Bezalel: Exploring Your Creative Calling.

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit was never meant to be reserved for prophets and ministers;

it’s intended for creatives and craftsmen and entrepreneurs, too.

This message Bezalel; explores the call, development, and destiny of the artist by looking at the job description of the first designer of the House of God.

The Message challenges you to ask God questions that promote intimacy and artistic connection to draw out the God-given creativity within you.

Bezalel: Exploring Your Creative Calling.

God gave you those talents for a reason, and He’s called you to partner with the Holy Spirit living inside of you and use them to birth something new on Earth.

Strange Land, Strange Call  

Let’s set the scene for a minute:

You’re a part of a movement led by an ex-prince with a speech impediment, started by a series of supernatural plagues,

and just beginning to set up some semblance of a theocracy in the middle of a desert.

Your grandfather is one of the twelve senior leaders of this movement,

and you have a sort of name for yourself in the way of creative design.

You’ve heard a little bit about the start of a Temple for your God, who, unlike all the others you’ve seen, has no face.

And You can’t boast about how greatly you’ve carved idols because your God’s new rules say you can’t carve any.

Instead of building some sort of picture or memento of His power, your God actually wants a Home to live in, a place to dwell with His people. 

And he picks you to make it. 

This was where Bezalel found himself at the beginning of Exodus 31.

He’s picked out of a crowd of what theologians say was probably dozens of skilled architects and artists waiting for the chance to make their mark on history.

He isn’t picked by a committee of men and women with some sort of expertise.

No–Bezalel is picked by the future tabernacle’s Resident In Question. 

Maybe there were others just as talented as Bezalel, just as intelligent.

What’s important is that he was called to create.

The Tabernacle was something that had never been created before,

and its design required someone specially chosen to turn the dreams of God into a physical reality. 

God didn’t have to use Bezalel to make a tabernacle.

He could have spoken like He did with all of Creation and just let it come to be.

He chose, however, and still chooses to partner with creatives who see beyond the physical and desire to create a beautiful atmosphere where his Spirit can abide—

whether that’s within the walls of a tent, between the lines of a story, or inside the notes of a song. 

There’s a pretty good possibility that the dreams that live inside your head–the ones you’ve never seen others put walls to,

the ones that you have a gut feeling could shift atmospheres and change nations—point towards your calling as a creative person.

Take some time today to put those dreams at the forefront of your prayer and ask Jesus why he gave them to you.

Don’t get overwhelmed by your perceived “qualifications”–you just might discover your calling.

Exodus 31:1-2 KJV

[1] And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, [2] See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah:
https://bible.com/bible/1/exo.31.1-2.KJV 

Bezalel: Exploring Your Creative Calling.

The First to be Filled

Who do you think of when you think of someone who is “filled with the Spirit”?

Maybe it’s an Old Testament Prophet or a New Testament Apostle.

Maybe it’s a pastor or a worship leader or even yourself.

For thousands of years, God has been equipping His people with His Spirit, to serve what Paul calls the “common good”.

Their gifts range from preaching to prophesying, singing to writing.

Something (or Someone) is breathed into them and they just can’t help but breathe Him out.

It’s interesting to note that Bezalel was the first person in all of history to be characterized as “Filled With the Spirit”.

God was establishing a precedent through Bezalel, a baseline that the rest of history would respond to.

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit was never meant to be reserved for prophets and ministers;

it’s intended for creatives and craftsmen and entrepreneurs, too.

When God promised a full outpouring of His Holy Spirit, He didn’t say it would fall on “Some Flesh” or “Only the Flesh in Full Time Ministry.”

He said The Holy Spirit would fall on all flesh. 

You’ve been given talents and abilities, and you might have even, using the knowledge you’ve been given, sharpened them into skills.

God gave you those talents for a reason,

and He’s called you to partner with the Holy Spirit living inside of you and use them to birth something new on Earth.

Take a moment today to ask Jesus how you can employ the talents and skills you’ve been given.

Spend time creating with the Holy Spirit—keeping in constant dialogue with Him as you practice the talents you’ve been given.

Learn to live as an artist whose first qualification is his relationship with The Holy Spirit,

and watch how He unlocks the skills in you waiting to be unleashed. 

