Thursday, June 2, 2011

Red Pill or Blue Pill?

Alright so these next three blog post are going to be a little different in that I will be covering a movie trilogy. If you didn't guess by the title of this blog, I will covering the Matrix trilogy doing one movie at a time starting with the first one, The Matrix. I assume most people have seen this movie or have heard enough about it that they what is going on but just to be safe I will give you a general summary of The Matrix.

The movie revolves around Neo or Mr. Anderson according to agent smith but that is not really important, what is, is the fact that Neo is "the one". The chosen guy who is going to save all the remaining people that are left on earth. People built machines that were going to help them live but as soon as machines started to gain the ability to think they turned on the humans and started war against them. Now people have retreated underground using large sewer and railroad tunnels to travel around and live in. In order for the machines to keep going they need power, so they use humans for energy, absorbing their energy as they are plugged into the matrix, an alternate reality made by the machines. This matrix amounts to what we live here on earth with everything going like it always has before the machines took over. Neo is eventually brought out of this dream world and brought out to real life where he then can go back into the Matrix only now he has all the freedom that his mind can come up with. He can stop bullets just by thinking about it and he can fly, etc... Just watch the movie if you have not already it is going to make a lot more sense than me trying to briefly describe it.

The thing I want to get into is choice that Neo has to take near thee beginning of the movie. Morpheus, the guy who "sets neo free" gives Neo a choice to take a red pill or a blue pill. The blue pill will make it so that the next morning Neo will wake up believing that all the events with Morpheus were just a dream. If he takes the red pill though Morpheus explains that Neo will stay in wonderland and Neo will be shown just how far the rabbit hole goes.  Basically Neo will be set free and from there Neo will be shown the truth of what the human world is really like. Neo will then be shown that when plugged back into the matrix knowing that he is not attached to it, he can do what he wants, like I mentioned before, stop bullets, fly, etc....

This is going to end very short because I want you to think on this until my next post comes out. Lets say you are given two pills just like Neo, the blue one will keep you where are, just playing church, just going through the motions. If you take the red pill though, God will open his doors for you and you will be able to see just how far the powers of God can go. The choice is your to make now, the choice is for you to think about. Do you want the blue pill or the red pill?

I will post another blog on the second movie and it will go more into what to do when you make that choice assuming you choose to take the red pill. I also do suggest watching The Matrix but be forewarned of the violence and language.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

127 Falls, 127 Retries, 1 Success

Well, it has been quite awhile since I have posted on this blog so this upcoming week, hopefully expect to see several posts to make up for it.

For this post I will be talking about the Movie 127 Hours, the movie dramatization of Aron Ralston's survival story. I will repeat this once again, this is a blog about movies, if you don't want any spoilers, please go and watch the movie first, though be warned this movie is quite graphic and has some intense language. Thank you God for blessing me with an extremely strong stomach. Back on point, for those of you who do not know, Aron Ralston was a nature enthusiast who spent every moment he wasn't working exploring the wilderness. Well on one of his trips he decided to go to one of his favorite places but didn't actually tell anyone where he was going or how long he was even going to be gone. He even decided to let his mom just go to the answering machine just before leaving. On the first day he was climbing down a new canyon and he slipped and fell bringing a boulder down with him. Unfortunately this boulder just happened to land on his right arm pinning it against side of the canyon. To make this 127 hour story short, after long hours of being dehydrated and hallucinating he decided to cut off his own arm in order to survive. Aron still lives today, only without his right arm and continues to explore the wilderness, but has gotten into the habit of telling people where he is going and how long he plans to be gone.

So in relation to the movie we are going to be using the number 127. You might be wondering about the title so her we go. I will be the first to admit and hopefully not the only one to admit that living life as close to Jesus as possible is really hard and I fall down all the time. Some times it hurts and sometimes its on grass but there is some great news, we can always get back up and try again. This is the gift God has given us when he sacrificed his only son so that our sins may be forgiven. You can fall down 127 times, but with each fall you will get a retry. In the end you will have 1 success, eternal life in Heaven with God.

This isn't to say that you can just simply fall down on purpose and expect to be given another chance. When you get back up and try again you have to mean it. You have to want to live for God in everything you do and you will always be given a second chance, a third chance, a 127th chance. Though Aron was not working on living like Jesus we can take example from his determination to live. He survived 127 hours on 1 liter of water, bugs and a determination to live. He survived almost 6 days straight with his arm stuck yet managed to pull through and live.

We need to have this determination in living our life for God. We need to stop pretending and get out there and do something, its time to stop just going through the motions and actually be the church, be the person God has intended you to be and live for God. The God that has bled more blood than you, the God that has shed more love than you. (This last sentence gets credit from Go Project - A Christian Hip Hop group) If he can do so much for us, why can't we do as much as we can for him?

