Overcomer
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| (Image: overcomermovie.com) |
I had the privilege of watching the recent Kendrick Brothers movie “Overcomer.” I have enjoyed their movies in the past, but “Overcomer” is by far their best production. There is much in Overcomer to talk about having now seen it, but there are two things that I saw in the advertisements that caused me to go see the movie: First, I am a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ and I knew through the advertisements that Overcomer was a Christian movie; however, I must admit that I am usually leery of supposed Christian movies because they do not all contain sound theological doctrine. Second, I knew through the advertisements that the main character in the movie was a cross-country runner and cross-country running was my sport in high school. I transitioned to road running after high school; to the honor and glory and praise of God I am still running thirty-two years later.
Overcomer, however, is not a movie about cross-country running, it is a movie about overcoming the world (sin) through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The scriptural basis for the movie is 1 John 5:5, “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
I am not going to give you a summary of the movie, you would be better served by seeing the movie yourself, but I would like to talk about some of the doctrine in the movie. When the lead character (Hannah) repented and received our Lord Jesus Christ by faith alone, her high school principal who had just preached the gospel to her and exhorted her to repent and believe further instructed her: “Hannah, there is something that I want you to do. In the New Testament, in the book of Ephesians, read the first 2 chapters and write down everything that the scriptures say you are in Christ Jesus. Will you do that?” Note that the principle instructed Hannah to do this exercise after she received our Lord Jesus Christ by faith alone and not before.
I came home after watching Overcomer and did the exercise that the high school principal instructed Hannah to do. I read the first 2 chapters of Ephesians and wrote down everything that the scriptures say we are in Christ Jesus. Therefore, to conclude this post, I am going to write these out for you in consecutive order because I was blessed by doing this exercise in the Word of God.
In Christ Jesus:
We are blessed by God in the heavenly places. We were chosen by God before the foundation of the world. We are holy and blameless before God. We are adopted by God. We were predestined for adoption as His children through Jesus Christ by the kind intentions of His heart. We are loved by God for He calls us His beloved. We are redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ which means that we are not an accident, He had to plan our redemption. We are forgiven by God according to the riches of His grace. Having believed, we are sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit. We were all previously dead in our trespasses and sins, but God made us alive together with Christ. Like Christ Jesus, we were once dead, but we have been resurrected from the dead. Not only did God raise us from the dead but He has seated us in the heavenly places. We are therefore saved from sin and death. We are created by God for good works. We are citizens of heaven and as His adopted children we are of God’s very own household. (Eph 1,2)
