The Thriving Christian Artist

Why the Great Masters Never Worried If Their Art Was 'Christian Enough' (And Why You Shouldn't Either)

• Matt Tommey: Artist, Best-Selling Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur and Artist Mentor

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5 Simple Steps to Create Art with the Holy Spirit
https://youtu.be/27AyW_sVSeE

Are you carrying the burden of making your art "Christian enough"? Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Bach, and Vermeer never worried about this—and in this video, I'll show you why you shouldn't either.

Most Christian artists today carry two crushing yokes: the pressure to make their art evangelistic and the pressure to make it financially successful. These burdens steal your joy, block the Holy Spirit, and distort the very purpose of creativity.

Jesus said, "Take my yoke upon you... For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30). The great masters understood this deeply—they created from intimacy with God, not from striving or performance.

Drawing on Scripture and the profound teachings of theologian H.R. Rookmaaker, I'll help you discover how art becomes sacred not because of its message, but because of Who you create it with.

✨ THE TRUTH: Your art carries God's presence because YOU carry God's presence. When you create with the Holy Spirit, everything you make becomes an act of worship—whether it "looks Christian" or not.

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Ready to experience true creative freedom in Christ? Join our thriving community of Christian artists at [your community link]

📖 RESOURCES MENTIONED:
- H.R. Rookmaaker's "Art Needs No Justification"
- Matthew 11:28-30 (The Easy Yoke)
- 1 Corinthians 10:31 (All for God's Glory)

#ChristianArtist #FaithAndCreativity #CreatingWithGod #ChristianCreativity #ArtAndFaith

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Speaker:

