"...and don't think you'll find some Macgyver way to get outta here!"*

*Theodore Bagwell to Michael Scofield in Prison Break (s.4, ep.7)

dude, I gotta stop doing this... staying up this late I mean.

Ok, so, the other night I went to see this movie at the theater in Ppl's Plza... and I went by myself at 10pm. Yeah. That was fun. And there were like, 4 other people in the cinema. All kids my age or a little younger. (Couldn't have been too young--it was a rated R movie). Anywayzzz....
The movie I went to see was called Blindness, and I went mostly to 'see' (haha...ok moron, get on with it) what the movie had to offer from a medical perspective. Besides some nudity (which I've seen before), and a couple somewhat explicit sex scenes (which I haven't), there wasn't much that the movie had to offer in the medical genre.
But the spiritual impact the movie had on me was astounding.

Yeah, I'm super weird, but pleez...lemme explain myself...if I may.
The movie poses the hypothetical senerio of what if the everyone in the world went blind? Well, we would be desperate, to say the least. We would be trying to depend on:
1.) ourselves, dispite the fact that we are newly blinded, and have no training or guidance of any kind, and
2.) other people who are in the exact same position as us.

What I'm trying to say is, our world is exactly like this hypothetical world in the movie.
Check out Revelation 3:17 about the church of Laodicea: "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked."
I would use these terms to describe the people I saw in the movie Blindness. They were poor. They had no food. Actually, they were so desperate that they would exchange sex for food. They were wretched, pitiful, and some of them were quite literally naked. All this was caused by the fact that they went blind.
Whoa! How true is it in this world!!??

The church of Laodicea was an actual church, but this particular church also symbolized the unsaved church. They were lukewarm. Neither hot nor cold. And Christ was so fed up with them that He was about to just spit them out (verse 15-16). But even though they were disgraceful in every way, Jesus still loved them. In verse 20, He pleaded with them to open the door of their hearts and let Him in.

Before we are saved, before we come to know Christ in a personal way, we are exactly like the people in this movie. We think we can see, but we actually are blind to the truth. We are poor, although we think we are rich. We are wretched and pitiful. We are naked. We try to lead each other around, but we get nowhere fast. We are confined to this world. There is no escape. We are desperate, wreched, lonely, damned individuals. There is no hope.

We are totally dependent on the one person who can save us from our desperate situation. That person is Jesus Christ.


Yes, yes, I got all this from a movie. Would I recommend the movie? Um... maybe. But you can reap just as much insight, if not a whole heck of a lot more by reading the Bible ;)

yay Jesus!

Harvest Crusade '08

Dude, sooooo awesome.
Ok, so the Harvest Crusade was this past weekend in Philly, and I went all three nights. It was totally amazing. In all there were more than 3,300 decisions for Christ made. I got to see amazing bands like MercyMe, Katinas, tobyMac, Kutless, and Jeremy Camp! It was so awesome. Greg Laurie gave the gospel message every night, but focused on different things each night. Saturday night, he focused on Hell, and how those who do not repent and follow Jesus Christ will spend eternity there.

Last night (Sunday), was the best night though. Worship was absolutely amazing. Greg talked about this Pharisee guy named Nicodemus in John 3 who came to Jesus at night. Nico kinda hinted that he thought Jesus might be the Messiah, the One whom the prophets foretold, but he didn't want to outright say it. It was a huge deal for the Jews to label someone the Messiah.
Jesus answered, telling him that a man cannot see the kingdom of God unless he is born again, meaning being born of the spirit (v. 8).
Nico was a bit puzzled at this, and Jesus tried to simplify it saying, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone believes in him may have eternal life" (v.14-15).
Jesus continued with the presentation of the gospel with the well-known verse, John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not parish but have eternal life."

Greg Laurie gave the gospel message, and a whole bunch of people came down to the floor to accept or recommit their lives to Jesus. I got to talk to a couple of young teenage girls on Saturday night, and an older woman last night. I even prayed with the woman last night. It was awesome. I'm totally stoked. I have some great ideas for ministry and evangelism here in Newark. The one thing that I do have some trouble with is talking to people on the streets. It's not easy, but it's a great spiritual exercise, as well as a fulfillment of Christ's command of the Great Commission in Mark 16.