How To Take Your Writing To the Next Level

Are you writing with purpose or simply relying on your talent? In this episode, I dive deep into what it means to go from being called to being anointed as a Christian writer. I'll share how my own spiritual awakening transformed my writing and I'll reveal the essential ingredient every Christian author needs to truly thrive.

If you’ve ever wondered how to align your writing with God’s purpose, this episode is for you. It’s time to discover the key to creating books that impact lives and glorify God.

👉 Listen now to uncover the secret to becoming an anointed scribe!

Don’t miss the next episode, where I'll tell you exactly what to do when your books aren't selling.

Subscribe today!

Transcript

God hasn't called you into writing to go at it on your own. He's given you the single most important tool in your author toolbox that will guarantee your success as a Christian author.

And the best part of it is, it's completely free if you're one of God's anointed scribes. So how do you get anointed? And how do you get your hands on the secret ingredient to success?

Well, pull up a chair and listen closely because you're about to discover what it means to be an anointed writer and what you really need to have success as a Christian author.

This is episode three.

I'm Urcelia Teixeira, ex real estate agent turned award winning author of Christian fiction. It wasn't that long ago that I wrote my first novel on a bucket list whim setting the course for a spiritual journey that transformed my life.

But the journey through self publishing hasn't been easy as I soon found myself obsessing over book sales rankings and getting to the top of the shelves, all the while trying to stay rooted in Christ and live out my purpose.

But God has graciously been teaching me how to navigate the spiritual pitfalls of the brutal book publishing industry. And now I'm sharing them with you. Welcome to the Anointed Scribe podcast where each week I open my personal diary to share soul nourishing stories designed to inspire, uplift and equip you for your writing life.

If you're already a Christian author or one in the making trying to balance faith with business, you're in the right place. Because for such a time as this, you have been called to thrive as God's anointed scribe.

Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hello, it's your author friend Uria, and I am thrilled to spend this time together with you.

I want to kick off by thanking you for taking the time out of your writing schedule to listen to something that I pray will add a new perspective to your writing life and your relationship with God.

Today, I also want to personally welcome you to the Anointed Scribe family. So if you're new here, stay tuned because I truly believe this isn't a coincidence that you decided to click on this episode, but rather a God incidence.

You are exactly where God needs you to be right now because we're about to go deep into what it means to be an anointed writer and how to get your anointing.

And by the end of this episode, I'll also let you in on a little secret. When I tell you the single most important ingredient you'll ever need to turn your next book into your most successful one yet.

Now, in the previous episode, you heard all about the poop filled chocolate brownie, and we talked about recognizing and then stepping into your calling as a Christian writer.

And I told you how God opened my eyes to my motivation and purpose behind my writing and how he completely changed my perspective on my big why.

If you missed it, I'll link that episode in the show notes.

But with today's episode in mind, here's what I wrote in my journal on June 11, 2020.

I'm rising from the ashes.

God has changed my heart.

I used to be a writer.

Now I am a writer with a purpose.

Use me, Lord, for your glory, not mine.

Now remember back in June 2020 when I wrote this entry in my journal, the world was entering lockdown due to Covid, and I had just gone through this massive spiritual transformation in my career where I recognized that God was now calling me into a full time writing career.

But as I told you in the previous episode, at the time I had only just finished my Alex Hunt series, the one I was now supposed to walk away from, remember?

Except I had no idea where to go from here.

All I knew at this stage was that my intention behind my writing had changed.

I was no longer focused on pushing out books for the sake of profit or climbing the ranks or anything else.

I wanted to serve God and His church.

I wanted to not only delight and entertain my readers, but I also wanted to either introduce them to God or draw them into a deeper relationship with God.

I now had a mission, a desire to serve God with my writing, with this gift he gave me.

But I find myself completely lost.

I had no idea how to actually do this.

How do I go from just writing to writing with purpose, to fulfilling this mission that God gave me?

How do I go from being called to being anointed?

Because there is a distinct difference, right?

And as I started to pray about it, God started to answer me. And he revealed something so profound to me. A single element, a single ingredient. That was all I needed to turn my calling into an anointing.

It should have been so obvious to me, except it wasn't.

Because I was so caught up in the business side of things, trying to figure out how I was going to keep my readers.

How was I going to make the transition without losing them?

But before I can tell you what that secret ingredient is, it's important to understand the difference between your calling and your anointing.

Your calling is your invitation from God to participate in a way that brings him glory.

Your anointing is the process that happens when you surrender that calling to God, trusting Him with your purpose.

In other words, your gift gives you the ability to write.

Your calling gives you your identity as a writer, and your anointing gives you your purpose.

When you are called, you set apart to write, gifted by God to write words that will impact lives and build his kingdom.

But being anointed means you are filled with all the fullness of God so that you can faithfully do his work.

Being called to write holds significance on its own. But when God anoints your writing, it becomes so powerful that nothing and no one can stop it.

You suddenly go from being a writer to being an anointed writer.

Because God turns your natural into the supernatural, writing a book to writing a book with purpose, with godly intention, one that is supernaturally propelled by God's power.

But what does that really look like for you and me?

What does it mean to be anointed? And how do you know that you carry God's anointing?

These are the very questions I kept asking God. And so I did what I always do, and I turned to the Bible for answers. And God answered me. In Luke, in Jesus own words, in chapter four, verse 18 and 19, where it says, the Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.

