only spoke of where we live, he also spoke of when we live. And here we find it. He tells us that we live in a time in which we are guarded by the power of God through faith for a Salvation ready to be revealed in the last season, which is epochal and strategic in its significance. The last season is upon us. So being so placed, we need to be vigilant like a soldier on guard, watching the walls.

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We must clear. We must be absolutely clear on this one thing. The enemy prowls and plots relentlessly, how we might breach our boundaries and cause our downfall in times of war. There’s no room to double down on comforts. Epochle moments are marked by epochal.

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People pursuit of pleasure may be the culture, but the pursuit of God and his righteousness is the order of the day. The Devil’s first and most successful play is not to resist God’s people, but first to invite them. Come inside, he says. You’ve pitched a tent near the gate. Why not take a few more compromised steps and put a little less distance between yourself and the world in which you live?

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And then the final question I want to ask is how how should we respond to this again? Reading from Peter knowing the season that we are in guards our mind and informs our actions and thus equipped, Peter says, in this last season, you are to be constantly rejoicing with the joy that expresses itself in triumphant exuberance. How magnificent is that? How are we to overcome and stay true to the Lord constant rejoicing joy that overflows in triumphant exuberance? We are a triumphant people, not a beat down people.

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This may be a day of the devil running rampant, but it’s also a day of the Church’s greatest triumphs. The dark backdrop that our father is allowing to be staged will make the glaring light of the gospel all the more bright and all the more attractive when it shines? My dear friends, worship is your weapon and joy is the strength that you need to harness. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today.

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If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website, davidleemartin.com have a great day.

Starve your doubts and feed your faith. Believe that you have something valuable to share with the world.

Feed your creativity by refusing to shun your most audacious thoughts. Don’t dampen your dreams with reality (so called). Instead, let them blossom.

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I want to swing background to just a pure encouragement for you. If you are a Christian in the creative space, looking to make a difference and make a deadline in the world. And I just want to speak of fresh courage to your heart, in your desire, I want to affirm your desire to make a difference. I want to affirm your desire to stand up, stand out, shout out your truth, and bring your message to the world and to people that you believe can be helped by it, because the thing is with courage when we think of courage, just the very word itself stirs fresh resolve in our spirit.

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And I think perhaps more than most, the creatives like yourself and myself are often very sensitive human beings, and it’s very easy for the creative soul to be bombarded by doubt and as creatives.

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We need to really tap in and hear the voice of our Father speaking to our spirit on a regular basis, at least daily and usually many times a day. I remember well, and I’m sure that most of you who are listening here will be able to relate those days of discouragement where discouragement has hounded your every thought, just seeking to pull you into a place of despair, really and really desperately needing words that attach us again to a fresh hope and to a sense of destiny. The word of God, my dear brother and sister, is an anchor that refuses to be shifted by the storms of life.

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It’s a staff that you can tie yourself to, driven deep into the soil of your father’s love. There is nothing that can separate you from His love.

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You are in His hand, and no one can prize you from it. And in his hand, planted in His will, whatever he has planned is as certain as he himself is now. I don’t mean that in a positive sense that we just sit around waiting for God to do the part that we need to do. This is a partnership that you’re involved in, but in the name of Jesus, I declare fresh courage into your heart and a resolve to go into the coming year with your eyes open, not just to some of the difficulties that you may have faced, not with an expectation of mountains that are going to stand in your way, but with eyes that look and see the perfect plan and purpose of God and plant yourself in firm trust that those plans will come to pass.

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He has prepared you for them, and they are prepared for you to walk in.

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You are his masterpiece, his workmanship, his craftsmanship shaped for the very things that you’ve been called to bring to the world. And sometimes we can feel like there’s two very different people wrestling on the inside of us. This one is ready to conquer the world, and the other one wants to run away and hide in a cave somewhere, trembling at the thought that anyone would ever find them out. I remember hearing a story told. I believe it was Billy Graham that I heard relating this story and he’s talking more about the wrestling within our own soul of light and dark.

