More than just numbers

Numbers aren't always what they crack up to be.

Running Cross Country you want a lower number that means you have done well.

Basketball, football and hockey you often know who some of the best players are by their numbers.

Whoever has the most goals, points, assists and rebounds you remember.

With wealth, we all want it and know who some of the richest people in the world are (Donald Trump, Bill Gates, James Pahl etc).

It's easy to get wrapped into the numbers.

Sometimes the numbers don't necessarily wrap up what's going on.

They don't necessarily show what has happened. You don't get the full picture.

Michigan State made it to the championship basketball game and is one of the top college basketball programs in the country.

A number you don't hear that often is 58 of 66 players (87.9%) that finish their eligibility at MSU graduate.

This is often in four years, while the average length of completing a bachelor degree is up to five years.

The numbers we hear are the number of championships and final four appearances.

Even the graduation rate doesn't show the hard work that happened.

This would require taking over 15 credits a semester (In fall and spring) while also practicing several hours a day. I couldn't imagine what the study load would have been like.

Numbers are often just numbers.

You might be a great basketball player and average 20 points a game, but it doesn't show that you are a jerk to be around and it takes you over 40 shots a game to get that and your team wins less than 50 percent of its games.

Sometimes numbers just don't matter as much as we think.

Life is like that sometimes.

Things and activities we invest our time and energy in, don't have the value we think they do.

Sometimes we are guilty of doing things to show a good side of us.

Jesus talked about this in giving in the right way (Yesterday's verse), he continues on and talks about praying to be seen in Matthew chapter 6 verse 5…

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."

They did thing out of selfish desires.

Why would Jesus bring this up in two different sections?

I think it's because people struggle with this.

When people pray, after a while of praying out loud, you get better at doing it.

People could do this out of selfish desires and really not speak from the heart at all.

Jesus is trying to correct this in the people.

Praying goes beyond what we say, it's what we do. How we speak from our hearts to God with true desires.

We often struggle with the right motives.

Christians are just as guilty as anyone.

We think it's awesome when we have a packed house on a Sunday.

"God must really be doing some great things through us and that's why he blessed us with high numbers," some might think.

Easter is one of those times when this happens.

People prepare for Easter and spend months getting ready for it at what cost?

"Wow, we normally average 300 people but we had over 700 here at Easter or we normally have 140 people but 190 were here on Easter."

One of the thoughts running through our heads, "God is awesome, we need to do this again next year."

I heard of one persons response to the high Easter crowd (A while ago) that changes the perspective.

It's just a simple question.

"How many people were saved?"

I was completely dumbfounded the first time I heard this.

In all my years of going to Church on Easter Sunday (Even when I didn't believe in the Church we still went on Easter) I don't EVER remember someone giving their life to Christ on Easter Sunday.

Have you?

Usually all the hard work done for Easter is unnoticed, and gain little fruit.

They usually leave people working burnt out and not wanting to do anything at Church for the next couple of months.

The Church attendance goes down to normal or lower than normal almost instantly.

Our hearts might be in the right place but our actions don't always follow our heart.

It can happen when we pray and it can happen with our lives.

Our hearts and minds are in two different places.

It might not feel like they are, but when our desires don't match up with our heart, it's like an infection.

It might start small, but if we don't get any medicine, we get sick quick.

If we don't realize the mistakes we make, often we just ending doing things that have no effect.

When we speak and do things out of our own desires we don't benefit other people and the kingdom of God.

Prayer is powerful when done right.

God made us powerful, when we do what's right.

What do you think?

Have a great day.