The Artist Must Die: poem

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Jun 25, 2008

when my eyes reach out to the dark starry dome
and I ponder the lights that I see
my mind takes for granted the depth and the breadth
and I go back to living 'asleep'

like the air in my lungs and the chair at my back
"reality" is what I believe
and I shake away grander thoughts
and go back to what I ought
because my world is the size of me

I have peaked over fences, leaned out the window
but my habits yank me back down
I am hemmed in, stuck in my skin
and in my own shallowness-- drown.

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Some Warnings to the Christian Artist

"However, there are dangers in exercising one's artistic creativity. One danger is idolatry. the worship of the work of one's own hands, Another is jealousy of other, perhaps more talented or more successful artists, A third is the prostitution of one's artistic talents in the service of evil causes. Yet another is the falsification of artistic visions received from God, This danger is unavoidable in our sin-perverted world, as any godly writer or artist will instantly admit. Because literature and art can be so influential in society. Christian writers and artists must take very seriously the Scriptural admonition to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" as God is "working out His good pleasure in us" (Phil. 2:12-133. Christian writers and artists also should bear in mind that their work is in many respects of an instructive or teaching nature, The writer or artist as teacher `~ill be judged more strictly' by God (James 3:1). Lastly. Christian literature and art should "bless our Lord's holy name with all that is within" the artist (Ps. 103:1). Our creativity must glorify our Creator (Rev.t:1 1). To glorify our wonderful Lord we must forsake mere "Christian utility" aimed at mere entertainment. How sad that Franky Schaeffer, son of the late Ltr .Francis Schaeffer and a talented painter and film maker, could rightly accuse today's Christians of "addiction to mediocrity' and shoddiness in craftsmanship in the arts, This cannot glorify our Creator (Rev. 4:11)."

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DYING TO SELF

When you are forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don't sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take in all in patient, loving silence.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any impunctuality, or any annoyance; when you stand face-to- face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility-and endure it as Jesus endured.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you are content with any food, any offering, any climate, any society, any raiment, any interruption by the will of God.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works, or itch after commendations, when you can truly love to be unknown.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

Are you dead yet? In these last days, the Spirit would bring us to the cross.

OTHERS MAY, YOU CANNOT !

If God has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful, may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it, and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their successes, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence upon Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

The lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He may let others get credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, which other Christians never feel distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own. He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but if you absolutely sell yourself to be his love slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.

Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He must have the right to tie your tongue, or chain your hand, or close your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others. Now, when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.