Finding Balance In Your Calling as an Artist

Have you ever wondered about the balance between God's design for your life and your responsibility to actually walk that out? Well, I want to share what the Bible says about this balance and reveal the two things every believer must do if they're going to find it.

You know, I love talking about the Kingdom of God. It's so simple. It's so clearly laid out in Scripture. And yet, so many people, me included for many years, have no clue how the Kingdom works.  But once you get an understanding of how the Kingdom of God works in your life. Wow, things really begin to change.

Ephesians 2:10 is one such scripture. It talks about the balance between the design of God on your life and your responsibility to walk it out. It says this, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." 

You Are His Workmanship

Now the first Kingdom truth I want you to grab onto is this: You Are His Workmanship.  The Greek word for "workmanship" is poema, which we get the word poem. With that in mind, I want to paraphrase and expand upon the first part of this verse…

"You are a skillfully crafted artistic narrative that expresses the beauty and the heart of God."

You are not here by some random chance or happenstance. You are explicitly designed as a work of art by the Lord for His Glory.

You Were Created for a Purpose

The second Kingdom Truth I want to highlight is this; You Were Created for a Purpose. "Created in Christ Jesus" is how Paul puts it, but what does that mean for us today?  That means we are one in Christ Jesus, joint-heirs with Him, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and fully able to receive and walk in the fullness of the Kingdom of God. But for what end?

"For good works, which God prepared beforehand." God designed, crafted, and fully equipped you to express His nature and His Heart to humankind in a way that only you can do. You are the perfect person for this mission, should you choose to accept it, which brings me to the next truth.

You Just Have To Do It

"That we should walk in them," or as another version puts it, "for us to do." Maybe you can relate to this, but for many years, I thought that because God had a plan for my life, that He was just going to make it happen.  I believed that my role in fulfilling God's call on my life was to wait on Him to do it. Guess what? That led to a lot of frustration because that's NOT how the Kingdom works.

Overt action is implied at the end of Ephesians 2:10. While it's true that God has a divine plan for your life, one that He's had in mind for you for a very long time, His plan was for you to do it with Him.  If you don't walk out the thing God created you to do, then you're going to miss the fullness of God's design for your life.​

This Might Be Your Roadblock

But Matt, if it's that simple, why is it so hard to simply "do" the thing God has called and created me to do?  The biggest roadblock most people face when fulfilling God's call on their life is their mindset.

So many good, well-meaning, Jesus-loving people simply don't know who they are in Christ. Despite being fully saved, they allow their old natural way of thinking, their non-renewed mind, to dominate their life. Things like...

• Fear
• Anxiety
• Perfectionism
• Striving
• Feelings of Worthlessness
• The Imposter Syndrome (click here for my podcast on this)

…keep people from being everything that God has called and created them to be. I know it kept me from that for a long time. It may be keeping you from that right now. If it is, I want to encourage you to do what Romans 12:2 teaches and "be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
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