Your Teacher

Novelist James Michener was once invited to dinner at the White House with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.  Michener graciously declined the invitation in a letter that contained the following words:

“I received your invitation three days after I had agreed to speak a few words at a dinner honoring the wonderful high school teacher who taught me how to write.  I know you will not miss me at your dinner, but she might at hers.  In his lifetime, a man lives under fifteen or sixteen presidents, but a really fine teacher comes into his life but rarely.” *

According to the story, Eisenhower wrote back to say that he understood perfectly.
Christa McAuliffe said: "I touch the future, I teach."

All of us have had teachers that have made a difference in our lives.  They have 
helped to prepare us for the rest of our lives. But the greatest teacher that YOU and I could ever have is one who points us to the Greatest Teacher of ALL- JESUS CHRIST.
For it is the instruction of the Great Teacher that prepares us for ETERNITY!

Jesus taught the most important teachings in life that were centered upon the GREATEST NEED in our lives: a RIGHT RELATIONSHIP with God (cf. Matthew 22:37-38).  He exposed our greatest PROBLEM: SIN (see John 8:24).  He also revealed the SOLUTION to our problem of SIN.  In fact, He IS the Solution!  In order to provide forgiveness, Jesus had to DIE on the cross for our sins: “He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

In order to be SAVED from our sins, we must FOLLOW the instructions of the Teacher: believe in Him (John 8:24; Acts 16:30-31), repent of our sins (Luke 13:3; Acts 17:30-31), confess Him before men (Matthew 10:32; Romans 10:9-10), and be baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of our sins (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38).  Then, we must CONTINUE to follow the Teacher as a way of life (1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:6), and His blood will continue to cleanse us from our sins (1 John 1:7).

Indeed, “a really fine teacher comes into his life but rarely.”  Thank God that JESUS, the Great Teacher, has come and revealed the way to God (John 14:6).

Have YOU obeyed the Teacher?

God bless you!

David A. Sargent, Minister

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

* I heard Dan Winkler use this illustration at a dinner during the 2006 Freed-Hardeman University Lectures in honor of one of his Bible Teachers: William Woodson.  I would like to use this illustration to honor one of my Bible teachers who also happens to be Dan’s father, Wendell Winkler.  Wendell Winkler passed from this life on October 23, 2005, but not before impacting many, many lives for good – including my own – with his life and his Bible teaching.  “A really fine teacher comes into his life but rarely.”  I am thankful to have had the honor and privilege of sitting at the feet of one of those really fine teachers, Wendell Winkler.

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