"No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don't stay down long; soon they're up on their feet, while the wicked end up flat on their faces." Proverbs 24:16 from The Message

Its time for you, yes you, the one reading this right now to start living truly for God no matter how many times you fall down. No matter how many times someone tries to put you down, you are going to have to just suck it up and get back up. I like being straight up with people and it seems to work. There is nothing more to this. It is up to you to find this determination. Look to Aron who had the determination and will against a large amount of odds, to finally break down and cut off his own arm to succeed. Though this may be for his life, why can't we have this same determination in living for and towards God? I know this is easier said then done, but it has to be done, so get out and do it.

One final word, if you recall I mentioned that Aron let his mom use the answering machine instead of picking up the phone. Well we can't  do this. In trying to get back up when we fall we have to make sure that God knows where we are going so he can help us get back up. Like all my previous posts, in living for and towards God we also need help from God. You will never be alone as long as you do not turn your back on God. He will always be there to help you, so the next time he calls just as you are leaving, make sure to answer the phone instead of letting it go to voice mail.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

We All Have A Plan

Well its time for another session of God at The Movies and this one I think might come as a surprise. For this blog post I will be talking about The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Like I have mentioned before this blog is about what I learn from movies and how I apply them to my relationship with God, If you don't want spoilers I suggest watching the movie first and especially in this case because The Sorcerer's Apprentice was an awesome movie and I would highly suggest watching it.

So to give you a brief overview of the movie, basically a boy named David becomes the predecessor of Merlin the greatest sorcerer to live until that is he was betrayed and killed by Morgana the evil apprentice of Merlin. Long story short David becomes uber powerful and stops Morgana from destroying the Earth, woot woot!

The lesson to be had from this movie dives deeper into the back story of David. Basically he becomes an outcast at school because of an event that happened with Balthazar (Nicholas Cage) the sorcerer who teaches David how to use magic. So growing up in life David was the nerdy kid who no one really wanted to hang out with and thought that he was just going to be alone to do physics for the rest of his life. That is until Balthazar comes back and changes David's life again only this time to David's surprise, for the better. So what I am trying to pull out of this is that God has a plan for all us even when we things are going down hill, or when crazy random happenstance.... happen. It is all God's plan and it will work out for the better.

This leads me to one of my favorite pieces of scripture.

But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”  Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? Romans 9:20-21

This piece of scripture really helped me with my relationship with God in that I wanted to go all out for God. I see my friends doing all these projects for God, my pastor leading worship and changing peoples lives, and there I was stuck in the back just listening and participating. I wanted to do so much more but it wasn't God's plan for me to do so much more at least not yet. When I came across this verse I knew God was talking directly to me because I had prayed for God to give me something to do that means something but he had. God wanted to use me as a common piece of pottery for now and just in knowing that God is using me at all changed my whole perspective on how I live out my life today. How I take joy in being used by God even if it just a common use.

Yeah I still do want to do more but who am I to talk back to God. God wants me to be apart of my church and spread his word just like every Christian should. I am to be the common piece of pottery until God decides to use me for a special purpose. God has laid out a plan for us all and it is up to us to have faith in that plan and follow it no matter how special or common it is. When you look at the end of the line it will all be worth it to follow his plan no matter what it is when because you get to spend eternal life in heaven with him.

So I guess if you are reading this and you want to pull something out of it, have faith in what God has in store for you and it will turn out for the better. Sure I guarantee there will be times when you question things God has done in your life just like David almost quit and denied being the predecessor of Merlin, but when things got tough, he got back up and continued on the path he had faith in and you know what, it turned out to have a happy ending. Granted this is a movie ending but God does not want to see us fall and live in pain and suffering.

To finish off I do highly suggest watching The Sorcerer's Apprentice even though it could be deemed as a kids movie, overall it was good. I do hope you are enjoying these and please leave a comment letting me know what you think. And thank you for actually taking the time to read these. 

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Let Your Yes Be Yes

Here we go again. So the movie Easy A become available on netflix instant watch so I figured why not. It was surprisingly better than I thought it was going to be and there were lessons to be had all throughout the movie. The one I am going to focus on this time is lying but first let me give you a preview of what the movie is about so that you can have some understanding of what I am talking about. Again this is a blog about movies if you don't want me to ruin the movie I recommend watching it first.

The movie is about a girl in high school who has never been noticed besides by her current friends. When given the chance she makes up a story about a college student she lost her virginity to. Of course this being a movie and high school, the rumor spreads like a wildfire and she goes from being invisible to being known by the entire school. Eventually this led to her creating stories about having sex with people when she really wasn't. The stories helped all the other people around her but she was becoming the person no one wanted to know. Towards the end she finally figured out that now that everyone knows her she feels more alone than ever before because she is hated by everyone.

Long story short, if you keep lying to others eventually those lies will turn on you. In this case the movie turned out to have a happy ending with everything being resolved but life is not always so nice. The lesson that I am taking away from this, well more of reinstating is that of a very common piece of scripture.

