A Word With You

We were zipping down the Interstate, and we saw this long cloud of thick blue smoke ahead of us. When we got close, we saw that it was belching out of the smokestack of this big old semi, and the smoke was so heavy you could hardly see as you passed it. In fact, it was a very good time to hold your breath. Now, as we passed him, I looked through the smoke into the cab, and I saw two men inside and they were just kind of laughing and they seemed oblivious to the smoke and the smell that they were spreading down the Interstate. Now, I noticed after we passed that semi and that mountain of smoke, that there were little black spots all over our windshield. Now, I instinctively reached for my windshield wipers to get rid of the spots, and it was then that I saw the driver ahead of us who had turned his wipers on. His entire windshield was smeared with this thick, black substance. Whew! Glad I didn't turn my wipers on. We stopped for lunch a few minutes later and when I got out I found spots of oil all over our vehicle. After we finished eating we got some great exercise cleaning off the oil. Now, that driver probably thought the smoke was just his problem, but it was actually a problem for everyone who got close to it. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Leaving an Ugly Trail." Our word for today from the Word of God, we're in the Old Testament book of Jonah, and you know the Lord gave him directions to go to Nineveh. Jonah 1:3 says, "But Jonah ran away from the Lord." Which is kind of a humorous thought in itself (running away from the Lord, right?) but it says "He went down to Joppa where he found a ship and paid the fare, went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up." Well, of course, now the captain goes below, wakes up Jonah, and then it says, "The sailors said to each other, 'Come with us. Cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.' They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him, 'Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble? What did you do? Where do you come from? What is your country?' He said, 'I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.'" Now, Jonah has disobeyed God, and if he thinks like most of us 21st-century types, he's saying, "Hey, I might be sinning, but it's not hurting anybody. Right?" Oh, I suppose the driver of the smoky semi could have said, "I've got a problem, but it's not hurting anyone else." Well, he was wrong, and so was Jonah. Everyone around him was suffering; not because of their sin, but because of his. Modern morality says, "You know, it's okay if it doesn't hurt anybody." You know what? There's no such thing. I've hugged the parents who are sobbing over their son's life or their daughter's life. And while they're doing their thing, it could be breaking the heart of the people who love that person the most. I've been with the son or daughter who is waiting and watching while their parent walks away from the very truth they were taught by that parent, and they're crushed. No man is an island. When you have premarital sex you're hurting your future lifetime partner and their future lifetime partner. Your choices affect the family name, and they sure affect your Lord. They affect the reputation of your family. And while you're on your detour, unbelievers are deciding about Jesus based on how you are living and probably saying, "I don't need Him." See, sin twists everything around. You can't sin in a vacuum. You have an ugly trail of wounded people left behind when you're living outside of Christ's boundaries. There's pollution splattering everywhere close to you when you depart from the Word of God. The two you're hurting the most? You and a Savior who loves you very much, Who died so you don't have to do that sin. Isn't it time to end the hurt? Do it God's way. That pollution has already left a long enough trail.

Sylvester Stallone's been in the ring for a lot of rounds. Even though he, a few years ago, hit the big 6-0 birthday, he was still doing Rocky - Rocky 6. It was called, "Rocky's final round." Sylvester Stallone is one of the millions of Baby Boomers who have hit a challenge for which some have not been prepared - aging. I was intrigued with what Stallone had to say about people he knows. He said, "You see billionaires who have everything, yet inside they're still the same lonely, insecure people." You think you've got it all figured out, but when you turn 60 or, you know, whatever age seems to make you feel like you're getting older, there's this little hole inside you. You realize you're always going to be somewhat half full...or are we. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why We Can't Find Peace." I call the cycle so many of us go through in our life journey the "As Soon As" syndrome. I'll be happy, I'll be fulfilled as soon as I graduate, as soon as I get a good job, as soon as I get a better job, as soon as I'm going with someone, as soon as I'm married, as soon as I have kids, as soon as I'm not married, as soon as I can get a home, as soon as I retire; it just never ends. And "as soon as" never comes. It's one disappointing answer after another. Until, like Rocky's creator says, we just give up and accept "this little hole inside" us as being "unfillable." The ancient Jewish king Solomon knew that feeling. He was so wealthy and so powerful he was able to own or experience every "as soon as" that his heart could conceive: every purchase, every woman, every achievement, every pleasure. Here's his conclusion, recorded in his personal diary, the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. I'm reading from chapter 1, beginning with verse 8, our word for today from the Word of God. He says: "The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, and what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind." Pretty sad, huh? And pretty much the human experience. But Solomon went on to diagnose why nothing and no one on earth can ever fill the hole in our heart. He said, "God has set eternity in the hearts of men. