This past week I was moved as I watched a clip from the movie "The Guardian" starring Kevin Costner. I used this clip in the sermon because I thought it illustrated so wonderfully the fact that we as "the church" spend an awful lot of time counting the wrong numbers. In the movie, Kevin Costner's character is asked several times about his "number." His number is supposed to be the number of people he has rescued from peril as a Coast Guard-ian. When he finally reveals his "number" he replies, "22." Surprised, the young recruit is taken aback as he assumed the number would have been much higher. "22 is number of people I lost," Costner says, "it's the only number I kept track of."
We have a tendency in the church to count the ones we rescue instead of the ones we lose. Probably because we can feel better about ourselves if we talk about the 20 we rescued instead of the hundreds we lost. In Costner's case they were lost only to the sea, they only lost their life. In our case, those we lose are lost to the enemy and they lose their eternity.
Perhaps we could all take a little time this week to ponder those who we walk past, those who are hurting and in need, those who need to be rescued. Perhaps instead of passing them by while feeling good about past accomplishments, we could focus on those that we see today, those that God causes by divine appointment to be where we are, when we are there so that we can reach out and help them.
Just something to think about.
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I have often thought about counting numbers....I suppose they have their place....but nothing so got my attention more than the fact that for how long we maybe have been counting the wrong numbers!!! It's good to celebrate the victories that has been won and God sees all those, but counting numbers can also fill us with pride and we start to think that we are so wonderful and take our eyes off the one who really deserves all the glory and honor.......but the story goes that He went after the one lost sheep....and kept on until He found it....I'm so thankful that He kept searching for me and found me and I said yes to Him!!! I know God has been working on my heart in this area long before there was even a Faith Baptist Church....way back to when Rebekah was younger and we would go down to Indy for the homeschool convention...she one day wanted to know why that man was carrying a garbage bag on his shoulder and why can't we stop and help him!!!or the time we were in Philly for my work conference and I so desperately tried to catch up to the little elderly lady I saw way up in front of us bend over and pick something up off the sidewalk...and I wanted to give her the extra huge piece of chocolate cake we were taking bake to our hotel room!!!or the ones we saw sleeping over the grates to keep warm at night!!! Yes past accomplishments are good and they have their place.....but everyone needs someone to stand by them!!!
ReplyDeleteChristi
Christi: You're right. we sometimes even get to thinking those folks don't count. Nothing could be further from the truth. Evidently that's been a problem for a long time. James said they counted the rich folks at church more valuable than the poor ones. Shame on them and shame on us if we ever do that in our walk with Jesus.
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