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But the story of the Black Dog and the white dog, the dastardly and the divine wrestling in the arena of our thoughts and emotions. And here they are in the ring, tearing one another for supremacy. Will confidence or insecurity win the day? Will generosity or jealousy have the final say the world with all of its judgments and criticisms, its sniggering and Snides it’s so often baying for this untamed black dog to win seems relentless in its mission to shut you down, shut you off and shut you up, but ultimately listen carefully.

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It is not the crowd who will determine the outcome.

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This battle is not fought outwardly. It is fought inwardly within your own being. We do not wrestle with flesh and blood. We wrestle with powers and principalities invisible enemies that want to keep the image and the likeness of God firmly. Kind of shut away and covered up.

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And the question is which dog is going to come out as the Victor? And the truth is the one that we feed. And I starve your doubts. Feed your faith. Believe that you have something valuable to share with the world and not only believe that you have something valuable to share, but believe that you can do it and indeed must do it.

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Feed your creative nature. Feed that creative call and destiny by refusing to shun your most audacious thoughts. Don’t dampen your dreams with so called reality. Instead, let them blossom. There is a place in the prayer closet.

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There is a place where we come and we allow ourselves to dream big dreams, think big thoughts, pray big prayers and then coupling patience with that faith. We can see great change. We can see great things happen. We can allow our roots to go deep so our branches can go out and spread wide. At the end of the day, the world doesn’t really belong to the pragmatist.

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It belongs to the dreamers childlike. Faith is very underrated. But in heaven’s eyes, everything is possible to the one who believes Jesus said, if you can believe all things are possible to him that believe us or her that believe us. Mark 9:23. And if you’re going to be a writer, why not believe that you can reach far beyond any audience you dared.

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Yet imagine you plan to be a movie maker or a public speaker. Know that what’s on the inside of you can change the world for the better, not just in the present, but potentially for generations to come as a coach or an encourager a preacher or a pastor, an author or an artist. Your potential, my dear friend, is fueled by faith in the God who specialises in impossible. He delights to show off through his children. Whatever your discipline immerse.

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And soak it in the dream of what can be possible if the limits are lifted and then go for it. Do whatever you need to do to make room for that life on the inside, to flow out and find expression. Act on your ideas. Believe in your best self. Those who the father is cheering for that’s who he is cheering for.

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He’s cheering for the person on the inside. He’s coming like he did to Gideon Gideon there trembling in the wine press, feeling like the lowest of the low, the least of the least, the smallest of the small. And yet God, when he spoke, didn’t speak to that false self image. That fig leaf image. He spoke to the man on the inside.

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Mighty man of Valour. Mighty woman of valour. I call you forth in Jesus name and I declare and I delight to call you God’s workmanship. I delight to call you more than a conqueror. I delight to call you the one who walks in victory.

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I delight to call you the one who has been stripped of the old self and has been raised a new life that all things have passed away and all things have been made new. Hallelujah, I declare you as a son or a daughter of the living God, a mighty force in the Earth.

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Let’s ditch the fig leaves. Let’s ditch the shame. All of those leaves that we’ve hidden behind. All of those fears of what others might say or might think. All of the fears of what happens if I fail.

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All of the fears that say no one will listen. No one will be interested. Really, how will we ever know unless we have a go? That’s the truth of it. And sometimes we do walk through a season of obscurity in our search to find that significance in the world.

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It’s important that we understand that this is not just an overnight journey we are on. We are Christians. We are disciples, disciplined ones. We have been enlisted into a war that is raging and a lot of that war rages in the realm of ideas. God has called his artists.

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God has called his creatives. He is raising an army of strong creative voices. And you are one of them. Of course it takes courage. But there is no alternative.

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You’ve been enlisted in the victorious army of God to take your worth out to the world and bring value to other people, to declare and to display the greatness of the God that you serve. Live fully. Bring your whole self to the table, my brother. Kick the Devil’s backside, sister. And don’t listen to His lies.

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This is a great day to be in. This is a great generation to serve and in Jesus name. Let us go forward with great courage and extreme confidence. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today.

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If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website davidleemartin.com have a great day.