My Podcast Interview with Matt Tommey
My interview with world-class sculptor, artist, author and mentor Matt Tommey of The Thriving Christian Artist is LIVE!
Matt is a good interviewer, and asked me all my favorite questions. So in this interview, I get to talk about how understanding the “righteousness of God” can put anyone “in their right mind”. Understanding righteousness as being the gift of God will connect you to your creativity like nothing else can.
What is “righteousness”? My layman’s definition is simply “to be made to be as I ought always to have been” as sheer gift. It is not a condition or state of being that I can attain, or earn, or deserve.
Sound intriguing? Below you will find the video version of this powerful message - one that I particularly carry for women “in the middle”.
If you are somewhere between the ages of 45 and 99, and have a deep yearning to freely be creative, yet are feeling the pressure of caring for aging parents while encountering your own health challenges, perhaps you are dealing with multiple losses, and/or difficult adult children, plus the responsibilities of your job. “The middle” is an indistinct period of time, but is discerned by its pain points.
This interview is my gift to you.
Well, mine and Matt Tommey’s gift to you. You can also get just the audio version by doing a quick search for “Matt Tommey/Thriving Christian Artist” wherever you get your podcasts.
Day 27 of Lent - No Shame In My Game
Many of our psychological and emotional issues can be reduced or even eliminated by a child-like, audacious faith in what Christ accomplished in terms of our justification. Having said that, some will accuse me of over-simplifying. Some will disagree so strongly they will even feel upset with me.
Ain’t skeered.
I need you to know something: you can’t shame me.
Others have tried. But my inward revelation of having been hidden “in Christ” is making me ever-increasingly shameless. Even when I blow it.
Most of us are born with an ingrained sense of “wrong-ness”. Innately, we deeply feel the fact that we are not enough, or too much, or wired incorrectly. Our upbringing gets blamed, our current circumstances are blamed, our spouse is blamed, our job is blamed - and a few of us blame ourselves and nothing else for our glaring flaws and big sins.
When something goes off-kilter in our physical body, we know it needs healing. Our body needs better nutrition or physical therapy or medicine - it needs something outside itself to return to a state of health.
It is no different for our soul. When our soul gets off-kilter, it needs to be healed. Sin truly is a sickness. And there is only one known remedy given amongst humans whereby we can be made whole: the finished work of the Vicarious Man, Jesus.
He allowed Himself to be made wrong so that we could be made right forever. He became sin, even though He never sinned, so that we could claim His right-ness as our right-ness.
His right-ness, His righteousness, in exchange for our sin. The sin that made our souls innately sick.
Confidence in the strength of His right-ness, plus nothing else, can give us a confidence that heals our inward, unseen, spiritual places. It cures insecurity, which heals us of our comparison, unhealthy competition, jealousy, sense of rejection, and shame.
Oh, how the blood of Christ removes shame!
Mine is a simple message, isn’t it?