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth. Fear God and keep His commandments" (Ecclesiastes 3:11; 12:1, 13). What we've been looking for all our life is something that will last forever, because we've got this eternity thing in our heart. The hole in your heart can only be filled by something as big as all eternity. And that means only the God who made you can fill it. Not a religion about God, but God Himself, living in your heart. And that's impossible because of the choice we've made over and over again to do our life our way instead of God's way. God calls it sin and He says that our sins "have separated us" from our God. But He's also acted with unspeakable love to demolish this wall that keeps us from Him. And He says in His own words, "He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:10). Translation: I did the sinning; Jesus did the dying. Then three days later, He came back from His grave to prove that He and He alone can give us life that's eternal. For millions, the search for what goes in that hole in our heart has ended at the cross of Jesus Christ. In a transforming moment when you say to Him, "Jesus, the wrong person's been running my life. I resign. I'm holding onto You as my only hope because only You can remove the wall between me and my God. So, Jesus, I'm Yours." If you've never had that liberating, load-lifting, purpose-filling, hole-in-your-heart-filling experience with Jesus, let this be the day. In fact, if you go to our website you can find there a lot of wonderful information to be sure you belong to Him. It's ANewStory.com That hole inside you is so big only God can fill it. And at your invitation, He will - today.

Now, we had not had a major airplane crash in New York City for a long time. So, we were all pretty riveted at that particular time by the scene of the crash of Avianca Flight 52 on Long Island near JFK Airport. More people survived the crash than died in it, thankfully, but it was still a terrible tragedy. There was no fire, because they were apparently out of fuel, and that was a major reason for the crash. We watched, especially in the New York area, the dramatic rescues of survivors; some of them live on television. Of course, because Avianca was the national airline of Columbia, many of the passengers were from Colombia and it was mentioned that en route to the U.S. the plane had landed at a city in Colombia that is known to be the center of drug distribution there. Now, one survivor was really glad that he had survived and he had been rescued, but actually the bad news was not over for him when he was rescued. He was complaining of stomach pains. The hospital x-rayed him and they found dark spots in his intestines. Yeah, you probably guessed it. This injured passenger, it turned out, was smuggling cocaine in plastic bags inside his body. Now, who could have ever predicted when he put that cocaine inside of his body to smuggle it into the U.S. that there would be inclement weather all along the East Coast, they would be in a holding pattern over two hours in the air, there would be a missed attempt at trying to land, the plane would run out of fuel, he would survive a crash, and x-rays would expose his crime? Man, it looked like there was no chance of his getting caught! Actually there's no such thing. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "God's X-Ray Leaves No Secrets." Well, our word for today from the Word of God comes from the book of Numbers 32:23. Some of God's chosen people, the Jews, have a choice here between a risky obedience and an apparently safe disobedience. I say apparently safe! Now, the issue they were dealing with isn't so important today as the advice that Moses gives. He says, "If you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord, and you may be sure that your sin will find you out." I'll bet that's a verse one particular Colombian drug smuggler would agree with, "Be sure your sin will find you out." You know, it's important that you make all of your moral choices realistically. What do I mean? Well, you cannot, and you will not ultimately, get away with sin - ever. If God knows about it, you're already caught! Oh, and He does all the time. That Colombian drug smuggler probably couldn't imagine a way he would be found out. The drugs were totally concealed in his body, but he was found out. You and I will be, too. Oh, you may be able to cover your sin at work, maybe you can conceal it from your mate, and you might be able to fool every Christian leader you know. Maybe you've found a place where you're sure no one will discover what you're doing. Hear God, "You can be sure your sin will find you out." Oh, the Devil will wait until disclosure will do the most harm; hurt the most people. He's letting you get away with it right now. And then one day he'll yank that chain, and he'll wait until it will do the most harm and the most damage. God may wait until the seed of sin reaches the harvest stage, but be assured the bill will come for you. So, make no choices thinking that you can get away with sin. God and the Devil are both a lot smarter than you are. Don't let the delay fool you. God x-rays every passenger, every trip, and His x-ray leaves no secrets.

