24

I made this blog for the purpose of spiritual encouragement and discipleship. I realize that for many of you, a countdown to the new 24 TV movie coming out this Sunday, that bridges the gap between season six and the upcoming season 7 wouldn't fit. It may not, in the traditional sense, but what I enjoy about 24 is the journey.

It isn't like most shows that there is an in discriminant amount of time that passes between each episode. Each episode is 1 hour of one day. The next show picks up in the next hour. There are 24 shows, making up 24 hours, completely relevant to the title of the show. Now it has been near 15 years since the first season in the shows time-frame, but it still packs a punch.

I tried to start something like this show in college. 24 Episodes but they would have a christian theme. We're talking spiritual warfare as much as physical. I thought that would be really cool. We never really got off the ground with it, I just mostly stuck with comedy, but I think about counter-terrorism in the every day life of the Christian.

Whether we have wars at home or abroad, we are always at war with the enemy, Satan. I know so many people deny He exists, thinking that really means a. He doesn't or b. they have some power over him if he does, but as they say "that is why you fail."

Some people try to counter it with, well the Devil may exist but I believe in God. Ok, so? Even the demons believe in God, and cringe. Do you believe in JESUS? Cause if you don't, then you don't know God, no matter what you think you believe in.

But we have a battle, all the time. It's a battle most often for the mind. What choices will we make? You may think the mind doesn't have a lot to do with it, but that's where it all starts. It's the initial thoughts. Now, a thought that you may have that's bad, isn't sin. It's something that pops into your head. You then face a choice, will you hold that thought captive, asking Jesus to help you remove it, or let it sit, and dwell. When you dwell you sin. Next, when you dwell, you allow the tought to take shape, and that readily leads to actions based on those thoughts.

Tell me the mind doesn't control the scope of the battlefield. The mind IS THE BATTLEFIELD. And when the mind is lost to sin, so goes the Battle.

BUT, How wonderful it is, that those of us who know Christ, have a mighty warrior leading us. Yea, we may lose some battles time to time in our mind, but His life, death, burial, and resurrection make us sure that we will NOT lose the WAR.

Kind of like an episode of 24, every hour of every day, we have a fight against the terrorists of this world, whether physical or spiritual. Along with that fight we have choices that either make us more like them, or more like Christ. Some battles we win, some we lose, but ultimately with Christ as the head, the VICTORY is ours!

That's something to celebrate indeed!

-Brian