So, what if I told you that the great masters like Michelangelo and Da Vinci and Bach all knew a spiritual secret about God and creativity that most Christian artists have completely forgotten today? A secret that could lift the pressure off of your creative life, unlock deeper joy, and actually help you create with God in a way that you never thought was possible. Well, listen, stick with me because today I'm going to show you exactly what that secret is and why it could change everything about how you make art. See, somewhere along the way, a lot of Christian artists started carrying burdens that those old masters never really carried. They weren't creating under the pressure to evangelize with their art or monetize or prove their spirituality through their creativity. They weren't wondering if their art was Christian enough. But today, many of us feel that that pressure is on us and it's there every time we walk in the studio. But friend, listen, those weights and those expectations are exactly what end up stealing our joy and block the very presence of God that we're longing to create from. So before we talk about the secret that the masters knew, we need to name those two heavy yokes that almost every Christian artist is carrying, yokes that Jesus never asked you to pick up. One's the evangelistic yoke, and it typically says, you know, your art only matters if it produces some sort of tangible spiritual result in somebody's life, somebody gets saved or somebody has an encounter with God. Let me jump in and say this because I can hear some of you now saying, man, of course I want to see God move in and through my art. I want to see people saved and healed and delivered and transformed and have an encounter with this presence. And listen, of course I do. That's what this whole channel is about. But listen, when we allow the things that happen through our art to define us as an artist, when we're allowing the results, if you will, to define who we are and the maybe lack of results to hang as a weight around our neck, we take responsibility for outcomes that God never designed for us to be responsible for. And the other one is uh what I like to call a monetary yoke. And a lot of times it says, well, you know, your art only matters if it sells or makes a lot of money, which totally plays into this whole hustle culture that we all are in big time. But listen, both of these yokes whisper the same kind of line. They they're whispering all the time, make something happen, prove something, earn your value, do something that matters. And, you know, suddenly your art studio becomes this pressure cooker and all the joy leaks out and the freedom disappears. And the this gentle invitation of the Holy Spirit that we all want to operate from gets drowned out by things like anxiety and striving and comparison. I don't know if you if you can relate to that, but I sure can in my life. But the beautiful thing is I've discovered a truth. God never put the burden of those kind of results on our shoulders. Our worth is not established by the sale of our work. Our impact isn't measured by our following on social media or whether somebody has an altar call moment with our art. Our art is not a sermon that we got to preach or a product that we have to justify or this machine that we have to, you know, get to perform. Listen, friend, our art, first and foremost and forever, is for God. Solodeo Gloria, for his glory alone. Now, before I go any further, let me show you what this looked like actually in the hands of some of the great masters from history, because I believe this is exactly why they created the way they did. In fact, you know, you look at somebody like Michelangelo that once said, Many believe, and I believe, he said, that I've been designated for this work by God. I love that. I mean, you can you can feel that in the pieta, the the weight of calling, this sense of divine stewardship that he had, and this awareness that his artistic gift wasn't just random, but it was actually assigned specifically to him by the creator of the universe himself. You look at somebody like Leonardo da Vinci that believed you know, studying nature was the study of the mind of the creator, that every brushstroke was participation in the divine imagination. Or if you're a musician, maybe think about Johann Sebastian Bach, who at the end of all of his manuscripts wrote SDG, Solo de O Gloria for the glory of God, not as a slogan, but as a statement of identity that this work that I'm creating belongs to God and I'm just the steward. And then there's, you know, if you're a painter, maybe think about Vermeer, this quiet Dutch artist who painted simple sort of domestic scenes like light falling on ordinary moments or a girl pouring milk or a young woman at a window. Listen, he wasn't trying to preach or or persuade. He wasn't out there decorating altars in churches. He was revealing the sacred and the sacredness of the moments that we have in everyday life in the ordinary. God in a milk pitcher and in morning light and in an open window, the presence of God showing up in everyday life. Listen, none of these artists were forcing their work to have to preach or say something. None of them were creating under this pressure to try to convert somebody. None of them were worried like many of us can be today, whether our art was Christian enough. They they didn't create for validation. Listen, they created from validation, knowing that the art that they created came from God through them and for his glory. In fact, one of my favorite art theologians and historians, H.R. Rookmacher, talks about in his book, Art Needs No Justification, that it's not art's job to really validate Christianity, but it's Christianity that infuses art with life and and with meaning. And so for you and for me as artists, it's our relationship with God, it's our faith that brings life and transformation to what we do artistically. Now, here's where this gets really good because they discovered, I believe, something that's really holy. Art doesn't become sacred because of what it says or or how it looks. Art becomes sacred because of who you're creating it with, because of who inspired it, and because who is moving through it? Listen, that's the secret, right? That that's the freedom. That's what Jesus invites all of us artists into. You know, Jesus said in Matthew 11, 28 through 30, in one of my favorite passages from the message translation, he said, Are you tired and and worn out? Are you burned out on religion? And then he said, Come to me and listen to this. I love this part. He said, get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me and watch how I do it and learn. Get this the unforced rhythms of grace. Come on. I love that. And then he said, Listen, I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. Listen, this is God's heart for you and for me as a creative, uh, a light yoke, an easy burden, a joyful process, a relational experience with the Holy Spirit, not for performance to prove your value as an artist, but listen, we don't have to do that. We can just operate from that place of life with Him. Now, listen, that doesn't mean that we don't have any responsibility as an artist. Of course we do, right? To steward the gift, to grow in our skills, to you know, show up faithfully every day to or on a regular basis to create, to cultivate excellence and all the things that we do. But the weights, the the pressure to perform this demand to produce results and do it faster and bigger and better and all that, listen, that's not and it never has been our job. The job of producing results is his. Connection is our calling, his job is the fruit. Your job is to bring the five loaves and fishes, which is your art, and it's his job to multiply that impact more than you could ever ask or imagine. And listen, when you create from that place, from intimacy rather than insecurity, your art becomes something so much more powerful than you can ever imagine. It literally becomes an expression of the glory of God. Now, listen, you might be wondering, well, what does this actually look like practically for me as an artist? Well, Rookmacher actually said something else in his book, Art Needs No Justification, that that really is important about these master artists. And it really kind of completely flips the script on what many Christians think about their art. He said about these masters, he said they worked to the glory of God. They did not compromise their art, they were not tools for religious propaganda. Their work was meaningful as an end in itself. And get this, he said, they were God's glory.

unknown:

Wow.