"All you need to say is simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one."
Matthew 5:37 NIV

 It is quite simple but in today's society seems one of the hardest to put in place. For as long as I can remember I have seen the media flooded with shows and movies about people who live lies, maybe being a secret agent, affairs, etc... and I think it has an effect on how easy it is for us to lie. It always starts small like saying that you brushed your teeth when you didn't or other similar things that we say when we are younger but the more we get away with the easier it becomes.

Here is a news flash, God knows when you lie and I can tell you he hates it when you try and lie to him. God knows everything you do before you do it so you might as well start with just talking truth to him. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. If you tell God you are going to change then do it.

Lets go backwards on this. Start small with God until it becomes a habit to tell the truth. Start with telling God everything since he already knows it. I guarantee that we have all told lies even if it is clicking the maybe button on facebook event just because you don't want to put no. We do it so easily that now a day we have to add extra words to what we say in order for people to try and believe us. Words like promise have little meaning when we shouldn't have to say them in the first place. So lets go back to the beginning and start a new habit of telling the truth all the time. Do it so often that telling a lie no matter how small feels wrong. How awesome would it be to live in a world what people said is actually what they meant.

This goes hand in hand with my last blog about destroying your surrogate and being who you are. Be truthful with God and your relationship will grow with him. When you start talking the truth you realize how easy it is to go to God and if you start with that you can then move to your friends here on earth. This being that you are having problems with lying. I don't mean obsessive lying but the little lies we tell all the time like telling someone you will be somewhere and not show up. It is the little lies that stack up until we realize that we have no friends that will believe what we say or can rely on us. There is no worse than feeling alone. God will never turn his back on you but don't throw it in his face.

Lets finish up with a recap. This post was based on lies that happened in the movie  Easy A which is not a movie that you have to see but if you having nothing else to watch on netflix instant watch then I would say go ahead. The lesson to take away is to let your yes be yes and your no be no in that your words should be exactly what you mean to say. Lets start by talking truth with God since he already knows it anyways and go from them their until it becomes habit to always tell the truth and not to tell those little lies that will eventually stack up and stab you in the back. Strengthen your relationship with God, then move on to your family and friends. It is better to be known for who you are then who you are not.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Taking Off Your Mask

While I was doing nothing yesterday I stumbled upon the movie Surrogates with Bruce Willis on T.V. I was very skeptical of this move when I first heard of it but after watching it, I thought that it was quite entertaining. To give you a brief summary just in case you have not seen this movie, the world has turned to using Surrogates or robots in which people can control from the safety from their homes or workplace. The only problem is that the surrogates can be altered in any way in appearance that is. This creates a world full of fake people, you may know someone but you have no idea what they actually look like. I hate to do this for people who have not seen the movie but to get all that you can from this blog I have to tell you the ending. By the end of the movie Bruce Willis goes from relying on a surrogate to do his work to destroying every single surrogate across the world.

This is what we as Christians need to do. We need someone to come along and destroy our surrogates, that body that we walk around in that we want people to see. News flash! People don't want to see the fake you, they want to see the real you and so does God. The only part of this that doesn't work is that one person can't destroy all of our surrogates for us but we all must destroy our own. Too often people hide behind what they feel comfortable with and what they think other people want to see and often times that thing they hide behind just brings them down. You shouldn't feel comfortable, we are made to stand out and be uncomfortable. God is always testing and pushing us past our boundaries, so if you feel uncomfortable you are most likely on the right track.

The time is now to take off your mask, destroy your surrogate and just be truthful in who you are. If you have to, start small and just be honest with God. He already knows everything you have done and everything you will do so you might as well use that as a starting point not to mention God loves it when you talk to him as long as it is the true you. I don't know about you but when I started being honest with God in my prayers it seemed like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I had found someone I can talk to about anything and never have them turn their back on you.

"Take note of how I love what you tell me; out of your life of love, prolong my life."

" Your Words all add up to the sum total: Truth. Your righteous decisions are eternal"
Psalm 119:156&160 The Message

I know this is very short and to the point but that is how I like to write and the message I got from this movie and now sharing with you is very to the point. It is simple, just remove your mask and toss your surrogate self aside and just be the real you, the one that God made. Though the steps to get to this point may seem hard and uncomfortable the payoff will be great. So stop pretending to be someone you're not and show off the real you.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post, and I hope I didn't ruin the movie for you but I do recommend seeing Surrogates if you have not already. I will continue to post at least once a week, I don't want to run out of movies too soon.

Intro

Hello and welcome to my new blog God at The Movies. Over the years I have seen thousands of movies but only just recently I would consider myself a true Christian. I am starting this blog to show how I sometimes use movies in order to strengthen my relationship with God. Some movies that I go over may be very obvious like Tron while other may seem like a stretch but in all cases it will come back to helping me with my relationship with God. My hopes in sharing this is that the people who read this will start to look at movies differently and may take in some of the things I have to say. Just like many things in this world, I know some people will enjoy this blog while other will hate it, but please refrain from leaving negative comments, it ruins the blog and all you have to do is just not read it. Thank You for at least taking a look and I hope that you enjoy.