Today's Devotional

 

January 30, 2008

                                                                             

Subject:   American Gangsters (Christian Version)

1 Corinthians 6:9 - 11 "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."

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I waited quite awhile after the Denzel Washington movie American Gangster opened, before I went to see it.  As a matter of fact it was already gone from most theaters.  After seeing it, I began to dialogue with friends and relatives to see how many others had seen it.  I was most dismayed.  My dismay had nothing to do with the number of people who had or had not seen it.  I was dismayed at the fact that 100% of the people who had seen it, saw it illegally.  That is, they saw it on bootleg DVDs which are stolen versions of the movie.   Many of these friends and relatives are professing believers and as I asked them about "stealing" these movies, they all had a justification on why it was okay.  One relative said that it came free with a haircut.  This is sad.

People this is not proper conduct for believers.  This is exactly what Paul is talking about in the letter to the Corinthians.  Thievery along with all of the other sins described simply don't fit us as believers.  That's how we used to be before we knew what Christ was about.  

Today I pray that this will convict those who have chosen the Christ way, because God really doesn't have any Gospel Gangstas.  If we're stealing anything, we're stealing unbelievers from the hand of Satan and we do that by living like Christ.  

Carlen