Hope!

The school system in a large city had a program to help children keep up with their schoolwork during stays in the city's hospitals.  One day a teacher who was assigned to the program received a routine call asking her to visit a particular child.  She took the child's name and room number and talked briefly with the child's regular class teacher.
"We're studying nouns and adverbs in his class now," the teacher said, "and I'd be grateful if you could help him understand them so he doesn't fall too far behind."

The hospital program teacher went to see the boy that afternoon.  No one had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in great pain.  Upset at the sight of the boy, she stammered as she told him, 'I've been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs."  When she left she felt she hadn't accomplished much.

But the next day, a nurse asked her, "What did you DO to that boy?"

The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and began to apologize.

"No, no," said the nurse.  "You don't know what I mean.  We've been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed.  He's fighting back, responding to treatment.  It's as though he's decided to LIVE!"

Two weeks later the boy explained that he had completely given up hope until 
the teacher arrived.  Everything changed when he came to a simple realization.  
He expressed it this way: "They wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns 
and adverbs with a DYING boy, would they?"

What made the difference in this little boy?  In a word, "HOPE!"  Feeling hopeless and helpless in his badly burned and painful condition, he found HOPE in the presence of the teacher.

What a lesson for US. . . 

Due to our sin, WE are also hopeless and helpless!  There is nothing that you and I can do in our own power to improve our condition.  "The wages of sin is death"
(Romans 6:23), and that leaves us with... NO HOPE, for "ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). 

But then the Teacher, Jesus Christ, came into this world to open a pathway back from sin's dark grip of DEATH.  He demonstrated the reality of LIFE beyond the grave by His OWN resurrection from the dead and revealed the WAY to that LIFE giving us HOPE!  

He said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).  We have HOPE because. . . Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins making our forgiveness available.  We access that HOPE by. . . believing in Him (Acts 16:30-31), repenting of our sins (Acts 17:30-31), confessing Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), being baptized (immersed) for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38), and then following Him faithfully (Revelation 2:10).

With the HOPE that Jesus gives, WE have a new lease on LIFE!

Do YOU have that hope?

God bless you!

David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

-- Bits & Pieces, July 1991.   http://www.christianglobe.com/illustrations

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