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Breakthrough (2019) Christian Movie Review + Practical Lessons for Believers


Patient died

Mother prayed

Patient came back to life”

I’d like to start by thanking everyone who disturbed me until I saw the movie. You guys are the real MVP. It was so worth it.

Everyone who told me about this movie told me that it left them in tears. But like the boss that I am, I said I wasn’t going to cry since every other person did.

Brethren, I’m glad to announce to you that I teared up! Guysss! I shamelessly cried hot tears. Tears of pain, joy, faith, awe and so much more.

Let’s delve right into it.

Breakthrough is a 2019 movie culled from a real life story of a young adopted boy called John Smith who fell into an ice lake and died.

It is a story that talks about an “impossible” situation.

My summary of this movie is “When the Doctors said No. God said Yes”. Doctors described John Smith’s case as a bonafide miracle. Because he was dead but miraculously, his pulse returned after his mother prayed.

After this, he was still in coma and his chances of surviving were low and even if he did, he was supposed to end up with some sort of “neurological disorder”.

But God stepped in and three weeks later, John walked out of the hospital with perfect health.
The movie was directed by Roxann Dawson and Produced by Pastor DeVon Franklin.

I’m not going to run through the whole plot but
you can visit Wikipedia. They did justice to that.

I’m here to share lessons and my thoughts from the movie. To enjoy this review I’d like to plead with you to see the movie first. You can watch it on YouTube. But if you haven’t, you can still read on. Just read the plot above and get the movie as soon as you can.

First, I’ll share a few random unnecessary things I took note of while I saw the movie.

1. John Smith is a veryyyyy fineeee young boy. What! I had to look him up on google after the movie. He was the perfect boy for the movie. His finess made me cry more during the whole thing. 😂

2. Mrs Smith is like those women in church who don’t just allow young people breathe. They grew up on hymns and slow Christian songs so they frown on any song that is not boring.

They love the Lord but they love boring too and they think we should also. If they see you singing Christian rap or anything like it, you’re toast. They’re always eying everyone and angry at everything in church. Wave your hands if you know someone like that.

Those women need to LOOSEN UP! Old ideologies, old mindset, old behavior. No room for change. May we not become like that when we’re old. Can I get an Amen?

3. The song ministered at their church was amazing. “This is amazing grace”. Such a powerful and interesting song. It sounded like one of Hill song’s. While I was trying to look it up online, a friend sent it to me on WhatsApp (shout out to Ibara). You should be able to find it on google.

4. Pastor Jason’s young daughter is such a mood. I love all her vibe, especially during the worship session in church.

5. I love Pastor Jason. He’s like those youth pastors that parents don’t like because they don’t “look like it”. They love the Lord and teach sound doctrine but they choose not to wear the big suits and ugly trousers. They’re usually on jeans and tees with a very stylish haircut and nice strides. They appear this way to be able to relate to the younger generation better and it works 100%. I know Pastors like that but I won’t mention names before Pastor Rampy thinks I’m talking about him (lol).

And that’s it! Those are a few random things i have to say about the movie.

Now to the life lessons.
It is a faith based movie and in my opinion, it did justice to its name. I culled out a few things believers should take note of and apply to their lives.

Lessons

MIRACLES HAPPEN. This is the major lesson from the movie. A lot of people have made it look like miracles are a lie. Even our own lives have attempted to prove God unable. Situations have come and we’re almost believing that praying is a waste of time and there is no place for miracles.

I see a lot of jokes online especially by Nigerians saying that prayer is useless and is the reason our country is backward and I just sigh.

Prayer doesn’t negate the place of our own work and partnership with God but prayer is very potent. Prayer changes things and causes miracles to happen. Your situation is not beyond God’s ability. Your heart’s desires are not impossible. My God is omnipotent. He does ALL things.

This movie strengthened my faith and made me believe more. I recommend saying a prayer after seeing the movie like I did. I was spurred to pray about certain impossible situations in my life and I did just that.


Other lessons;

1. Let go and let God. Joyce Smith tried to handle things by herself at the hospital. She kept being stubborn and persistent thinking she could force God to work. My brethren, you can not force God to work. There’s a difference between faith and insisting that something happens by force on your strength. We must learn to trust God with situations and let him work. Surrender to Him and ask Him what He’ll have you do. He leads and we follow.

2. Intercession: This is like the major theme of this movie. Right from the point when John fell into the water, a woman standing in front of her house, witnessing the incidence began to pray. Intercession simply means praying for someone whether the person is aware or not. I find myself doing it a lot. Wherever I am and I see or hear anything unpleasant or tragic about someone, I bow my head and begin to pray for the person. It’s very powerful. God moved when everyone began to pray for John Smith. The whole community gathered and sang Hill song’s Ocean and they prayed for John. This was the part that made me tear up.

3. Love is important. Full stop.

4. Having a community of believers around you is a necessity. One of the ways to ensure you keep thriving in anything you do is being surrounded by people who do the same thing. As believers, we must avoid isolating ourselves. The Church is a place of solace and rest. A place to be energized and strength but even more, it is a place of support. When John got into that situation, his community of believers rose up for him and where there for him.

5. Some bad situations come to work on us. So even when we pray, God doesn’t change the situation immediately because he’s trying to change US.

Joyce Smith thought she would always have everything under control and decide how things turn out but John’s situation taught her otherwise. She was a woman who loved the Lord but she had some character flaws which were thoroughly dealt with during John’s time in the hospital.

6. It is really important to speak words that are positive and life giving like John’s mother did. “You have a purpose and you are loved”. This aided John’s recovery in the hospital.

