The Thriving Christian Artist
The Thriving Christian Artist
296 - 5-Minute Mentoring: Overcoming Habitual Sin & Negative Patterns of Living
Is there an area in your life that's become a stronghold for sin? It might show up as a negative coping mechanism or an addiction that you just can't seem to shake.
I've been there. For many years, I dealt with patterns of pornography and religious performance. Both worked together to prevent me from getting to the fullness of God's plan for my life.
Until I finally, by God’s grace, broke free.
In this episode, I break down exactly how I was able to break free from these habitual sins and negative patterns. I'm giving you the same Biblical blueprint I used to let God work His grace in me.
I call them the Four Steps to Freedom.
It doesn't matter what your challenge may be. Jesus didn't die for you to be going to Heaven and yet be continually tormented in sin. He came to set the captives free.
Today, I can look back at the struggle—and the toll these patterns took on my life—with gratitude for the grace of God. I can tell you that there IS hope…if you grab hold of His hand and walk through the steps to freedom.
I wrote about this in my first book, “Unlocking the Heart of the Artist.” You can grab hold of the newly revised 10th anniversary edition at Amazon.
Unlocking the Heart of the Artist: A Practical Guide to Fulfilling Your Creative Call as an Artist in the Kingdom
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1460930258/
Connect with me online:
https://www.matttommeymentoring.com
https://www.instagram.com/thethrivingchristianartist
https://www.facebook.com/thethrivingchristianartist
https://www.youtube.com/mjtommey to watch the podcast on YouTube!
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Do you have an area in your life that has become a real stronghold, maybe a stronghold of sin, maybe a negative coping mechanism that you just can't shake? I've been there, and I want to help you get some freedom in that area today here on 5-Minute Mentoring. 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 5-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 there, my friend. I'm so glad that you are with me today here on 5-Minute Mentoring. You know, if we're all honest with each other, we've probably all had issues in our life that have developed and festered into either negative patterns of sin or just negative coping mechanisms that really aren't healthy in our life, but they're just things that we've turned to over and over and over again. I know those can look like lots and lots of different things for people depending on, you know, your history, where you're are in the world, your age, your sex, your proclivities, whatever it might look like. For me, that really took on a very sinister kind of pattern in my life, I guess, very early on. I grew up in a Christian home, but very, very performance-oriented, very religious, loved Jesus the best way I knew how, but just had a lot of stuff going on in our family life. And praise God, He's healed so much of that throughout all of our family. But growing up, it was difficult. And I remember what I called in Unlocking the Heart of the Artist, I called it the perfect storm. It felt like a really onslaught of the enemy because, you know, just like God's got a plan for your life, so does the enemy. And really within a couple of years in my early teenage years. I lost my grandpa who I was really close to, lost my piano teacher who I was really close to, also began to be sexually abused by a family member for a number of years that really threw me into a lot of identity issues, a lot of fear, a lot of shame, and all that sort of thing. And for me, the coping mechanism that I was introduced to at that time was pornography. And it was also religion. So I had pornography and religion that were kind of this intertwined thing. So I was performing at church so that everybody thought I was great, never being able to share the deep things that were going on in my life. And at the same time, going home and self-medicating with patterns like that that lasted for years and years and years in my life, even into my marriage. And I look back at that in my life and the struggle that that was. And as I've talked to people over the years, I just hear the story over and over and over again. I don't care what it is. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, right? It can be anger. It can be food. It can be control. It can be sexual addiction. It can be whatever it might be for you. That's not even the issue, all right? Because it's all the same root, right? It's all the same root. As I began to cry to the Lord, and as I've heard so many people talk about this, you know, so frustrated, I can't get over this. I can't get free of this, all this sort of thing. I was saying that to the Lord one day years ago, and the Lord just said, listen, Matt, you just got to close the gate. I said, what do you mean close the gate? Like, am I a horse? Like, what are you talking about? And the Lord said, listen, you're walking through life and you're just leaving the gate open in areas of your life that you know that you're vulnerable in. And if you just walk around and leave the gate open, you're inviting the enemy to come in and take advantage of those situations in your life. So when you're feeling sad and mad and tired and anxious and all that sort of thing, the