We were adding onto our little house, and we were getting some help from good old Chuck. He's been a part of adding to our house; actually, he did most of the work. A wonderful Christian brother, skilled builder and handyman. He's like an everyday genius...which I am not. Now the days were pretty long and we'd be leaving the house earlier than Chuck got there and we'd return home after dark. So, I didn't get to see him much. But every day that front porch was noticeably farther along than it was when we left that morning. I actually did get to talk to Chuck on the phone one day, and I told him, in a way, he reminded me of the Lord. He was interested in how that happened. I said, "Well, I don't actually see him, but I see the difference he's made!" I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Living Proof of a Living Savior." There was a song years ago that said, "People need the Lord." Well, that's people you're around all the time. But they can't physically see Him, of course. They can't realize how real, how loving, and how powerful He is by seeing Him in person. But God's plan for introducing Himself to them is that, much like our friend's building work, they see the difference God makes in you. In 1 Peter 2:12, our word for today from the Word of God, Peter says, "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they may accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God..." Here are people who may even be hostile toward you and toward your Lord. But they see such impressive living proof of the Jesus-difference in your everyday life - in what it says here your "good deeds" - that they end up glorifying God! Jesus made this same point in the Sermon on the Mount when He said, "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). There it is again. They can't see your Lord, but they can see your good deeds that are there because He's in you. And that living proof can turn them to Him. Especially in a world that's more skeptical than ever of religious pitches, religious systems, or religious pitchmen. Notice, God doesn't say they'll be impressed with your arguments or your persuasive words. No, it's going to be your persuasive life. The random acts of kindness, the words of encouragement, your temper under control, the cleaned up mouth, the way you treat and talk about your mate, or your children, or your parents, your unselfishness, or the way you just put others ahead of yourself. One clarification: You can't just show them the Jesus-difference and that alone. You do have to tell them Who is making the difference! They can watch you for the next 50 years and they won't say, "Oh, you know, Joe is such a nice guy, I'll bet Jesus died on the cross for my sins." They're not going to figure that out. You have to tell them! So, the business of taking people to heaven with you is actually kind of like first grade...show and tell. That's why Peter says, right before his statement about them seeing your good deeds, that you are "belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness and into His wonderful light." They need to see it, but then you need to tell them. They'll never guess Jesus died on the cross for them unless you tell them. Our friend is a carpenter that I may not actually see, but I could see each day the difference he was making. You belong to a carpenter named Jesus, and whether or not the people around you will ever know Him may depend on whether or not they can see in you the difference that Jesus makes!

Our kids rode many miles in the old back seat of our car. And they had their share of turf battles over who was taking up more than his share of the seat. Pretty customary with three kids in the back seat when you drive quite a ways. They also spent some time sleeping there. In fact, I remember when our youngest was a baby. He would just doze off in his little infant seat right next to his brother who was two years older. We'd turn around and we'd see the little guy asleep and we'd say, "Oh, bless his heart." And then a few minutes later we'd look back and his brother who was almost asleep, would peer out of one eye at us and say, "Bless my heart." I guess he wanted to make sure it got done in case we didn't bless it. Well, some of our trips were like long distance marathons. With both my wife and I, marathon drivers. And some of those trips were in the dark and it was rainy and stormy even. And we've been through some very memorable lightning storms. Sometimes it's been snowing. Well, it didn't matter. The kids have over and over again just conked out, and then they'd wake up when we were there. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Who's Driving?" Now, our word for today from the Word of God is from Proverbs 3:5-6. That might ring some bells. They are my daughter's favorite verses, my wife's favorite verses, and maybe you consider them to be yours. Here's what they say, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." In other words, you'll get to your destination if it's raining, snowing, storming, lightning, thunder. You'll get there if you follow this formula. Notice He says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart." That means you have taken total hands off the situation. You're going to totally relax in what God's doing. You're not going to depend on what you're doing. Don't get in the way of His will with your bright ideas; don't lean on your own understanding. It's like our children riding in the car with their father for all those marathon trips. Actually, the situation you're facing right now leaves you three choices in terms of navigation. Choice number one: You could try to drive - maybe that's what you've been doing. In fact, the more intense a situation gets, instead of getting desperate for God's larger help, we just grip the wheel more tightly. Well, if you're trying to drive, you'll crash just as if my kids were trying to drive when they were little. The second thing you could try to do is help God get you to your destination. Imagine He's driving. You're in the car, but you're in the front seat and you're telling Him how He should drive. It's like a backseat driver in the front seat. Or you keep grabbing the wheel because you think you're going to crash. Well, you will if you drive. Or you think He's going too slowly, so you keep putting your foot on the accelerator. All you're going to do is make the trip longer and harder. The other possibility is that you do what my children have done. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart." Well, in a sense, you'll crawl in the back seat and you'll say, "Father, I trust you. It's dark, it's stormy and I'm not sure where we're going, but I want to fight off the urge to try and drive. You drive, Father. Good night." Where are you in this current situation in your life? Are you trying to drive or are you trying to help God drive? Or are you simply going to sleep in the back seat? Why don't you relax and let your Father drive. You'll wake up refreshed and you'll wake up right where you are supposed to be.

