Season 3 of Geek Devotions has begun, and we are doing it with a special live event! Today we are talking about the importance of going to church, doing a Q&A, and a giveaway!!
If you haven’t seen Ready Player One, we do want to warn you that there will be spoilers to the film in this devotional/episode.
In the movie, Wade and friends are on the search for an egg left by the creator of the game called Oasis. Whoever can get their hands on the egg, gets the majority stock holdings of the company and has the power to do whatever they want within the game. Throughout the movie one prevailing theme keeps coming up, you need connection with people IRL. (“IRL” stands for “In Real Life.” It’s a standard abbreviation for people in the digital world)
The movie ends as you would expect, our heroes find the egg and defeat the bad guys. It is what they do with their newfound responsibilities, however, that we found interesting. They decided to shut the game down twice a week, to force people to spend time with each other IRL.
We realise that this may sound ironic coming from a ministry that is almost wholly based on building relationships with people here in the digital world; YouTube, Facebook and other social media platforms. (Just dated the article with that statement) The reality is that we all need to have people in our lives who are there to encourage, challenge, and guide us in our faith; face to face.
Take a look at the following verse found in Hebrews 10:24-25
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
The writer of Hebrews is encouraging his readers to do a few specific things.
- We really need to put work into finding a way to encourage each other to love more and to do good works.
- We need to stop relying on just ourselves and get connected with other people on a regular basis.
We, as followers of Jesus, need to be challenging each other to love others (not just other Christians but the lost too) and spurring each other on to do good things. He’s not saying you need to brag about what you do to make others jealous and try to outdo you. What he is saying is that you should bring others along with you as you serve your community. You need to let them serve alongside you. Doing this may cause them to realise a God-given dream to serve in their own way!
The only way for us to do this and do it well is to have a community of believers that we see IRL on a regular basis. Far too often people make excuses such as “All I need is my faith and Jesus” or “You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” While technically you’re right, you can’t be an excellent victorious Christian without having a body of believers who are there in your life to encourage you and challenge you.
Our challenge for you this week is to get connected with people in real life. Find a local body of believers and become invested in that community. If you haven’t yet begun the process of developing close friends who are secure in their faith with Jesus Christ. Friends who you’ll allow to speak into your life.
We go even more in-depth on this subject in the actual episode. Click the video above to hear more. Also, click the links below to check out our brand new Patreon page and our new T-shirt Design!