Do you see it? It's right there in Jesus own words.

If you go back one chapter to Luke, chapter three, where we read about Jesus baptism by John the Baptist, it says this. And while he, Jesus prayed, the heaven was open and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon him.

There it is again. Do you see it now?

What we see here is that the Holy Spirit came to do a new work in equipping Jesus for public ministry.

This new work is in relation to his human nature, similar to a prophet or a king, or, wait for it, a writer who receives the Holy Spirit for the purpose of ministry to others.

Man, I tell you, when this penny dropped, everything suddenly came into focus.

The power of God is your anointing.

When the Holy Spirit is within you, you are set aside as holy, sanctified and chosen to fulfill a specific purpose.

When God pours out His Holy Spirit on you, he's backing you, your writing, your Career as an author with divine authority.

Without the anointing, your words are just, well, words.

But with the anointing, with God's power, the Holy Spirit, our written words have the authority and the power to change lives.

The anointing is what makes all the difference when we do things in our own strength and by our own power and wisdom.

Like I did when I wrote my Alex Hunt series. Although the writing was clean and wholesome, it didn't carry any anointing because I hadn't used my gifting yet.

I was relying on my raw talent, my own thoughts and creativity.

Remember what I told you in the second episode, that you are born with a talent to write, but it's only at salvation when you receive the Holy Spirit, that his talent, that this talent becomes your gifting.

Now, I came to Christ in 2002. So at this point, in June 2020, I had already received the Holy Spirit.

But here's where it gets interesting. Dear friend, When I set out to write my Alex Hunt series, I hadn't invited God to be part of my writing.

I never invited the Holy Spirit into my books.

I submitted other areas of my life to him, sure, but not my writing.

My writing wasn't backed by the anointing. It was backed by me and my big why?

My motivation, my purpose, not God's.

I mean, talk about an epiphany, right?

Of course, I now had to repent. And I ended up also going back to the chocolate brownie man I told you about in the previous episode to make things right with him.

And straight away, I turned my entire writing career over to God and I invited his Holy Spirit into my writing.

You see, God wasn't ever looking for my ability.

He was looking for my availability.

He wanted to turn my talent into my gifting so I could step into my calling to fulfill my anointing.

Let me say that again slowly.

God wanted to turn my talent into my gifting so I could step into my calling to fulfill my anointing.

Once the light bulb was switched on, it wasn't complicated at all. And what's more is that my purpose wasn't reliant on me getting a master's in theology or English literature either.

All I needed was the Holy Spirit and to be available for God, a vessel so that his anointing could work through, through me to build, uplift and encourage his kingdom.

And it is out of this understanding that my debut Christian suspense novel, every Good Gift, was born.

And you know what happened?

This book went on to win the silver medal for best Christian fiction that year. And there isn't a day that goes by where I don't get an email from a reader telling me how this book deepened their walk with Christ.

That right there, my friend, is my definition of success.

Mission accomplished. Job well done. And I can almost hear God whisper in you. I'm well pleased.

That's what I strive to hear with every new book I release.

So there it is, dear friend, the secret ingredient to being a successful Christian writer is the Holy Spirit.

This is how you go from being called to write to being an Anointed Scribe.

You don't have to rely on your raw talent.

All you need to do is to invite the Holy Spirit into your writing.

Allow God to use your writing to do what he needs to do through you.

Because when you invite God into your writing, allow his words to spill out onto the pages, you instantly become an Anointed scribe.

And now that you know what the single most important ingredient is to be a thriving Christian writer, may I encourage you to take a step back from your work in progress, whatever you're writing now or planning to write, and spend some time asking God to show you what it is that he has set you apart for inviting into your writing your story, your characters, your non fiction book, your author business, so that your books become more than just words, but a ministry to all who read them.

Because once you have your anointing, you are a writer chosen by God. Meaning that you have free access to the strength, wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit to help you in your author journey.

Make sure you subscribe and follow, because in the next episode, something happened that I never saw coming.

Something that crushed my spirit and made me nearly throw in the towel, yet was so massively transformational that it changed everything about my writing.

And it came when I asked God one simple but loaded what's the point of writing if my books don't sell?

If you want the answer God gave me my make sure you tune into the next episode.

Also, if you want free access to all the tools I personally use every day, you'll find them in my free resource library when you sign up to my newsletter@anointedscribe.com and you can also follow me on Instagram at Anointed Scribe for daily nuggets of inspiration.

And remember, for such a time as this, you have been called to thrive as God's Anointed Scribe. I'll see you next week.

Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Anointed Scribe podcast. I hope you're leaving feeling inspired, encouraged, and on fire to step boldly into your calling as a writer, chosen and set apart to fulfill a unique purpose.

God's Plan if you found value and liked today's episode, would you stop right now and share this episode with someone else who's struggling to balance their faith with building their author career?

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And if you want more, more of the lessons I learned in my personal journey. Good news because I drop new episodes every Friday.

So go ahead and subscribe or follow this show so you don't miss the next one. Then head on over to anointedscribe.com for today's show notes and free access to my entire resource library to keep you rooted and on course.

There's also a link where you can shoot me a message or ask a question. Or if there's a specific topic you'd like me to talk about in a future episode, you can use the message link for that too.

I look forward to our next episode together, and remember, for such a time as this, you have been called to thrive as God's anointed scribe. I'll see you next time.