The Thriving Christian Artist
The Thriving Christian Artist
304 - 5-Minute Mentoring: The Promise of Sin
When I was a kid, I remember my parents warning me that if I hung around with the “bad kids,” I’d be painted with the same brush, and people would think I was a bad kid, too.
It wasn’t that they expected me to be a perfect angel - but they understood that as humans, we are susceptible to the influences around us, so controlling our environment was key to following God’s commandments and avoiding the temptation to sin.
Your environment will always overcome your willpower. If your desire is to stay warm, then you can layer on warm clothing or light a warm fire. BUT in the long run, your best bet to stay warm is moving out of the meat freezer.
The truth is, humans sin. It’s in our nature. Jesus was the only perfect being to ever walk the earth, and God doesn’t expect that of us - but He does expect us to do our best. We can’t control what others do, but we can control our exposure to those people.
Sin always sells the promise of comfort - but it's never able to deliver. Overcoming the false promise of sin may just be a matter of changing your environment.
In this episode, I'm revealing my take on the only spiritual environment that beats your willpower to defeat sin...every. single. time.
Just as God wants us to take an active role in removing temptation and sin from our lives, He wants to be an active part of your artistic endeavors! Got questions about prophetic art and what it looks like? I’ve created a resource that will tell you! Click below and I’ll send it straight to your inbox!
The 5 Biggest Misconceptions about Prophetic Art
https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/5-biggest-misconceptions-about-prophetic-art
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https://www.matttommeymentoring.com
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You know, sin always sells the promise of comfort, but it's never able to deliver. You know why? Because sin isn't about sin. Sin at its root is a love issue. And I'm going to talk about that today here on 5-Minute Mentoring.
UNKNOWN:5-Minute Mentoring
SPEAKER_00:Have you ever wanted to have someone in your life who you could ask real questions about your art, your business, and even your walk with the Lord? Well, that's exactly what we do every Friday here on Five Minute Mentoring, where I answer one question from one of my awesome podcast listeners in order to help you start really thriving as the artist you know God created you to be. Well, hey, my friend, I'm so glad that you are with me today here on 5-Minute Mentoring. You know, if you're like me, you grew up in church, and maybe you didn't grow up in church, but I grew up in church, and I grew up hearing a lot about sin, and I felt really bad about it for a long time. Just, you know, this bombarding kind of feelings of, I'm not enough, I can't do enough, I'm not good enough for the Lord, I can't keep the rules, I can't obey enough, and, you know, it just felt really, really bad. And, you know, the more that I've asked the Lord about sin and about how sin happens in our life, obviously, we know that sin and the fallen nature is the situation of man. It's, you know, our inheritance from Adam and Eve. It's what comes down through the bloodline of humanity until we come to know Jesus. But I've asked the Lord so many times, like, God, what is this sin thing about? Why does it keep wanting to come up in my life? Because I know I've been set free. I know the old man is dead. So why am I continuing to be tempted by sin? Why is it that I so easily... fall into things that can be hangups in my life, patterns in my life that I don't want to do. Like Paul said, the things I want to do, I don't do. And the things I don't want to do, I end up doing. God, what is that about? And the Lord started showing me that sin is not really about sin. Sin is really about love. Because every sin issue is at its root a love issue. Well, what does that even mean? Well, I've discovered in my own life that an inability to receive love and walk in love with myself, with others, with the Lord, if I'm unable to do that, then it results in a separation from me and God, from me and others, from me and my best self that God has created me to walk in. And the result of that is me trying to figure out how can I experience the thing that I really want, but without having to put myself at risk in loving. And usually what happens in that is what we would call a negative coping mechanism. That is some sort of sin response in order to get the need met that we really want to have met and should have met in our life, but we start looking in the wrong place. So let's take addiction, for example. Maybe you are a person that is desiring deep affection and physical touch and words of affirmation and deep connected love with another person. And yet, because of a fear, of giving yourself invulnerability in a relationship, not being able to trust that other person, you end up holding them at arm's length and looking for, as the song says, looking for love in all the wrong places, right? Looking for love and acceptance in other ways. So you see a lot of times people in those kinds of situations will go into codependency or sexual addiction or You know, just relationship after relationship after relationship. What are they doing? They're looking to fulfill a really valid need, but because of their inability to receive love and walk in love, it becomes a sin issue. That is, it becomes a life dominating issue that is at its root, separating them from God and his best for them. I found in my own life that as I pursue encounter with Jesus every day, as I pursue that relationship with him, as I allow the presence of God to move into my heart and transform the deep places, sin is not as tempting for me. That is, these negative coping mechanisms of living and trying to get the needs met that we all have, legitimate needs in our life, sin is not as tempting when I'm rooted and grounded in love, when I've had an encounter with Jesus. See, religion and just kind of do-it-yourself ideology would say, you know what? You just need to get this thing together. You just need to make it happen. You just need to follow the rules. You just need to try to put better habits in your life and try to bear down and try to do it. And yet, I don't know if you're like me, but I've tried that. And that didn't really work outside of an encounter. with Jesus. Habits are great. New patterns of living are great. Renewing your mind is great, but you can't do it outside of an ongoing life-giving encounter with Jesus. Because the more you learn to trust Jesus and hear his voice, the more you allow the Holy Spirit to minister to the deep places in your heart, the more that you will be able to to love others and receive love from others. The more you'll be able to give it and receive it, the more you'll be able to recognize the healthy ways to live in line with God's kingdom, as opposed to looking for ways to get the legitimate needs that we all have met, but in unhealthy ways. My friend, God has so much for you. He does not desire that you be in condemnation and shame and fear and beating up on yourself all the time and allowing the enemy to lie to you. Listen, the sin nature is a normal part of humanity. We've been freed from sin. We're no longer slaves to sin. But the more that you lean into an encounter with Jesus, the less pull... that that old nature will have on you. And the more that you'll be able to walk in the fullness of all that God has for you. My friend, I love you. God has so much for you. And thanks for being here today. I hope this has been an encouragement. Take some time with the Lord and ask him, Lord, this issue that I've been dealing with, the thing that I've been struggling with, where is the love issue? Where is the love deficit in this? And Lord, would you show me how to lean into you so that that can be healed and I can walk in wholeness with you. I love you, friend. Have a great day. Remember, until next time, you were created to thrive.