This post is part of the Poured Forth Blog Post Series: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 [8] 9
Poured Forth is also available as a book: Poured Forth
Do you remember the contract I asked you to write up and sign a few posts ago? It ran like this:
You will grant to me all rights to every item you have created for God. You are granting to me an irrevocable, permanent, total right to use everything you create in any way I want to, including the right to give away for free, sell for a profit, make new versions, publish in any format, and make new works using all your ideas. This contract will be valid in all states and jurisdictions, including all countries of the world. I will receive these rights without having to pay you anything for them, and I am not required to give you credit for your work, acknowledge that it came from you, or share any of my royalties with you.
The rights listed in this contract, dear reader, are the very rights that I have given to you in all my own creative works that glorify the Lord, including this book. They are yours to give away, to sell, to republish, or to use to create new works in any format. I give these things to you freely and without any expectation that you must give anything in return. As Christ Jesus pours the sunlight through the windows freely and without condition, so also I pour forth to you all the creative gifts and ideas He gives to me. I pray that they bless you.
There’s an amazing ending to the story of David’s generosity told earlier in this book, the one in which David said, “I will not offer to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing” (2 Samuel 24:24b, Berean Standard Bible). The rest of the story is told in 1 Chronicles 22.
David decides that the threshing floor he purchased—the gift he insisted should cost him something—would become the new site for worship of the Lord, and he begins to gather supplies to build the Temple there. David died before he could see it, but on that very spot his son Solomon built the Temple of the Lord, Mount Zion, the place where thousands would sing in worship, where the sacred festivals of Israel would be celebrated—the very complex where the Ark of the Covenant itself would be held. David’s sacrifice that cost him something eventually became the very spot where “the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” while Jesus died on the Cross (Matthew 27:51a, Berean Standard Bible).
If God did all this with David’s gift, I ask you:
What might God do with works you give Him that have cost you so much to create?
So we come to your valley of decision. What will your path be? I will not condemn you for whatever path you choose. Your ability to choose your own path is real, and your choice must be made without guilt or coercion. As it is written, “Each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not out of regret or compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7, Berean Standard Bible).
Choose carefully. Take all the time you need. Do not underestimate the seriousness of this decision. You must not feel deceived or pressured. To paraphrase Chapter 14 from C. S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, unenchantments are not achieved in that way. You must know the seriousness of what you are doing, and why you are doing it, and all the ramifications of it.
Research your options online before you decide. Explore https://SellingJesus.org and copy.church. Read the book The Dorean Principle (which is free online and public domain). Read through the entire list of Creative Commons license options at https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses. Whatever you decide, make sure you have considered the options enough to be at peace with your decision.
Most of all, pray. Ask God to guide you to the right decision. As James writes,
“Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith, without doubting, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”
James 1:5–6, BSB
Remember: if you release a work to the public domain, it can never be under copyright again. Like the mermaid becoming a human, there is no path back. It is a one-way journey. And you should expect that, like they did with Jesus, the world will take advantage of your generosity. I promise. You don’t need to wonder about it, because it will happen. Wicked people will take your work and abuse it. They may misrepresent you. They will alter it or remove your name or try to commercialize it. They will scratch and scrape and monetize and try to squeeze every cent out of it.
I can promise you this will happen, because this is how they treated Jesus. “Remember the word that I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you as well; if they kept My word, they will keep yours as well” (John 15:20, BSB).
But I will also promise you this: the more radically you trust the Lord, the more space you leave for Him to be glorified, the more you will see Him use your creativity to build His kingdom. God will give you ideas more powerful and more beautiful than your natural abilities can conceive. Your work will go to places you could never go and touch people you may never meet in this life, and the Lord will not fail to provide for your needs as you faithfully trust Him.
Lilias Trotter was a brilliant painter from London who gave up her painting career to serve as a missionary in North Africa from 1888 until her death in 1928.11 Although she never again painted professionally, she continued to paint in her journals and used her paintings to create profound devotional books. One of these, Parables of the Cross, closes with a challenge that still rings true:
“It is when the sun goes out from our horizon to light up the dayspring in far-away lands, that the glory of the day comes on: it is in the autumn, when the harvest is gathered and the fruit is stored for the use of man, that the glow of red and gold touches and transfigures bush and tree with a beauty that the summer days never knew.
“So with us—The clear pure dawn of cleansing through the Blood—the sunrise gladness of resurrection life; the mid-day light and warmth of growth and service, all are good in their own order: but he who stops short there misses the crown of glory, before which the brightness of former days grows poor and cold. It is when the glow and radiance of a life delivered up to death begins to gather: a life poured forth to Jesus and for His sake to others—it is then that even the commonest things put on a new beauty, as in the sunset, for His life becomes ‘manifest in our mortal flesh;’ a bloom comes on the soul like the bloom on the fruit as its hour of sacrifice arrives.
“…And the outcome, like the outcome of the autumn, is this: there is a new power set free; a power of multiplying life around. The promise to Christ was that because He poured forth His soul unto death, He should see His seed: and He leads His children in their little measure by the same road. Over and over the promise of seed is linked with sacrifice, as with Abraham and Rebekah and Ruth; those who at His bidding have forsaken all receive an hundred-fold more now in this time, for sacrifice is God’s factor in His work of multiplying. ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’
“It is the poured-out life that God blesses—the life that heeds not itself, if only other souls may be won. ‘Ask and it shall be given unto you’ is one of God’s nursery lessons to His children. ‘Give, and it shall be given unto you’ comes further on.”2
— Lilias Trotter, Parables of the Cross
Our time together is at an end, dear reader. God, in His sovereignty, has entrusted you with stewardship over your unique creative voice. Only you will decide the path for your creative work.
Will it be merchandise or ministry?
Will it be sold or shared?
Will it be held in safety, or will it, like our Lord Jesus Himself, be poured forth?
This post is part of the Poured Forth Blog Post Series: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 [8] 9
Poured Forth is also available as a book: Poured Forth
Footnotes:
- Trotter’s astonishing life story is poignantly captured in the documentary Many Beautiful Things, available free at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g0VXJ7fiq4 and for purchase on various streaming services. For books about Trotter, see Miriam Huffman Rockness, A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter (Lilias Trotter Legacy, 2021) and Jennifer Trafton, If Only We Could See: Reimagining Creativity, Compassion, and Calling through the Extraordinary Life of Lilias Trotter (B&H Books, 2026). In addition to the enduring legacy of her art and writings, Lilias inspired the composition of the famous hymn “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heavenly_Vision. ↩︎
- I. Lilias Trotter, Parables of the Cross (Marshall Brothers, 1895?), 54–58. Available at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22189/22189-h/22189-h.htm. Reprinted in I. Lilias Trotter, Facsimile Edition: Parables of the Cross (Lilias Trotter Legacy, 2021). Emphasis mine. ↩︎
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