I have watched it before.. like actually, i've watched it MANY times...it's kind of ridiculous! but this was prob the first time I've watched in the past 4 years and man.. it was good!
I remember watching the movie, and this one character named "Cruz" always sort of annoyed me! and when i was watching it today, yes, he was annoying and irrational, but watching him was interesting!
In the beginning of the movie, Cruz sees coach carter, and the contract he's making the whole team sign and says "I'm out"!!! Although the contract was for HIS benefit, he didn't want to have to follow the rules...he just wanted to have fun playing basketball and have freedom to do whatever he felt like doing! Sort of like us! How we see the gospel, we know deep down it's good for us... but we just say.. no way man, the bible is so restricting!... getting to know God is too much work... I want to be my own ultimate authority... God is not just/loving...etc...! and we ditch, we go like "I'm out"!!!
Later on, Cruz goes to their first basketball game, to see how crappy they do, but instead, they win!!!! and he wants to get back onto the team! not because he sees value in the contract or future, but because he sees that the team is doing well and he shouldn't have left it! He goes to practice and finds out he has to do an impossible task!! 1000 suicides and 2500 pushups.. or somethign like that in a limited amount of time! He does as much as he can and eventually doesn't finish! But with the help of his teammates, he makes it back into the team! This sort of reminds me of the person who sees Christianity through the eyes of the prosperity gospel! They see some Christians doing well off and go like "i wanna be part of that" and just like Cruz, they'll "do" things so that they can be part of the church or christianity...but their roots are shallow!
Once cruz really realizes the intensity of the contract, he ditches again! he says "i did all this for you (talking about the suicides)" and talked about how he like... died...and how the contract was bs because he didn't care about doing well in school! Going off those legalistic/prosperity gospel-minded people, when trials happen, when they realize that CHRIST suffered and we will suffer as well, when they realize that the world HATED Christ and the world will hate us too, they say "I did this, I did that for YOU, and you give me this!?" and instead of going into prayer, and preparing themselves for the battle, they fall and break! they don't think they deserve what they are getting because of everything they did! Their hearts resist and they "fall away"...their soil was shallow (Mark 4)
Now we are getting to the beautiful part of the story. Cruz starts to take pleasure and find joy in drugs instead of basketball. He relies on his cousin and falls away.. then his cousin gets shot! He then realizes that he doesn't want that life! He realizes that everything he's been pursuing is meaningless and won't bring him anywhere except to jail or even death. He goes to Coach Carter's home at night and starts begging!!! he goes like "WHAT DO I GOTTA DO TO BE ON THE TEAM?!" and at that point, Coach Carter embraces him with a hug and says, "nothing, just come in!" He doesn't deserve to be on the team, if anything, it'd be something like 5000 suicides and 10000 pushups in 1 day or something, but that didn't matter to Coach Carter at the time! He extended grace, embraced this young man, and told him to come in! and booom!! the Gospel! The point when God changes our hearts and we are like, GOD, I want to know you, I want your gift, "what do I gotta do?" and he says, "My Son has already done everything for you. You don't need to do anything! You just need to confess your sins and believe in me"! that point when we realize that there is nothing we can do for God! We can do all the good we can think of for an infinite amount of time, and that would not be enough to cover for our smallest sin! We deserve punishment/death!!! (Romans 6:23) yet, God extends grace to us, and embraces us with a hug!! :)
ya! sorry if it's not very succinct, but yeah! just a lot of jumble in my mind!
Prayer: To continually be reminded of the gospel and what Christ did for us! To be reminded of His grace and that knowing/loving Him would be my number 1 priority in life!
Jireh!
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