Speaker:

I just I just loved that. That hit me so hard when I read that. It's like it reminds me of what St. Irenaeus said in the second century when he said, the glory of God is man fully alive. In other words, that there's no greater way that you and I can glorify God than to do what he created you to do, which is for us to create art. No other justification in our life is needed. We don't have to prove it to anybody. It's enough because God gave it to us. And see, your art becomes sacred the moment that you, a spirit-filled child of God, put your hands to it in love and presence and faithful stewardship because Christ is in you. And that's the hope of glory, the Bible says. And your art becomes a window, a whisper, a doorway into the kingdom of God. It's not supernatural because of what you do. Your art is supernatural because of who you are. See, God designed your art to be bigger than messaging, deeper than trite metaphors, and more mysterious than meanings that we try to give it. Our art is a gift from God woven into our design before we even took a breath. See, art is a process with God where He meets with us in the making, in our studios. It's a mystery in God, carrying beauty that we can never express in our words or in our metaphors. Art is a gift to the world that breaks through people's lives, where logic can fail sometimes. Art is often a magnifying glass, helping people see the things that they've forgotten or an invitation, like a doorway to wonder and reflect on possibilities and on God's presence. And it's a table that people can encounter God, a place where heaven touches earth. Listen, art is always an opportunity for transformation, not because you and I forced some kind of overtly Christian outcome, but because God breathed on what we created with Him. And so, my friend, I really want to encourage you today, stop trying to make your work and your life feel Christian enough. Stop forcing the meaning where God simply is inviting you to walk with him in this process of creating. Stop carrying all these burdens of outcomes, these spiritual burdens, these financial burdens to prove yourself. Listen, those are things that Jesus never asked you to carry. Your art, when it's born from intimacy with him and offered in worship and surrender to him in love, is already doing, I promise you, it's already doing more for the kingdom than you realize. And when you and I learn to rest in that, you can enjoy the process of making and sharing your art without all of those heavy yokes weighing you down. And you can learn to live in the unforced rhythms of grace God designed for all of us as artists in his kingdom. Hey, before I pray for you today, I want to invite you to answer something for me in the comments. And it's this what burden are you ready to give to Jesus and ask him to lift off of your creative life today? My friend, I promise you, he wants to walk with you in the abundant life that he promised you. Take those burdens away. And uh, that doesn't have to be somewhere way far down the road. It can happen right now as we're praying together. And listen, one more thing before I pray, if this message is stirring something deep inside of you, I really want to invite you to watch the next video that I've linked below called Five Simple Ways to Create Art with the Holy Spirit. It's gonna take you even deeper into this journey of creating your art with God. Free, light, joyful, and full of his presence. All right. So let's pray together. Jesus, I thank you that you didn't create us to be weighed down with financial burdens and religious burdens and proving ourselves and trying to make stuff happen in our life. God, you invited us into an abundant life and to live at a pace that is joyful. Your unforced rhythms of grace. And so, Holy Spirit, right now, we just confess that Lord, in places where we've gone our own way, in places where we've felt the need to try to prove ourselves to somebody or through something or even to ourselves, Lord, we just repent of that. We come out of agreement with those burdens that you never designed for us to carry. And Lord, we receive your truth. We receive your invitation right now, God, to step into the unforced rhythms of your grace so that we can live in the light of your joy and of your freedom and of your creative nature that's already living in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for taking those burdens away and for giving us the light yoke that you promised. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Hey, my friend, thanks so much for being with me today. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Make sure you left that comment for me. And remember, till next time, you were created to thrive. Bye. Hey, my friend, before you go, make sure that you're signed up for the Thriving Christian Artist Weekly. It's my free newsletter full of spiritual encouragement, creative inspiration, and practical tips to help you thrive in everything that God's called you to do as an artist in his kingdom. Every issue is absolutely free, and it includes the latest podcast episode, featured artist spotlights, a worship song of the week, and again, tons of tips and encouragement and inspiration for you to keep you inspired and encouraged in everything that God's got for you as an artist in the kingdom. You can click the link right here in the show notes to join us, and it's a great way to stay connected. All right, love you. Bye.