The Humility Trap

Ever felt that promoting your art might steal glory from God? We tackle that honest tension head-on and show how scripture frames visibility as faithful stewardship, not self-promotion. Starting with a student’s heartfelt question about signing her cards, we trace the quiet slide from obedience into paralysis and uncover the fear hiding beneath “humble” language.

We walk through Exodus 31 to meet Bezalel—named, filled with the Spirit, and publicly entrusted with skill, wisdom, and understanding. Then we look at Asaph, a creative whose authorship gathers generations, and we hear Jesus say plainly: a city on a hill cannot be hidden. If lamps belong on stands, your art belongs in the light. That doesn’t mean striving or chasing applause; it means aligning with your calling so others can see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

You’ll learn a clear test to spot fear dressed as spirituality and a practical step to break it: sign one piece boldly and share the story behind it. We pray for freedom from false humility and invite you to renew your mind as an artist who creates from identity, purity, presence, and praise. If you’ve been shrinking back to “protect” God’s glory, this conversation reorients your heart toward agreement—where confidence grows, creativity flows, and impact multiplies.

If this resonates, subscribe, share with a creative friend, and tell us the one piece you’ll sign and post this week. And if you want to go deeper into biblical identity and creative freedom, join our Foundations course linked below. Your light was made to be seen—what will you share today?

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Humility Trap Named
• 0:41 Student Story Sparks The Question
• 2:05 Scripture Case Study: Bezalel
• 4:33 Asaph And Named Worship
• 5:24 Jesus On Light And Visibility
• 7:06 True Humility Versus Fear
• 8:31 A Bold Creative Challenge
• 9:51 Prayer, Community, And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