Our son had just moved to an Indian reservation to work among the young people there, and for a short time he stayed rent-free at the home of a Native American family. Well, sort of rent-free. One day the man of the house asked our son to help him with a little plumbing problem. Our suburban boy said, "Plumbing? Sure. Where can I find the plunger?" He was informed that no plunger would be needed, so apparently it's going to be easier than he thought. Right? Wrong. His host took him out in the backyard and introduced him to a septic pond where his job was to try to clean out a stopped-up pipe. In order to find it, our son had to reach into the gross stuff up to his shoulder. Yuk! He said when he was finished, he had one thing and only one thing on his mind - a shower. He called and he pretty much summarized his experience, "I have never felt so dirty in my life, and it's never felt so good to be clean." I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Feeling Dirty, Getting Clean." Feeling clean - that's a feeling someone who's listening right now could use because you've felt dirty long enough. We all know those feelings because we've all done things we're ashamed of; we've done some things that we thought we'd never do, we've failed to do some things we should have done. Too many times, the people we've hurt the most are the people we care about the most. There are these dark secrets that haunt us and even some things that we're hooked on that we cannot stop doing. We feel dirty inside, and we don't know how to get clean. That is why our word for today from the Word of God is such awesome good news. It's written to people who know what dirty feels like. In 1 Corinthians 6, beginning with verse 9, the writer describes people who have messed with sex, both heterosexual and homosexual, people who have ripped off others, who've been selfish and greedy, who've had drinking problems, along with backstabbers and cheaters. Then comes this startling statement: "That is what some of you were." Were? How does that happen? How do dirty people get clean? Here's how. It says, "You were washed...you were justified (that means made right with God) in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." God gave them a spiritual shower because of Jesus. How can a God whose perfect just erase all my sins from His book? It says, "In the name of the Lord Jesus." That's because Jesus had all the dirt of my life dumped on Him when He died on the cross. In the Bible's words, "He carried our sins in His body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). Just think of Jesus absorbing all the guilt, all the shame, and all the hell of every angry thing you've ever done; every dirty thing, every selfish thing, every deceitful thing, every hurting thing. That's how much He loves you. That's how much He wants to forgive you so you can have the unspeakable joy of being clean and the guarantee of being with Him in heaven forever. As Jesus was dying on that cross, He said of those who nailed Him there, "Father, forgive them." That's what He wants to say to God about you today, "Father, forgive him. Forgive her." If you will take what He died to give you. No religion can erase your sin from God's book. Only Jesus can do that, because only Jesus paid the death penalty that we deserve. The sinless One became dirty so you could become clean. He took your hell so you could live in His heaven. The man on the cross next to Jesus, hearing His offer of forgiveness, said to Him, "Remember me when You come into Your kingdom" (Luke 23:42). That's what you need to do - to reach out to the Great Forgiver and ask Him to forgive all the sinning you've ever done. If you do, He will say, "I will remember your sin no more" (Hebrews 8:12). Grab Him in total faith as the only One who can rescue you from your sin. If you're tired of dirty, if you're ready to finally be clean inside, tell Jesus that. The day I opened my heart to Jesus, someone took time to explain to me exactly how to get it all started, how to begin with Him. I would love to do that for you through our website. Would you go there today? It's ANewStory.com. There's nothing like a shower when you feel dirty. And right now Jesus stands ready to wash away the dirt of your lifetime. It feels so good to be clean!