Bezalel: Exploring Your Creative Calling.

Dreamer, Schemer

There are three stages to a plan:

The dream stage, where you develop vision,

the planning stage, where you develop a method for making those dreams reality,

and the execution stage, where what was once intangible becomes real through a planned process of hard work.

Bezalel’s artistic process was no exception.

He was called, he was gifted, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit.

But his calling and talents weren’t the beginning and end of the story; Bezalel was called and filled for a reason.

God gave him a dream, but he had to take the time to plan and execute the reality of that dream.

God knew, when He called Bezalel, that Bezalel would not only have the skills necessary to do the work,

but the strength to see the Tabernacle’s development from beginning to end. 

You have been given a dream by God.

Maybe it’s a manuscript, maybe it’s a business, maybe it’s an album.

Whatever that dream may be, God hasn’t given it to you to stay inside you.

He’s given you the dream because he knows you can make it a reality.

You can devise the plans for and put a sound or an image or a tangible feeling to something that never existed before.

Have you struggled to make your artistic dream a reality?

Today, ask Jesus for tangible, manageable steps to take to put action to your art.

Seek ways to fulfill the task that God has given you to complete as an artist.

Your endurance through the creative process could mean breakthrough for the people who will be touched by what you’ve made.  

Bezalel: Exploring Your Creative Calling.

Finding Oholiab

Let’s take a minute to think about Star Wars.

The movie series was created by Writer/Director George Lucas in the mid 1970s,

and has since led to three prequels, a recent reboot, and several spinoff “Stories.”

If I asked you who made Star Wars, you’d quickly answer, “George Lucas.” 

While Star Wars may have been George Lucas’s “brain child,” it certainly wasn’t created by him alone.

Turning a dream into a script, and a script into a film, and a film into a franchise took hundreds of editors, actors, designers, and producers.

George Lucas’s dream was made a reality through the power of teamwork.

The same was true with Bezalel.

God gave him a dream for a tabernacle decorated to the nines, carefully crafted and beautifully designed.

While Bezalel might have been able to do everything on his own,

it would have taken much longer and probably would have exhausted even the best of Bezalel’s mental and artistic resources.

That’s where Oholiab came in. 

You may not be able to pronounce his name without laughing, but Oholiab’s part in the story was no joke.

He was a partner to Bezalel,

a right hand man with ability to carry out Bezalel’s God-given dreams and creatively partner with him to make something beautiful.

Humans were never designed to create on their own, even at the most basic level.

God had to introduce a whole other gender onto earth just for humanity to create more of itself!

Who are the Oholiab’s God has placed in your life?

They could be a coworker, a spouse, or a classmate.

They could be someone completely off your radar.

Ask God to place on your path the right people to partner with so that the dreams he’s given you can become a reality. 

Bezalel: Exploring Your Creative Calling. 

Create The Impossible

The last thing we’re told Bezalel is given is a community of people able to make his dreams a reality.

No part of his calling, no part of his ability, no part of his process, no part of his need for help is forgotten.

God called Bezalel knowing he had everything he needed to create what God had called him to. 

As you read this message, has God brought to mind a dream or a creation that you have a feeling may be more than just a good idea?

Have you felt led to examine your skillset, to ask for a plan, to seek out a partner?

Does acquiring all of these seem impossible?

God calls us to create the impossible because he is a God who makes impossible things possible.

He’s given you the authority to move mountains with your faith—have you begun matching that faith to your creative process?

What part of your dream seems to hit a dead end?

Have you told that dead end to move?

Writer’s block is real and a blank canvas can be just as intimidating as it is exciting.

It’s easy to get caught up in the details—until you realize you serve a God of details.

He sees every mountain before you and gives you the power to make it a molehill. 

Today, get honest with God about the parts of your dream that have housed unbelief.

Ask him to shift your perspective and take action this week to speak truth over those areas.

Start your creative journey with faith, and watch it end in a way that shifts the course of history.  

Also Read: Man, Know Thyself – Diademng

We would like to thank Christ for the Nations for providing this message. For more information, please visit: http://madefor.cfni.org/

Bezalel: Exploring Your Creative Calling.