Your Artistic Talent as a Weapon
By Tony Snipes

Your creative gift has power.
God was the first and still is the greatest artist there is. He gifted you to be creative like He is because we were created in His image. The stronger our connection with God grows, the more He empowers His artists to create according to His will.

From his book "How To Draw Comic Heroes God's Way" a friend and fellow artist Edgar J. Williams (who has now gone on to be with theLord) wrote this about Visual Artists:

"Anything that comes from GOD is powerful. Art is powerful.Therefore artists do have a great responsibility with the works thatthey create. Look at the arts today; film, theater, music, painting,dance, literature, they all have a profound influence on the worldat large, for better and for worse. The words of a song, the imageson film, and even the stories in a comic book can have life changingeffects on people."

-The enemy has no creative ability.
Although Satan is a cunning adversary to the Kingdom of God, he has absolutely no ability to create. A master of destruction, he can only witness the creative gift in action from afar through the creative nature of God and His artists, whom He created in his image.

-The enemy wants access to your talent.
Satan's desire is to destroy God's greatest creation, mankind. Satan recognizes the power of influence in the Arts. Since he has no creative ability himself, he seeks to influence artists, musicians,dancers, film makers, actors, etc. to use their God given talentsfor his purpose. He pursues access to our talents in order to useas a "weapon" that influences the thoughts, moods, feelings and ultimately, the choices and actions of people.

-A weapon against your creative circle of influence.
The bible teaches us in John 10:10 that a thief comes to steal, kill and destroy:

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have comethat they may have life, and have it to the full."

-To Steal: Satan, just like a thief, uses deception to gain access to our talent for his purposes without us even being aware of it. In many cases, he deceives the artist into thinking that he does not even exist, therefore, there is no threat to guard against. The artist may seem to thrive creatively, but may also produce work that is profane, obscene, and in many cases even demonic.

-To Kill: John 10:10 makes us think of how Satan seeks to "kill" the artistic talent. By keeping the artist separated from God, Satan makes their talent ineffective in accomplishing God's original planfor their creative ability.

-To Destroy: Finally, Satan seeks to "destroy" your talent. Not to extinction, but to the point of being useless. Many with promising artistic ability never come into the knowledge that there is a call on their lives through the use of their talents. Although these artists may not use their talent to glorify the kingdom of darkness, they may never use their gift at all.

-How do you to turn the "weapon" back on Satan?

James 4:7 says: "Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and hewill flee from you."

Resisting Satan, or going in the exact opposite direction that Satan wants you to go in, causes the devil to flee from you. Pursuing a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ allows your artistic ability to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit of God, rather than that of Satan. You will walk out creatively what God had in mind for you as His artist. This places the powerful tool that your creative talent is back in the hands of the one whod esigned it in the first place.

© 2005 Tony Snipes