I can still remember my wife's excited phone call that day. She said, "Honey! The baby just turned over!" Hey! He was three months old; it was a big deal. It's hard to believe there was a time you couldn't turn yourself over. Can you imagine a time when you couldn't walk by yourself? You couldn't feed yourself? Well, we took pictures of all these steps toward independence as all of our kids took those steps. There was a big cause for getting that old Super 8 movie camera out and getting the slide film out (come on, there was no iPhone then! You get it?). "Oh, look, he's crawling for the first time! He's walking for the first time! Take pictures! It's the first day they ever went to school." And then it happened, all three of our children were grown and out of the house, independent adults. But that's normal, right? I mean, the more you grow, the more independent you become. Right? Not necessarily. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Freedom of Total Dependency." Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Acts 9. I'm going to begin reading at verse 7 - it's the dramatic conversion of that persecutor of Christians, Saul of Tarsus. What a life-transforming day! Saul has just been knocked off his horse by this light from heaven; he knows now that it is the Lord he's dealing with, and verse 7 says, "The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything." Now, Saul of Tarsus is an intelligent, gifted, passionate leader. He felt sufficient, strong. He's all grown up, right? Wrong. Saul's road to maturity begins the moment after his conversion when it says, "They led him by the hand." Isn't it interesting to see here that from the moment of Saul's rebirth, God drives him to a position of total dependency? Later in this chapter God refers to Saul as, "My chosen instrument. I have great plans for him." You know when those plans begin? With total dependency. The more a child grows the more independent they should become. The more a child of God grows the more dependent he should become. Usefulness to God begins with a heart breaking. God will do whatever it takes to show you that dependency is maturity when it comes to spiritual adulthood. In fact, He may be doing whatever it takes right now. Paul would have to learn humility and dependency throughout his life. The stronger you are, the more it takes for you to learn to depend. In 2 Corinthians 1 he talks about hardships that they'd suffered almost to the point of death. And he says the reason was, "That we might not rely on ourselves but on God." He had to learn it again. Now, 2 Corinthians 12 - he talks about his "thorn in the flesh that was given to him to 'keep me from being conceited.'" This strong, driven leader had to be humbled and broken, and then re-humbled and re-broken. You say, "What strong and driven person? Paul?" In this case, I mean me. It's the Master's way to bring His strong-willed child to the end of their ability to control the situation; to make that child of His, in a sense, blind to where they need to be led by the hand. Maybe you're there now. God wants to pry open that tightly clenched hand of yours, empty it of self, and fill it with His power. Maybe He's brought you to the edge. It's going to be total dependency or total defeat. Why don't you get you out of the way? Grow up to the point where you will let your Father feed you, let your Father carry you, let your Father lead you. You're never stronger than the moment you reach up a trembling, empty hand and say, "Father, lead me by the hand."

If you'd seen the front lawn of our office, you wouldn't have been able to tell that there had been a change inside. The only evidence of that was that there was an uncustomary pile of shattered sheetrock in this big lump in the yard. The changes were on the second floor immediately above that pile where two small offices had just become one large office. A man from our staff went in, and went after that temporary wall that divided the people in that room, and ripped it out in no time. I'll tell you, it felt pretty different in there with that wall gone! Wish they were all that easy to tear down. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Great Wall Destroyer." Let's go to another upstairs room with a lot of walls in it. This room is an upper room in Acts 2, where we find our word for today from the Word of God. In a sense, there were a lot of walls there. It tells us when the disciples arrived they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. And then it lists some of the people who were there. It mentions Peter. Of course, Peter was very different from somebody else listed there, like Thomas. Peter was sort of a walking gland; he's like all emotions. Thomas - not his type. Thomas - cerebral, the thinker - always got an intellectual question. And then it talks about Matthew. Well, he had worked for the government as a tax collector. And then it mentions Simon the Zealot. He'd been a revolutionary, trying to overthrow the very same government that Matthew worked for. In fact, only a few weeks before, all of these guys who were in this upper room together, had been arguing over who was going to be the greatest. They were, each one, trying to win "king of the hill" against each other. Listen to what happens. "They all joined constantly in prayer." Chapter 2, verse 1: "On the Day of Pentecost they were all together in one place." Chapter 2, verse 42 says, "The new Christians had devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." That word fellowship is koinonia; it means intimate closeness. Verse 44: "After they prayed together, all the believers were together and had everything in common." The book of Acts goes on talking about times when the people will pray together and it literally brings them together. Listen, if you want to tear down a wall between rooms, use a crowbar. If you want to tear down walls between people, you use prayer. You can't get really, really close until you really, really pray together. Oh, sure, sometimes prayer can be a time when people still keep their masks on, keep it superficial, stick to the general praying kind of stuff. But real prayer is where people come together and express how they really need the Lord. You know, worship Him with specific thanks for specific things He's done recently. You fight together on your knees for the lives of people you care about. You come against Satan. You come against the stronghold of darkness that you both know is there. You admit your struggle, you passionately seek His strength, His answers, and walls start coming down. Every married couple needs to pray together daily. It is the ultimate glue between people: Christian coworkers, parents and their children, Christian friends, even if it starts out feeling awkward. Go to your Father together. In fact, the person you're having the most difficulty with is probably the one you most need to be praying with. When we go into the Father's presence sort of distant from each other, we almost always come out of His presence closer. Prayer softens hearts; prayer helps us see people and situations through God's eyes. And prayer is the great wall destroyer.

