UPON visiting the hospital recently I saw a boy who had met with a serious accident, and had both arms cut very badly with a circular saw. Indeed, it seemed a wonder that they were saved to him at all.
Of course during the process of healing, both arms were bound up so that he had no use of them. He was not able to feed himself or wait on himself, even to turn the page of the “Messages of Love” which I gave him to read.
During the weeks that I have seen him lying helpless, my thoughts have turned many times to the old saying,
“We never miss the water till the well runs dry.”
When we are in health and everything goes nicely, when we have the use of our various members, our hands and feet, our eyes and ears, food and clothing—all the great blessings that God has given us for our use and enjoyment, we are wont to think nothing of them. Indeed, we usually take them for granted; nor do we realize how richly we are blessed, until the use of one or more of these is lost.
Is it not strange that some of our greatest blessings are so frequently not appreciated or overlooked entirely? This is especially true of the greatest gift, the greatest blessing that could possibly come to us—the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ whom God has given to be our Saviour.
Probably the greatest reason that so many fail to appreciate this greatest gift is because they do not realize their need of a Saviour. If one sees himself to be a lost sinner, and unable to do anything for himself, he would be glad to take advantage of the Saviour, and this is exactly the condition that all are in by nature —Lost.
“All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
Many passages might be quoted to prove that in ourselves there is no hope whatever. When one gets a little glimpse of what his real need is, he cannot fail to see what a mercy it was that God “spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.” He would know beyond a doubt that the Saviour thus provided was his only means of getting to heaven, and likewise his only chance of escaping hell.
Our future destiny depends entirely on whether we accept Christ or not, —whether we believe on Him, as the Scripture says,
ML 08/20/1933