Our Object of Need

The plot of every movie advances because of one thing – the object of desire. Sometimes it’s a pretty girl, sometimes it’s a map to hidden treasure, and sometimes it’s a medallion that tells the location of a lost artifact. Whatever it is, it’s always one step away from being the object of NEED. You want the map, but you need the treasure; you want the medallion, but you need the artifact; and in more serious dramas, you want the pretty girl, but you need to discover the beauty of single life. In the Bible, we want righteousness, but we NEED the Holy Spirit.

In Exodus, God gives Moses the object of desire – THE LAW (The Ten Commandments on a very cinematic stone tablet.) For the rest of the Old Testament, everyone is pursuing the law in order to be righteous. But of course, the law is one step short of what they all need – The Holy Spirit. Are you following me?

So what does Jesus do? He FULFILLS the law (Matthew 5:17). He’s the one perfect man in all history, and the only one who is fully righteous. How is he the only one? He has the Holy Spirit within himself (Mark 3:29-30). But what does he do? He willingly sacrifices his life so that we can attain the object of need. Sound familiar? It’s because you saw Obi-Wan Kanobi do the same for Luke in STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE, and you saw Bumblebee do it for Sam in TRANSFORMERS, and you saw Gandalf do it for Frodo in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Thanks to Obi-Wan, Luke has the force; Thanks to Bumblebee, Sam has the Allspark, and thanks to Jesus Christ, we have the Holy Spirit. Pretty freaky, huh? And guess what – all of these characters resurrected in some way or another.

(As a writer/filmmaker/novelist, you ARE a prophet, whether you know it or not).

What’s my point? My point is (and always will be) this – the Word of God is sharper than we can imagine. Everything within it has profound meaning, and God wrote every word. More than that, we are still in the story, and the road ahead has a little plot-point known as "the climax". So live your life with the full armor of God…

...At the end of the day, you’ll either be a Jedi who helps the rebels defeat the empire, or you’ll be a Decepticon that is conquered by the forces of good (but is impossibly and impractically resurrected in the POS sequel that nobody likes half as much as the first one, but everyone goes to see because they didn’t know any better, weeding out the true fans of film and leaving the third installment to the dim-witted action-buffs who are vainly obsessed with the 2012 Camerro.)

-Phil