7. God still talks and appears to people. The atheist who saved John’s life from the lake heard God speak.

I love the fact that the movie Breakthrough didn’t attempt to answer every question people had like when John’s teacher asked why God didn’t save her own husband who died and when the atheist kept questioning God’s existence.

We can NEVER fully understand everything, no matter how much we try to question God. What makes us Christians is our ability to trust God even when we don’t understand certain things.

Faith is not just about things going our way. It’s about our assurance of God’s love and presence regardless of how things go.

I also love the fact that the movie didn’t end at John’s miracle. They went on to show the questions and mockery people threw at him afterwards.

That was very realistic for me because miracles don’t end it all. After miracles, we still face certain challenges like the wagging tongues of men.

It went further to prove that miracles don’t really change people. It takes the Conviction of the Holy Spirit. Even after the plain miracle that happened in John’s life, there were still people who didn’t believe.

I’ll stop here. You should see the movie. To say that I enjoyed this movie is an understatement. My favorite scene was where the community gathered outside the hospital to sing and pray for John.

Chrissy Metz (Joyce Smith), from left, Marcel Ruiz (John Smith), and Josh Lucas (Brian Smith) in a scene from Twentieth Century Fox’s film “Breakthrough.” Photo by Allen Fraser

Have you seen Breakthrough? What was your favorite scene?

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The Just shall live by faith

Currently, I’m listening to “Another in the fire with me” By Hillsong.

Someone asked a question in my church some weeks back after I finished a teaching on how Christ endured suffering and the cross for the glory ahead.

This is the question;

“Christ knew there was a Glory ahead of Him so He could endure. Today as Christians, how do we know there is Glory ahead of our suffering? E.g how does a Christian student suffering in school know that after school, his suffering will stop?

Christ had an assurance so he could endure. What’s the assurance so we too can endure?”

To be honest, I couldn’t answer the question completely immediately because it caught me off guard but after a short while, the Spirit of God began to minister the answer to me and that’s what I’m sharing on the Blog today.

Amen?

Amen.

Let’s talk about Jesus.

The son of God came to earth as man and went through all kinds of sufferings, pains and eventually death to redeem the fallen man.

Before He came, several scriptures had prophesied his coming, death, resurrection and the glory He would eventually be given. So, I believe Christ wasn’t in the dark as to what would happen to Him. We see in several scriptures that He even told His disciples that he would die and resurrect.

Now this is it, No one had died and resurrected prior to then so there wasn’t a precedence for Christ to relate to.

All He relied on, was what God had said. God said He’d suffer and die but after 3 days, He’d resurrect and be seated at the right hand of God
and the World would be saved.

Had it happened before? No. But God said it, so Christ trusted and went for it.

Christ’s assurance for the Glory ahead was God’s Word.

He knew the Father and trusted that if the Father said it, so it was.
Even when his human flesh became afraid of the torture, He took His mind back to the father’s plan and forged ahead.


In our lives today as Christians, our greatest assurance is the Word of God.
When you go through unpleasant times, your confidence for a better future should be hinged on God’s Word.


In this Kingdom, seeing is not believing. We believe even when we do not see. The only recipe our faith needs to he cooked up is God’s Word.
The just shall live by faith” is recorded in four different Bible passages, signifying the importance of Faith to God. The Bible even says without it, it is impossible to see God.

Christianity itself is a faith. I mean how do you explain believing that someone came, died and resurrected for your sake when you have not seen the person?
That’s exactly what faith is. Believing without seeing. And remember Jesus said to Thomas, You believe because you see but blessed are those who believe without seeing. Christianity is impossible without faith.

for we walk by faith, not by sight [living our lives in a manner consistent with our confident belief in God’s promises]—

2 CORINTHIANS 5:7 AMP


How to live by Faith.

This is what it means to trust God: We will be sure about the things that we hope for. We will be sure in our minds about things that we cannot even see.

Hebrews 11:1 EASY


You must take note that faith is only valid when you’re holding on to the Word of God. (So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:17 KJV)


Dimensions of God’s Word;

  • The revealed Word of God to you
  • The Word of God from scriptures

The revealed Word of God to you is the Word that God Himself gives to you in your time of prayer or fellowship. It could also be through visions, prophecy or dreams. This is a special word of promise revealed by God which is unique to you alone.

The Word of God from scriptures are the blessings and promises from the Bible. You can claim them as a saint and a heir of salvation.

To live by faith is to live as though your physical eyes don’t see. Your eyes are taken away from everything that surrounds you, be it good or bad.

You have a family or friend who promised to help you secure a job and you’re grateful to God for him but your confidence is not hinged on that. You seek God and hold on to His word as though you have no one.

Your life is full of challenges and problems that should pull you down but you hold on to the promises of Yahweh and live in your authority in Christ as though those problems do not exist.

You barely have enough to eat but you confess God’s word that “My God shall supply all my needs”. You do this from a place of deep conviction in God’s Word.

Your life seems perfect and everything is in place but that’s not what gives you rest of mind. Your peace rather, is in the fact that Jesus holds your future.

This is how to live by faith. Finding out God’s plans for you in His Word and holding on to it like your life depends on it, because it does.

Dear Christian, your confidence in God’s Word should be unwavering. It’s the surest and most reliable. Every other thing you rely on can and will fail.

When you’re faced with a challenge, go back to the Word or your journal for God’s promises and find out what provision was made got that issue.

God’s integrity is on His Word. He’s a respecter of nothing but His Word. Trust in the Intergerity of God’s Word and let it be the basis of your confidence.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23 NKJV

Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses]. HEBREWS 11:1 AMP

She laughs without fear of the future