When was the last time you watched a really good movie? Whether you viewed it at home or at a local theater, did you ever give thought to what went into making it? The goal of a filmmaker is for us not to concentrate on the technique or workmanship, but on the story and how it conveys its message.  Still, there is a lot of work that goes into making a movie, whether it lasts for 30 seconds or 2 hours.  However long that film is, the viewer only sees perhaps 15% of all the film shot.  The remaining 75% lies on the cutting room floor. 

The cutting room contained editing reels and viewers and a projector, where the editor(s) would sit for hours and decide what shots of the film would be kept and which would not.  The cutting room, or editing room, in its formal sense is a place that doesn’t really exist too much anymore since the advent of digital editing.  Moviolas and splicing blocks have been replaced with desktop computer editing suites.  The picture that is cut does not fall on the floor but is deleted from a hard drive.   Several years ago, I had the pleasure of working in one of the last full scale 16mm film production studios in the country.  I was able to go through the whole motion picture experience of loading the film in the camera magazines, lighting the sets, and then editing the film.  In this process we would look at our developed film on reels on a hand crank editor and save the good portions and cut out all the rest that would land on the floor or in the trash can.  Then, those good takes, on small reels, would be hand spliced together onto a larger reel.  Then we would go through those and cut out smaller portions, re-splice, and so on until the finished product was what we wanted. 

So what has all this to do with us?   Well, as Christians, our lives are like that camera footage, stretched out on the editing table.  Every day we record things that are good as well as things that are sinful or unproductive.  Such negative things need to be cut out of our overall lives because as believers our finished product should be a life shown pleasing to the Master, Jesus Christ.  No serious filmmaker would ever want an audience to see a film unedited, because he or she wants to show the best. 

Sometimes however, we desire to not look as closely at our lives as we ought.  Things we do and say can cause great embarrassment to the Lord and to us.  In place of confessing them, cutting them out by the scissors of godly conviction, we choose to leave them buried, hoping no one will remember them.   But the sinful areas of our lives must be cut out as it damages our walk and fellowship with the Lord and other believers, to say nothing of our witness to the world. 

BUT WAIT…. there’s more to be cut!   I remember, when I was doing a graduate film project.  There were three stages of the faculty’s critical evaluation my film had to pass through to be acceptable.  Each time when I thought I had everything ok, more and more material had to be cut out.  This material wasn’t bad, but it did not fit into the finished project.  In our lives as believers there are many things we keep in our lives, which really ought to be on the cutting room floor.  Things that are not sinful necessarily sinful, but hinder our focus on the Lord and on our relationships with others.  The more we evaluate our hearts in light of Scripture, the more we find ought to be removed for clarity of who we are in Christ and what we need to become. 

One last thing I would like to share with you about motion pictures is that there isn’t a serious filmmaker alive who would tell you that their release print (finished film) is perfect and in no need of anything more.  The film in their mind is never finished; something more can be added to help, but also something more can be cut out.  Likewise, in this world, our Christian lives will never in its greatest hour of spiritual growth begin to claim that we have arrived at perfection.  In fact, the moment before our meeting in death or rapture with the Lord, there are many revisions and changes to be made.  But don’t let that knowledge dishearten you.   Always desire to grow and be more like Christ.  When we do that, the editing of our walk with Him won’t seem so painful and the cutting room floor will be welcome when we look at the finished reel of our lives, that includes only the things that are of good report according to Philippians 4:8. 

Our aim in this life should be to represent Christ in the best way we can.  Don’t let the reel of your life be full of sinful or unprofitable elements.  Cast them on the cutting room floor, letting repentance and growth, sweep them away.

Jon Browning
© 2007 Bible Center Church