The Book of Eli is about a man traveling across the country to
fulfill a calling. During the thirty years of his mission he encounters other
survivors of the world’s devastation, but he stays out of their affairs at all
costs. For his mission he has been endowed with a gift, which he uses very
brutally for the sake of his directive.
Eli has been traveling for thirty years and
has read the same book every day during that time. At the end we find out that
not only has he read the book from cover to cover he has memorized every word.
The story, he reveals to us when he tells a
girl that he got so caught up in reading the book and protecting it, that he
forgot to live by what it says in the book.
When he finally knew the book as well as he
could, and he memorized it during the thirty years, only then could he
understand the underlying message of the book as a whole rather than individual
chapters, pages, or stories. It’s a movie so they never mention the most
important theme and purpose of the book that Jesus came to save us.
While it cost him his life, in the end he
tried to save someone, other than himself or the book. During those thirty
years, he only saved one lost soul.
Eli’s book was a King James Version of the
Bible printed in braille. Even after he knew everything about the book he was
not putting it to use, believing that it was meant for someone else to use for
the good of mankind.
It is so easy for us to get caught up in
fixing ourselves first, that we can forget that we just need to try. We become
afraid of failure, so much so that we get caught-up in our own betterment. Be
aware that we will fail. It is the act of trying that sets those few apart from
the rest of the world.
Like Eli, we are all given a gift to share
the word of God with the world, and like Eli we often get caught-up more in the
quest, and forget to share with others what was given to us freely.
Perhaps we even believe a little, that just
the simple act of reading the Bible makes everything right in the world. We can
know and even believe something without putting it to use for the good of anyone
else. Unshared knowledge is useless knowledge.
We are not asked to save everyone from
hell, we are only asked to try, and then maybe help save some. The act of
obedience is all that is really required of us.
We cannot save ourselves, we can’t even come close. If you don’t
believe me try going to heaven for a little while and come back to tell us all
how it was. No, don’t try, you can’t.
I for one have never really liked the Old
Testament. The truth is that it is meant to show us that we don’t deserve God’s
grace and we have absolutely no chance of earning our way to heaven. No one
wants to believe that they are not good enough.
It is about how man has always failed and will
always fail.
The New
Testament is the story of Jesus’s love for his children and the extent to which
he is willing to prove it by sacrificing his own blood as payment for our
unworthiness.
The Bible
as a whole is that we do not want God to be fair with us, because we will
always fail. It is only by God’s compassion and love for those who choose to
love Him, of their own free will, that they can share in the grace of
salvation. Grace is a gift that has been given to us, despite the fact that we
do not want it, cannot earn it, and we do not even deserve it.
We should
care about what God cares about, if for no other reason than, that God cares
about it. God cares about people and their love for Him.
God
deserves our love and devotion, we do not deserve anything, yet He gives, of a
giving spirit.
Any and
all gifts received from the spirit of God, no matter how diversified, are
designed for the sole purpose of sharing the word of God to the entire world.
The Bible
is just a book filled with merely words; it is that they are God’s words that
are what is important. Man can write great things with great words, but they
are not God breathed. Without God, The Bible is just a book about living a
better life. The Bible is not to be worshiped, it is not God; it is only an
object.
Do what
matters.
Do
whatever, just do it for the glory of God.
God is
glorified by your getting involved and making a difference. God doesn’t need
your help, people do.
Why is accepting the grace of Jesus so hard for so
many?
No one wants to need, to be saved by someone else.
I think that the bible does focus a lot on giving up
one's self, and loving and serving others more than yourself. Perhaps, until we
give up our selfishness; selfish pride and entitlement; we cannot be filled by
the Holy Spirit enough to accept that we are not great enough to save
ourselves. We do need to be saved, and until we come to terms with it and admit
it, we are lost.
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