Movies and "Lordship Salvation"

a)
Some of you are pretty tired of the Sex and the City discussion, so maybe you were a little worried by the title of this blogpost. Don’t worry, that’s not what today’s post is about.

First, although I’m not sure if its wise to post too many personal details on the internet, my sister’s working part-time at a video store. It’s a real small place on Viewmount called Squirrel Video. However, the place comes up as Dead Squirrel Video on call display and google. I assume the owner has an interesting sense of humour. Other evidence of this is that the place has 20 copies of 27 Dresses and a prominent Kevin Smith (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) section. Smootchie-bootchie.

Anyways, point is, it’s real small and unless it sells crack, it probably needs more customers. So feel free to go rent Men in Black 2, get a milkshake, and buy some popcorn. You are contributing to my sister’s continual employment. It’s at the corner of Chesterton and Viewmount next to the Quickie (just West of Bethel Pentecostal).

While on the topic of movies, you can now see almost all of Siskel and Ebert and Roeper’s film reviews streaming online at their website. I don’t actually watch a lot of movies, but I love hearing people talk about them. So interesting. Did you know that Ebert gave thumbs up to Garfield? And he gave a bigger thumbs up to Garfield 2: Tale of Two Kities. Good times…

BTW, you can rent both movies at Squirrel Video

b)
A big issue I think God’s given me insight into this year has been Sanctification. Before this year, I realized a few things:

- God demands that someone die to self when they become a Christian (Mark 8:34-35 and tonnes of other verses)
- When God comes into someone, they will necessarily change so that their lives will be proof of their salvation. (James 2:18 and tonnes of other verses)
- Saving faith is accompanied by true repentance (Luke 3:3 and tonnes of other verses)

But it has only been this year that I’ve understood how those things work together.

When God brings conviction and changes someone’s heart, they will have supernatural repentance that necessarily results in “Lordship”. Therefore, real repentance leads to real Lordship which leads to real change in action. So, the question of “Lordship Salvation” is really a question about whether people show genuine repentance.

I am now seeing that in evangelism, we need to see that people show genuine repentance. That means asking “Is this person actually sounding like they hate their sin, and want to turn from it to a Loving Saviour?” I’m afraid I’ve done a lot of evangelism without asking myself that question.

To hear people who have spent years talking about this stuff, listen to Paul Washer and, as Peddy affectionately calls him, Mac (after the first question).