Greetings Warriors and Scholars!
Last night I watched a few shows with my Mom, including The Librarians and Once Upon a Time. Interestingly, both of these shows focused on darkness or sin in our lives in some form. Some spoilers ahead.
In Once Upon a Time, we find a town panicking as multiple Dark Ones approach townspeople for what you might call tagging them. They are all given a mark targeting them to be pulled down into the Underworld. You see, the Dark Ones can only stay if they are replaced by someone in the Underworld. Somehow, Emma gets through to Killian, who is now one of the Dark Ones. He pulls all of the darkness, from all of them, into himself in an attempt to gather it into one place to be destroyed. I won't tell you here if it worked or not.
We see a different take on sin in The Librarians. They come across a club where people are stricken with consequences of actions they did not commit or experience. A girl who is walking with her friends is thrown several yards and injured as if being hit by a car. A boy almost dies from a drug overdose without taking any drugs. As they investigate this club they meet Dorian Gray. Dorian has taken his ability to pass his consequences on to others and digitized it, using pictures taken of people in the club. He used his own vanity to gain immortality. This way he can live as long as he wants and do whatever he wants with no consequences. There were some other antics to enjoy in this episode, but I won't ruin them for you.
Darkness does exist in real life. You know that, right? We call it other things. We call it "mistakes" or "poor decisions" and once in a while we are honest and call it "sin". The good news for us is that we don't have to worry about beating the darkness. Jesus already did that.
God is not going to settle for us living a life of sin with no consequences. Jesus did not die to turn you into Dorian Gray, but to enable you to repent. Later in Romans, Paul says:
I encourage you to read all of Romans 5 and 6 as it pulls together our faith with Christ's work on the cross to show how we can receive cleansing from Him to live in righteousness.
Last night I watched a few shows with my Mom, including The Librarians and Once Upon a Time. Interestingly, both of these shows focused on darkness or sin in our lives in some form. Some spoilers ahead.
 |
| Found on the "Once Upon a Time" FB page. |
In Once Upon a Time, we find a town panicking as multiple Dark Ones approach townspeople for what you might call tagging them. They are all given a mark targeting them to be pulled down into the Underworld. You see, the Dark Ones can only stay if they are replaced by someone in the Underworld. Somehow, Emma gets through to Killian, who is now one of the Dark Ones. He pulls all of the darkness, from all of them, into himself in an attempt to gather it into one place to be destroyed. I won't tell you here if it worked or not.
 |
| Found on "The Librarians" FB page. |
We see a different take on sin in The Librarians. They come across a club where people are stricken with consequences of actions they did not commit or experience. A girl who is walking with her friends is thrown several yards and injured as if being hit by a car. A boy almost dies from a drug overdose without taking any drugs. As they investigate this club they meet Dorian Gray. Dorian has taken his ability to pass his consequences on to others and digitized it, using pictures taken of people in the club. He used his own vanity to gain immortality. This way he can live as long as he wants and do whatever he wants with no consequences. There were some other antics to enjoy in this episode, but I won't ruin them for you.
Darkness does exist in real life. You know that, right? We call it other things. We call it "mistakes" or "poor decisions" and once in a while we are honest and call it "sin". The good news for us is that we don't have to worry about beating the darkness. Jesus already did that.
"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8Jesus chose to be more like Killian (aka Captain Hook). He accepted a painful death on the cross. Killian deserved the punishment. He had spent years pirating and killing. Jesus had not. Jesus didn't kill anyone or steal from anyone. He chose to come to Earth, give us some instructions about love and respect and responsibility, and then he accepted death to take our spiritual consequences and give us what we don't deserve: access to God the Father and an infilling of the Holy Spirit.
God is not going to settle for us living a life of sin with no consequences. Jesus did not die to turn you into Dorian Gray, but to enable you to repent. Later in Romans, Paul says:
"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning to increase grace? BY NO MEANS! We are those who have died to sin, how can we live in it any longer?" Romans 6:1,2I do think there is a difference between spiritual consequences and natural consequences and I do think we still have to face the natural ones. The Book of James is quite honest about natural consequences of our actions. This repentance thing isn't easy, but reliance upon God helps a lot.
I encourage you to read all of Romans 5 and 6 as it pulls together our faith with Christ's work on the cross to show how we can receive cleansing from Him to live in righteousness.
No comments:
Post a Comment