Lies Christian Creatives BelieveНамуна

Lie #6: IT IS OKAY TO COPY OTHERS

Today’s devotion requires some serious deep heart work, and it’s extremely close to God’s heart.

Drawing inspiration from others and studying by imitating the work of others is an important part of a creative's learning process. It’s great to follow tutorial videos and practice what someone else has taught. There’s a vast sea of content that exists on the internet to help you further your skill and become better at your art.

However, plagiarism which is outright copying someone’s work and passing it off as your own without giving credit to them is NOT OKAY. The Bible is quite clear about stealing, and plagiarism is stealing the creativity of someone else.

Somehow, it’s easy to blur the lines with this when creating from inspiration. An inspired artist adds something fresh to their creation, even if they borrow ideas. What they produce at the end always will have their originality adding a new spin on an existing concept. On the other hand, a plagiarist replicates the work of another individual, and often, doesn’t credit them for it.

The enemy specializes in creating cheap imitations of God’s original creative work. Look around you—so many beautiful things God has created, the enemy has attempted to steal and pass off as his own. He wants to tempt you to be lazy and do the same. He wants you to not use the God-given imagination and ingenuity that’s within you to create something unique. He wants you to take the easy way out and not put the hard, honest work in.

Social media platforms where artists share their work have made it even easier to cut, copy, paste, and share with less or no thought to giving credit to the source. Please know that even though no one might find out that your work is copied or stolen, in part or whole, the Lord knows, and He seeks integrity in our hearts. If you honor God and other creatives through your creative process, your work will also be honored.

It’s not too late! If you’ve fallen in this area as a creative, you can come before God today and confess to him and seek His forgiveness. You can amend things and walk in integrity in this area in the days to come!

Let’s Pray Together:

Lord, I repent for not giving credit where credit is due. I repent for stealing ideas and passing them off as my own. I’m sorry that I wasn’t fully honest about my creative work in the past. Help me honor you in this area, Father. I want to create work that is original and imaginative like you! In Jesus name, Amen.

A Creative Prompt:

I encourage you to do this today:

Introspect! How many times have you put out work that someone else should either be credited for or that you shouldn’t have put up at all because part of it or most of it was stolen? Are there posts or creative content you can take down today as an act of true repentance in this area? Is there someone you should apologize to?

As you do this, take time to commit yourself to the Lord and to be an authentic and sincere creative who honors God every day.