In 2006 the movie The
Guardian was released. It was a movie about the Coast Guard legendary
rescue swimmer Ben Randall passing the torch to the next generation. Ben holds
all of the Coast Guard’s speed records for swimming as well as most lives saved
in the ocean. The class he instructs wonder how many people he has saved. One
heard it was two-hundred, another heard three-hundred. No one knows for sure.
Near the end of the movie Jake Fischer, the man who replaces
Randall, asks Randall what his true number was. Randall answers, “Twenty-two.” Fischer was
taken aback for he expected a much higher number.
“Twenty-two is the number of people I lost, Jake. The only
number I keep track of,” Ben Randall says soberly.
When we are baptized we take on the roles of priest, prophet,
and king and are given the mission to bring people to a saving knowledge of
Jesus. That is what evangelization does, brings people to a saving knowledge of
Jesus.
There are a bunch of Christians that believe they do not
need a religion or a church. For them the only thing they need is Christ and
Christ alone. They do not utilize the tools Jesus gave us to live our lives in
an upright fashion or to complete our mission as priest, prophet, and king.
Jesus does not want a billion individual relationships. Jesus wants a family.
The trinity is a family and Jesus brings us into that family. God wants the
same thing every other parent wants – his children to get along and love one another
other sacrificially.
There is an idea that when we die we will stand alone before
Jesus and we will be judged on all of the things we have done wrong in our
lives. In reality we will be judged on our fruits, the good and the bad. Jesus
will tell us what our true number is, the number of people we brought to a
saving knowledge of Christ in the way we lived our lives. We do not stand before
the judge alone. We stand with every person we helped get to heaven. They are
the true fruit of our labor.
For those who have a relationship with Jesus alone, their
numbers will be small. They will stand alone in judgment. Those who have
embraced their true mission as priest, prophet, and king will stand with the
family of God, not alone but united with the Kingdom of Heaven.
“Save
the ones you can Jake. The rest, you've got to let go.”
