Years ago I received a chain message in my e-mail that had to do with a student who stood up for God to his philosophy professor. Now, years later there is actually a movie in theaters that is telling a similar story that is showing up in colleges all the time and there are students taking a stand for their faith.
God's NOT Dead!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gods-not-dead/id721244180
Newsboys came out with a record titled God's Not Dead, a few years ago. The cover is black and white, and seems to be a period piece from the 1900s. The picture alone gets you thinking, as people are busy going about their daily lives, and there is a boy, and at first glance it looks like he is holding up a unrolled sign that states "God's Not Dead" and below it, the sign says World News. Which then leads me to realize that he isn't just holding up a sign, but is a mail boy showing the newspaper headline that "God's Not Dead". Looking at the picture most of the faces look like they have lost hope, are down-trodden, exhausted, busy and not in a good mood, yet the words give hope.
It makes you stop and think of our world, and how as a whole it seems that we've lost hope, faith, and belief in God. The world currently seems to preach that we don't need a God and that us ourselves are our own god. Everything we do should benefit us and help us excel. It teaches revenge because then you can get back at others who have done you wrong, why be nice to those who are mean to you etc. I was recently at a movie and there was a preview for a movie called The Purge 2, and the concept of the first movie and this new one is that for an hour on a certain day, everything that normally is illegal becomes legal...which you can only guess what that means, mass murder, drugs, sex, theft and so much more. I was shocked and my first reaction was why would people want to go see that. I thought about it and can see the appeal of survival in why people would want to see it, but it's just such a dark concept and I really hope that this never becomes a reality.
It also breaks my how the Golden Rule is losing importance. Earlier this year I was doing an impromptu lesson on bullying, which included discussing "tattle-talling" and "non-issue" incidences. I mentioned turning the other cheek in different situations, instead of verbally or physically fighting back. I talked about the Golden Rule. Later in the year, I had two boys saying words at each other, and both ended up getting in trouble, but one didn't understand what he did wrong, because his parents taught him, that if someone is doing something to you, you do the same thing back. That idea, in my opinion, is going to make things worse. At church I work with a group of girls, the same age I teach. In my little Quest group, we've been discussing the Fruit of the Spirit. I remember we were specifically talking about kindness one night, and we talked about turning the other cheek, walking away from an argument, and the phrase "kill 'em with kindness," and they got it. It's amazing how when you put Christ into the equation things click and make sense. I told these stories to just emphasize how the world, even with pre-teens preaches that God is dead, when in fact HE is not!
I want to say about a year ago I saw a trailer for this new movie that would be coming out called "God's Not Dead" and I got so excited. I immediately was excited for this message and story to be shared with others, and for people to know He is in fact very alive! Now it is in open in less than 800 theaters throughout the country, and I was fortunate enough to be able to go this past weekend (opening weekend). I currently live in a big metropolitan area, where theaters seem to pop up everywhere so I was surprised and joyful when I saw that we had a packed house! I also just saw the title of an article saying that this movie has made history, I saw a meme on Facebook at one point over the weekend saying it was #2 in the box office, I'm not sure where it fell by the end of the weekend, but God is moving and working right now! God is far from dead!
The story follows a freshman college student, Josh Wheaton, who signs up for a philosophy class and is warned not to take it due to the person noticing his cross neckless and possibly Newsboys shirt. He decides to take it anyway, and on the first day of class the professor asks each student to write "God is dead" and sign the piece of paper to avoid all the "religious" debates and just focus on philosophy. Josh sees everyone in the class writing those three little, yet detrimental words down, you can tell Josh is going back and forth on this, as the professor threatened to make your life pretty much a living nightmare if you didn't sign it. He realized he couldn't do it, and decided to take on the challenge of the professor to prove the opposite. The book also introduces many different stories of different people and their struggles to finding out you have cancer, to being a Christian in a Muslim family, to broken relationships, to how two grown children treat their mother who has Alzheimer's, to the comic relief of the pastor and missionary friend's car not being able to start. There is a cameo by Will and Korie Robertson of Duck Dynasty, and of course the movie wouldn't be complete without an appearance of the band behind the song...Newsboys!!
I love Christian movies, sadly oftentimes they get a bad wrap for being to cheesy, because many are done on a low budget, but this movie personally blew me away. I've thought of it so much since seeing it and encourage others to see it as well! It has a great message, and the main character, Josh, presents his side in a very respectful way, and doesn't try to shove it down anyone's throat, he doesn't have an attitude about it, you can tell he's genuine about it. I learned so much from watching the debate sections and hope many did. I've done a lot of reading of reviews and stats on the movie the past week. I can't remember where I saw this, but there was even an atheist who left a comment on a page saying a group of them from their "atheist church" went to the movie to make fun of it, but left in thought. As Christians, I pray that we can pray for those going to see the movie, whether they are Christian or not. I just want to pray that the movie touches others, and people will grow in their faith, learn how to stand up for their faith better, for those who don't believe to be convicted and curious about God and our faith, and hopefully come to Him. I pray those who walk out of the theater will leave proclaiming "God's Not Dead!"
At the end of the movie they gave everyone the challenge to text everyone in their phones three simple words: God's Not Dead. I'm going to challenge you further, put it on Facebook, tweet it, share the blog, the trailer, and article, the song. I personally didn't send out a text for a couple reasons, but I tweeted the message, and got to have a cool conversation with others about it. Then I decided to blog and that will be posted very shortly, but I encourage you to take advantage of social media and share the message with others, one way or multiple ways. It doesn't have to be mess text messages, just join the movement one way or another! God Bless and remember:
"God's NOT Dead"
