Lent – Day 39

It has been a while since I last posted. As to Lent, for the most part I have been successful. Can I say I've been perfect? No, but I can say that the success I have had is only through the grace of God, and the failings I have encountered have only been due to my own sinfil nature coming through.

The study with Setting Captives Free has been focusing on the last words of Christ. This has caused me to think much. One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that no matter how much you may have "head" knowledge of salvation, too often I allow worldly ideas to creep into my way of thinking. Today's lesson really made me think on this.

When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:30 KJV)

The Last action of Christ on the cross was to bowing His head and giving up his spirit. This is God, who is in control of everything! This is Jesus, who spoke everything into existence! This is the Lord of Lords who could have called legions of angels to his defense! This is He who could heal the sick and make the blind see, yet would not heal himself or step down from the cross. All this, Jesus did for me. But this is the thing that stands out today: Even after all that Jesus had done in his earthly ministry, when the time came, He did not call out to God the Father and remind Him of all that he had done in His earthly ministry. Jesus bowed His head, and trusted in God the Father to accept his spirit.

How often do I sit around and make "deals" with God, trying to bargain? How often do I reflect back upon my actions and think "have I done enough to warrant Gods favor?" The answer is that there is no amount of good I could do to earn favor with God. I need to have the same trust in the atonement of Christ alone, and at night, bow my head and just trust in Him.

Movies:

I am going to write about two movies today that I have watched since last time. This First is the Passion of the Christ. When watching this movie on a smaller screen (compared to the theater), something is lost in grandeur. None the less, it is an incredible movie. There are a lot of Catholic over-tones in the film that do not reflect scripture. And Mel Gibson does add other features that are also not in scripture, but over-all, these additions only add to the demonic influences that were in effect. And as brutal as this movie is, it is yet mild. Scripture tells us that Jesus was so disfigured that he did not even appear to be a man (Isaiah 52:14).

Another movie I saw (and recommend) is called Never back Down. This is not a Christian Movie by any means. It is your typical Fight-club style movie. But it does have a lesson that I find important for today's world. The hero of this movie learns that it is easy to blame others for the situation we are in, but the reality is that we are ultimately responsible for how we respond to the situations we find ourselves in.