Encouraging Christian Creatives, Season 2: Gifts and Talents
Hello, dear reader!
Welcome to the second season of Encouraging the Christian Creative! I am so excited to dive into this next season and pray that God will be glorified in it!
This time around we are going to zero in on the creative tools — “gifts” — that God gives us to building His Kingdom here on earth. These are the talents and skills we are either born with or develop through our lives and experiences. Regardless of how this gift is acquired, both are useful not only in our own, personal worship of God — creative projects dedicated to the Lord can, in fact, be worship as we reflect His creativity! — but also furthering His Kingdom, serving as part of our individual ministries, and in completing the projects that He has set before us.
God did not give us creative gifts on a whim; they are part of how He made us (check out ECC: Season 1 for more on that!) and His design for His Kingdom here on Earth. We have Biblical examples of God calling His children to create; the first and foremost of which is the Tabernacle. Not only did He provide the tools and materials needed to complete the task, He also provided the people. People that He created, nurtured, and guided so that they could create the Tabernacle, His dwelling place among the Israelites!
Christian creative, God has designed you intentionally with creativity, much like He did the men and women who built the Tabernacle. Whether it is a talent you have had since childhood, a burning passion you developed and cultivated later in life, or something that came up suddenly that you found you had a knack for, God has put effort into your creativity and your gifts. And the purpose of this creativity and gifts — which we will go into more detail later — is to further His Kingdom, reflect His glory, and in some ways provide you with a way to worship Him.
With that, Christian creative, let’s dig into Season 2 for some encouragement, knowing that He has not only ordered our steps, but prepared us for the work ahead!
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
“But now, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay and You our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellences of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
