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Key Bible Verse: As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. (1 Peter 1:14, NIV).

Bonus Readings: Luke 24:13-35; Romans 6:16-23; Ephesians 6:12; 1 Peter 1:13-21

In the science fiction movie The Matrix, the real world has been taken over by computers that keep humans in bondage by creating a false reality in their minds. The computers electronically feed a virtual reality into their brain. The humans think they are free, but they are actually entombed in pods where their bodies are used as an energy source.

A few of the humans have escaped their pods and are battling the machines. But unlike the computer-induced dreamland (called the Matrix), the real world is full of sweat, stress, and combat with the computers at every turn.

In one scene, the leader of escaped humans, Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne), has contacted Neo (played by Keanu Reeves), a person whose mind is still controlled by the Matrix.

"Let me tell you why you're here," says Morpheus. "You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain—but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"The Matrix?" Neo asks.

"Do you want to know what it is?" asks Morpheus. Neo nods. "The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."

"What truth?" asks Neo.

"That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch—a prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself." Morpheus takes out two pills: one blue, one red. "This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more."

Neo chooses the red pill, and the Matrix starts to break down. He sees the world for how it really is. He realizes that the truth is a war between good and evil, and the allures of this world are nothing but an illusion.

What a picture of the bondage we are born into. All of us are born slaves to sin, and yet we are so captivated with our sin that we often don't recognize it. We rationalize away even our worst behavior.

Only when we come to know God through Jesus Christ can we be freed from our sin. As our verse says in 1 Peter, once we understand who God is, we recognize who we are and can no longer live in ignorance.

Neo had to live the difficult life he chose when he took the red pill. He couldn't be content to go back to ignorance. He had to move forward and fight the battle that his new understanding required. We have the same decision to make. Will we enter reality and learn God's ways, or continue in ignorance as we move toward our own destruction?

Our battle is not a physical one of guns and fists, but a spiritual one of obedience. Will we obey God or go our own way? After we "take the pill and awake," we have a daily choice.

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