Last Friday night a group of the youth went and viewed the new PureFlix movie "Do You Believe?' Now if you are not familiar with PureFlix, they produce Christina based films including the recent movie "God's Not Dead".
The movie takes a look at 12 different individuals and how there lives are affected by there interactions with each other.The entire momentum of the movie stems from an interaction with a pastor and a somewhat odd seeming man on the street who is lugging along a huge wooden cross. The gentleman poses the simple but poignant questions: Do you believe in the cross? From the pastor's personal struggle with this question spin numerous interesting story lines. I will say that the movie does bring all these lines together in what many will call too bizarre or coincidental ways. But worrying about the realism of the converging stories misses the point.
The entirety of the film is about how we answer the question Do You Believe? If the answer is yes to this question of belief, we must then face the question that springs forward as a result: So how is it changing your life? In James 2:26 (used in the film) we hear As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
Now as good Lutherans we cling whole heartedly to the idea of salvation through grace alone. Our works have nothing to do with it. Only by God's deep, endless grace and Jesus' death on the cross are we saved. But too often people stop right there with a warped view of grace, which is often called 'cheap grace'.
If one truly understands the gift of grace and believes fully in all that the cross brings us, how can one not be moved to change their life? How can one not be driven to deeds that exemplify the commandments that Jesus gave us in His life? To love one another. To pray for our enemies. To lift up those who persecute us. To clothe the naked. To feed the hungry. Even to the point of giving one's life for another. This is the point of this film. We must be moved and we must be transformed by God's grace.
The movie takes a look at 12 different individuals and how there lives are affected by there interactions with each other.The entire momentum of the movie stems from an interaction with a pastor and a somewhat odd seeming man on the street who is lugging along a huge wooden cross. The gentleman poses the simple but poignant questions: Do you believe in the cross? From the pastor's personal struggle with this question spin numerous interesting story lines. I will say that the movie does bring all these lines together in what many will call too bizarre or coincidental ways. But worrying about the realism of the converging stories misses the point.
The entirety of the film is about how we answer the question Do You Believe? If the answer is yes to this question of belief, we must then face the question that springs forward as a result: So how is it changing your life? In James 2:26 (used in the film) we hear As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
Now as good Lutherans we cling whole heartedly to the idea of salvation through grace alone. Our works have nothing to do with it. Only by God's deep, endless grace and Jesus' death on the cross are we saved. But too often people stop right there with a warped view of grace, which is often called 'cheap grace'.
If one truly understands the gift of grace and believes fully in all that the cross brings us, how can one not be moved to change their life? How can one not be driven to deeds that exemplify the commandments that Jesus gave us in His life? To love one another. To pray for our enemies. To lift up those who persecute us. To clothe the naked. To feed the hungry. Even to the point of giving one's life for another. This is the point of this film. We must be moved and we must be transformed by God's grace.