Bible Reading: 2 Timothy 3:14-17; Hebrews 10:22-25

"Wow," said Jace as he stared at his cousin Cody's backyard. "Two tree forts--with a rope bridge between them!" He shook his head. "You've got everything!"

Cody shrugged.

Jace climbed up the ladder. "Do you come here all the time?" He coughed and batted the air. "Ugh. I guess not. I just ran into a cobweb."

Cody scrambled up the ladder, twisted the cobweb onto a stick, and threw it out the window. "I haven't been up here in months."

Jace couldn't believe it. "If I had this, I'd be up here all the time!"

Cody shrugged again. "It's always been here. The people before us built it."

Jace stepped out onto the rope bridge. "I wish we could stay longer. I wanted to stay until tomorrow, but Dad wants to drive home tonight so we can go to church in the morning."

"What did your pastor talk about last Sunday?" asked Cody.

Jace shrugged. "I don't know. I was finishing my cartoon drawing."

"Your cartoon?" Cody sighed. "You're the one who doesn't know how good you have it!"

"Huh?" Jace was confused. "What do you mean?"

"I can only go to church when the neighbors take me. But now Dad says I can't go anymore because he's tired of hearing me talk about Jesus. I guess he had a bad experience at church as a kid." Cody ran his hand over the rope bridge railing. "I know this is a nice tree fort. But I'm so used to it, I don't care much about it. I don't think you know how nice it is to hear about Jesus because you've always heard about Him. I wish I could go to church every week."

Jace drew a big breath. "I never thought about it like that. My family has always gone to church, so I can learn about Jesus and be reminded of how much He loves me all the time." He was quiet a moment, then snapped his fingers. "I know! How about I listen to the sermon in church each week then send you a message on what it was about?"

"Really?" said Cody. "That would be great!"

"Yeah," said Jace. "And I have an extra Bible I'll give you so you can learn about Jesus during the week too."

–Laura Raborn