The movie, The Fifth Element, is a syfy adventure tale that weaves you through the fight of good vs. evil. In the story a local cab driver in a much more modern world (flying cabs) has a girl fall into his cab. This girl is the missing link to a powerful weapon for good. Evil is approaching the world and the more violent people act to stop evil, the bigger it gets. The conventional weapons of fighting seem to only irritate evil and makes it approach the planet even faster. Many years earlier some priests had preserved an element that would make all the other elements work together to fight evil, should it come. Well, here it is and it is time to release this "fifth element" to fight the approaching evil. The evil that is coming has enlisted some killers to destroy the needed fifth element and they think they have done it. But there was just enough of the essence of the element left for scientists to rebuild it and it takes on the form of a woman. Back to the cab driver. The cab driver is a former special forces fighter and his expertise helps keep the element (girl) alive until she can gather the other elements together to unite them to stop evil with the power of good. A priest named Cornelius has been waiting for years to see the fifth element work for good, but when it comes down to it he doesn't even know how the element is supposed to work. His knowledge of the elements function is elementary at best and that knowledge is inadequate for the huge task at hand. The task being "saving the world!"
All of the characters involved get in on the adventure and all try to make the stones work wth the fifth element, but to no avail. Finally, the priests apprentice accidentally blows on one of the elements and it opens, ready to respond to the other elements. One by one they activate all of the other elements and now they are primed and ready to go, but now the "fifth element" (girl) is not responding to the need to stop the evil from destroying the world and time is running out. In reality all she needed was a reason to be activated and in the movie the reason was love. Of course, this is just a movie. But the parallels to scripture are quite interesting. In Hebrews 6:1 the author challenges believers to get beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and move into spiritual "Big Macs" and beyond. It is evidenced in this scripture that there is a need to not only know about Christ, but know the inner workings of Christ's teachings. Why? First of all, they are the essence of pure truth. Secondly, the teachings about Christ help us know how to live our lives and how to access the power of God. Think about. How can we handle evil without the pure truth of the Word? We can't!! True Christian maturity has a learning curve, but the holder of the curve, the Holy Spirit, shows us exactly what we need to do to follow Christ and grow in the grace so freely given to us. The sad part is when it comes to activating our faith to do something with God's help, we can't figure out what to do. Just like the priest Cornelius, we can go our whole life knowing about Christ and His great power, but when it comes to using it and activating it, we cannot seem to figure it out. The Wisdom of God from His Word will give us everything we need to activate that power and thus see God's hand move in a mighty way to not only defeat evil, but energize us for good works. Ok. You may say. Who is our fifth element? Of course, it is the Holy Spirit! In Ephesians 5:18 Paul writes, "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead be filled with the Spirit." The word debauchery means (def) excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures. We need to be filled with the Spirit of God, not alcoholic spirits. One leads to debauchery, the other leads to Christ. I know I have gone far too long not tapping into this power from God that will defeat evil in my life and empower me to do great and mighty things for Jesus. The power is real, but not found in elementary Christianity. It is activated when we take a deeper walk with God through His Word and allow the scriptures to come alive in our spirit. Peter realized this power and the effect of it in Acts 4:8 when he spoke to the elders of the church and challenged them to change their ways. They were questioning by what power the disciples were seeing these great miracles happen. Peter said it was the power of God and that the very one they rejected, Jesus, was the one who had empowered them to do these great things. Perhaps we need to stand firm in the power of God and challenge the "norms" of church life to account for the lack of true commitment to God's Word and God's commission and start praying for God to move in an extraordinary way despite the apathy in our leaders. Maybe the evil is closer than we think and we need to find our fifth element, the Holy Spirit, and allow Him to move in our midst and believe God for a great awakening. Perhaps we should move away from elementary teachings about faith and salvation, and move into deeper waters where God can use our faith to move mountains. Perhaps we need to pray for the element we are missing right now, the Holy Spirit, to shake up our world and our churches and flow freely in revival and renewal in our land before it is too late. We have found that bickering and fighting in churches only makes the evil stronger, but true love will meet evil at the door and reject it and God will once again be seen in the lives of His people. I hope this scripture is an encouragement and not an indictment to you. 1 Corinthians 2:14 "The person with the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit." Time to quit holding God back and set Him free through the Holy Spirit and pray He will come alive in our lives. He is the element we are missing.
The Pilgrimage continues.....
David Warren
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