gate is wide open and you have no barrier between you and what the enemy is trying to do in your life. And so all of a sudden, he just comes in. And every time, Matt, you sit around going, I just can't believe this happened again. And I did this and all this sort of thing. And you close the gate. Close the gate. And you know, as I begin to build in mechanisms in my life to close the gate, that is to close the doors of the enemy, to close the doors of easy opportunities for me to sin and to act out and to go into things that were not healthy for me. And again, it doesn't matter what the issue is for you. This holds true for everything. When I began to do that, all of a sudden, it's like the journey got so much easier. Not that it was like an overnight success, but it was like, oh gosh, at least because I'm closing the gate, now I feel like I can actually make some progress. And when you begin to do that, friend, you'll be amazed. You'll be amazed. So I wrote about this in Unlocking the Heart of the Artist. I've actually got my book here in front of me. I wanted to give you these steps to freedom, I call them, because I think they're just so, so, so powerful for every believer. Number one, identify the triggers, okay, and the gates in your life. That is, what are the things, these negative coping patterns that happen in your life and what causes them? I said before, you know, when you're tired, mad, upset, anxious, frustrated, usually those are things that the enemy is gonna try to use as triggers for you. So are you making a plan to be able to do something else when those sort of things trigger you? That's really, really huge. Number two, if you've got patterns of sin in your life, listen, the Bible's clear. You gotta repent. You gotta be cleansed, all right? And all that means is just say, Lord, I repent. I give this to you. I want to turn. I don't want to walk this way anymore. Would you cleanse me with your blood and let me walk now in a way that's pleasing to you, empowered by your Holy Spirit? And then that means you turn and you close the gate and you start walking in a different way. Number three, James 5, 16 is so clear. Confess your sins to one another and you'll be healed. Listen, one of the reasons I think that people don't get victory over habitual sin in their life is because they won't confess it to somebody else. Now, listen, I'm not saying you got to go air your dirty laundry to everybody and their mom on Facebook. What I am saying is God's designed you to walk in community and God's designed you to walk with other brothers and sisters who love you, who can walk in authenticity and vulnerability and transparency with you, who can be able to call you out on areas of sin in your life who can also support you when you're trying to develop new ways of living in this new freedom. when you begin to repent and confess that to somebody, you know somebody else knows what's going on in your life, it automatically brings a new level of freedom in your life. And they help you to begin to close the gates that we've been talking about, to stop doing stupid stuff, to stop leaving the door open where the enemy can come in. And then lastly, develop new pathways. That is, instead of when this trigger happens, or when this old pattern starts to happen that you know is going to happen. Every time you get frustrated or mad or celebrate or whatever it is, you want to go to that old thing. It's your friends and it's those that are walking with you that can help you to develop new pathways that says, hey, when this happens, I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm going to choose to go do this. I'm going to choose a new thought. I'm going to choose a new action. I'm going to choose a new response. And that's how you begin. to get freedom over habitual sin and negative coping mechanisms in your life. Friend, listen, Jesus does not want you. Jesus didn't die for you to be going to heaven and yet continually tormented in sin. He didn't die for that. He died that you might have life and have it to the full. And it's absolutely wonderful. possible for you. I want to pray for you right now before I go, because I believe that God's using this right now to wake something up inside of people and begin to bring you into a new level of freedom. So Father, I'm asking you right now in the name of Jesus, that Holy Spirit, you would begin to awaken and draw people to you, that you begin to reveal those areas of habitual sin, those negative coping mechanisms that are keeping people bound in areas that you never designed for them to live. God, give grace to shift. Bring freedom to the captive right now. Bring grace to the process of developing new pathways. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. I love you, my friend. Listen, this is one of the passions of my heart to help you walk in the fullness of what God's called you to. If you want to find out more about it, this process, check out my book, Unlocking the Heart of the Artist. It's the first book that I wrote years and years and years ago. It's a healing wholeness book for artists. It gives you vision and a pathway for everything that God desires for you in your life. I'd love to get it in your hands. You can grab it at the link that's right here in the show notes. All right. I love you. Thanks for And again, remember, until next time, you were created to thrive. All right, bye.