One of the most dangerous traps Christian artists fall into looks spiritual, but actually it's pretty destructive. It's what I call the humility trap. It's this belief that if you show your work or market yourself out in public or sign your name or let yourself be seen as an artist, that somehow you're making it all about you instead of about God. But listen, today I want to show you straight out of scripture why hiding your art is not humility at all. In fact, that belief is quietly killing the impact that God actually wants to have through your life and through your art. And listen, be sure to watch to the end because today I'm going to show you what real biblical humility looks like for artists in the kingdom who really want to honor God with their creative calling. You know, this came into sharp focus for me this week when one of my students in the foundation course said something that really stopped me in my tracks. She'd been creating some handwritten cards with words that the Holy Spirit gives her to encourage specific people. I mean, it's beautiful, right? Obedient, it's powerful, it's co-laboring with the Holy Spirit. It's all the things we talk about here on the channel. But then they said something to me that changed everything. They asked, Matt, if I put my name on it, am I taking credit away from God? And listen, just like that, what started is this sort of spirit-led, obedient, creative, you know, beautiful thing turned into paralysis. And what began as obedience ended up in shutdown. And listen, this artist is not by themselves. In fact, when I talked about this on Facebook, another artist said, Oh, yeah, I was taught that putting my art out there and seeking validations from others, you know, was not God. But the Lord ended up telling her a couple of years later, she said, you know, the Lord said the beauty that I want to show through your art is for all to see. So they were kind of struggling, like, which is correct? Which is it? Share my art or don't share my art. And that's the reason I'm making this video today, because most artists I found have believed some version of this. Like, I don't want it to be about me. It's not about the attention. I just want God to get all the glory. I'll just stay hidden. But listen, let me say this clearly: God is not glorified by you having false humility as an artist. This belief does, you know, doesn't feel sinful. It feels spiritual. I get it, but listen, scripture tells an entirely different story. And starting with the first artist that God named in the Bible in Exodus 31. It says, See, I've chosen Bezalel, the son of Uri and Hur, the from the tribe of Judah, and I filled him with the Spirit of God and with wisdom and understanding and knowledge and all kinds of skills. Listen, no other passage in scripture gives us such a complete, beautiful picture of an artist, and for God's intention, I believe, for artists in the kingdom. And listen, when you look deeper at the meaning of his name and all these descriptions in the passage, it really becomes even more powerful because God calls Bezalel, you know, uses that as his name, which means in the shadow and protection of God. And Uri means light or fiery one. And the son of Hur, that means purity, and of the tribe of Judah. You probably know this. It means from the place of praise. I mean, I mean, can you see that? How God named him specifically? God didn't just choose a nameless vessel as an artist. He chose a man, a person named for light and purity and praise. And then God chooses to fill him with his spirit, not just as a little side thing, but with wisdom. That word means skillful discernment and with understanding, which means intimate knowledge and knowledge, which actually that means to be a messenger. You know, years ago, I kind of dug deep on this and sort of distilled it in a way that I think we can we can understand it a little more today. And I wrote it like this: I said, our identity as artists is that of sons and daughters who are publicly affirmed and sent by the Father to walk as fiery torches of prophetic revelation in the earth, creating from a place of purity and a place of praise in the shadow and in protection of God's presence. In that place, we've been given an overflowing impartation of the living breath of God and brought into his intimate presence to be sent as divinely equipped prophetic messengers carrying his authority. I mean, come on, man. If that doesn't get your wood, you know, your fire lit, your woods wet, right? As they say, that's exciting. See, God didn't erase Bezalel's identity so that he could get the glory. He revealed his glory through Bezalel's identity. Bezalel wasn't anonymous, he was a name, a person, an identity entrusted and sent by God. And see, we can see all kinds of examples all throughout God's word. But another one that I love, you know, another creative was one that's named in the Old Testament in Chronicles, is named Asaph. In 1 Chronicles 16, 5, it says that Asaph was the chief, and they were to play the lyres and the harps, and Asaph was to sound the cymbals. And again and again throughout the Psalms, we read that the Psalm is titled, you know, A Psalm of Asaph. See, Asaph was his name was attached to worship across the generations. His name literally means to gather. So he wasn't just a musician, he was an influential musician that God used to gather other artists. So listen, your name and putting yourself out there isn't about ego, it's about intentionality. And then listen, when Jesus, you know, talks about this in Matthew 5, he removes all the ambiguity. You know, he talks about that you're the light of the world, you're a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. And he says, Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl, but instead they put it on a stand and it gives light to everybody in the house. And so listen, this is Jesus. He said, in the same way, let your light shine before others so that they can see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. Again, notice exactly what Jesus says. He didn't say you might become a light someday if you if you stay really humble. He says, No, you are right now, as my son, as my daughter, you are the light of the world. And your light exists to illuminate, to be seen. And he says, a city on a hill cannot be hidden. He didn't say it shouldn't be hidden. He says it cannot be hidden. You know why? Because it's impossible to be the light of the world and remain invisible at the same time. Jesus doesn't say, you know, be a city on a hill, but but keep your light kind of dim and don't, you know, try not to offend anybody and kind of play, play small, stay back. No, he says, shine. Listen, if you're hiding your gift in some kind of false humility to protect God's glory, you know, to think you're being humble, listen, you're believing a contradiction and it's keeping you paralyzed. So if hiding your light isn't humility, then what does biblical humility actually look like for an artist? Well, listen, humility is not denying who you are. Humility is coming into agreement with who God already says you are in Christ. It's agreeing with what He's called you to do, it's agreeing with what He's equipped you for. It's agreeing that this life that you're living is His story, but it's one that you've been invited into with your art on purpose. See, biblical humility says, listen, I didn't choose this, but I will steward it. It says, this isn't about my glory, but I'm not going to pretend that God hasn't entrusted something really valuable and beautiful to me as an artist. Listen, Jesus modeled this perfectly. So when you hide your art or silence your creative voice or erase your name in the name of humility, you're not being humble. You're actually disagreeing with God. See, true humility says, listen, if God put this gift in me, I'm going to faithfully steward it. It says, I'm going to show up honestly and boldly and obediently, yeah, without striving, without fear, and also without apology. Again, that's not pride, that's agreement. And listen, friend, agreement is where freedom lives. So here, here I believe is the better question we need to be asking. Is that false humility that you may be practicing actually honoring God? Or is it fear that's wearing spiritual language? Is it fear of rejection or being seen or fear of responsibility or maybe even fear of success? Listen, fear does not stop being fear just because it sounds holy or spiritual. And so listen, this is what I told my students this week in in the foundations course who was asking about this. I was like, listen, all through scripture, God chose to move through people, not anonymously, but people with names, people with personalities and stories and locations and assignments. And again, as I just said, even the artists were named. You were created with a divine purpose that was awakened when you gave your heart to Jesus. And listen, you learn to walk confidently in that purpose as you learn to renew your mind and the truth of who you are in Christ. And as you do, listen, freedom that God has for you comes faster when you start to think, when you start to think according to the truth, as opposed to according to the lies that the enemy's been been, you know, trying to get you to believe all these years. Listen, my friend, I believe that you're here by divine appointment. You're not some nameless robot, you're a divinely crafted person, divinely crafted with an assignment in a unique design to reveal and release the glory of God. You're called to shine. And so listen, before I pray for you today, I want to give you this challenge. I want you to get with the Lord this this week. Find one piece of art maybe that that you've not signed yet. I want you to sign it boldly, legibly, not some tiny little scribble, but I want you to sign it with it like I made this, like I'm proud of this. And I want you to share it on social media and maybe even include some of the story about how you created it. And then come back to this video, all right, and put in the comments. I did it. Listen, I believe that that one simple act of obedience is going to break the fear that's been holding you back and open up a whole new season of freedom in your life. Okay. Listen, Jesus, I thank you. Lord, I thank you that you created us to shine. You created us as unique people with unique giftings, with unique stories and perspectives and designs to be able to breathe your light and life through. And God, thank you that we don't have to be bound in this humility trap, in this, in this cage of false humility. God, we can boldly share and shine with who you have created us to be, knowing that as we do, it's God, it's you that gets the glory, and it's us that get the incredible opportunity to shine with you and walk with you and create with you. So, Father, in Jesus' name, I just break off that false humility off of people right now by the authority of the Holy Spirit. God, I break off fear and inadequacy. God, I break off that false humility that seeks to keep them bound. And God, I pray right now by the power of the Holy Spirit that you would well up inside of people, God, so strong with your light and your life, that God, they would feel a new freshness and a new call and a new sense of divine creativity within them, that they could walk in everything that you created them to walk in. Lord, I thank you for that, God, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Listen, thank you so much for being with me today. If this resonated with you, put a comment. Let me know about your story. If you've struggled with this whole, you know, humility trap and this whole thing of false humility. Maybe somebody told you along the way that you're supposed to just kind of play small and that you're not supposed to be putting yourself out there. And let me know what part of this message today encouraged you. Also, if you're ready to start renewing your mind to these and all kind of other truths that God has for you as an artist in his kingdom, be sure to check out the foundations course. I put a link right down here in this video that uh is one you can click at any time to join me and the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of artists all over the world who are seeing uh God incredibly transform their life and give them creative freedom and confidence in all that he's called them to be as an artist. I love you, my friend. Thanks for being here. Make sure to subscribe. And again, until next time, you were created to thrive. Bye.