Okay, laugh if you will, but when I was in high school, I sang in the chorus. I did! Today, I'm just a backup singer; when I sing, people back up. But back in high school, we had some good times learning our parts, mastering our songs, and performing our concerts. Sometimes, if I was late for our chorus class, I could hear them warming up as I approached the chorus room. And this one warm-up was particularly monotonous: "mi, mi, mi, mi, mi, mi, mi, mi, mi." Don't change stations. I'm done. I'm not going to do any more singing. But... I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I do want to have A Word With You today about "The 'Me' Song." Now, the spelling is a little different, but the most monotonous chorus in the world still sounds the same, when someone's tune is (and I promise not to sing) "me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me." It is the song of our selfishness, a song we sing far too often. It's the most off-key chorus of all! It's when I'm performing as if it's all about me. Now, we can do better than this if we follow the blueprint laid out in our word for today from the Word of God. It's in Philippians 2:3-8. We're told there, "in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." This kind of self-sacrificing rather than self-seeking is not something that we see very much. So we need an example, and we've got one. The Bible goes on to say, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus who...made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant... He humbled Himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross." God tells us to follow His Son into an attitude that is all about "you, you, you, you, you" instead of "me, me, me, me, me." And especially in those moments when, like Jesus in His hours of suffering and dying, selflessness is the most amazing. Basically, there are certain times when we tend to enter the "Me" Zone, where we act like things should pretty much revolve around us. We slip into the "Me" Zone when we're feeling sick, when we're feeling stressed, when we're suffering, or when we're just tired and feeling shot. I know this all too well. How do I know this? Well, I have been there way too many times. But the Bible says, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus." At the time of His greatest pain, His greatest suffering - the time of the greatest suffering any human being has ever experienced, He's carrying the sin of the world - He's dying on the cross and He's still all about others! In the middle of His agony, Jesus is making sure His mother is cared for...He's reaching out to the thief on the cross next to Him, and He's asking His Father to forgive those who crucified Him. That's how your Savior handles being stressed, how He handles suffering, and how He wants to help you and me handle the moments when we just want to think about ourselves. It's at those times when I'm really tired, stressed, when I'm really not feeling good, that I have to reach beyond my feelings and say, "Dear Lord, give me the grace to still think about others when I feel like just thinking about me." In other words, "Jesus, would you please help me, because I want to be like You!"

My friend, Larry, was a pilot. And awhile back he was asked by a client to fly their corporate, cabin class plane from one metropolitan area airport to another. That flight should take about 15 minutes, and he thought, "Well, I could do that." His only commitment was several hours later to lead prayer meeting at his church that night, so he felt like there was plenty of time to get that job done. He was preparing to land at the airport, and as he looked at all of his controls, he noticed that five different indicators had gone on...all telling him that his front landing gear wasn't down. Well, he called the tower at the airport, and they said, "Well, why don't you fly by and we'll take a look at it." And they confirmed sure enough he didn't have any front landing gear. So he made a second approach, worked with the switches and controls, and hoped that would work. But no, he had to report to the tower all the lights are still on; five indicators saying he didn't have any front landing gear going down. He requested to be able to go back to his home airport, and as he did he was flipping his switches back and forth. Nothing was happening. He tried several aerial maneuvers to shake it loose and that didn't work. He called for his mechanics to be able to communicate through the tower and read slowly to him from the manual for his plane. He tried everything the manual said. Nothing worked! Now, he had three hours of fuel when he started, but he was running low now. So he went up to a level where he could put it on automatic pilot. It was dark, it was starting to snow now, and he thought, "Should I let my wife know about this?" He said, "Well, there's really no reason to alarm her." He looked for tools while it was on automatic pilot and he worked with those. Again, nothing worked, including nothing his mechanics read to him from the manual. He had ten minutes of fuel left. He thought, "Man, this is going to be $400,000 if I crash land. Oh yeah, and I don't know about me." He was low on fuel, hoping there would be no fire, so he began to prepare for the crash landing. He secured all the loose items, pulled the fire extinguisher pin in case there was a fire, harnessed himself in, and made the approach for his landing. All the indicator lights still on, his landing gear still not down and what happened next is what might happen just before you are about to crash. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Our Eleventh-Hour Lord." Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Exodus 14:9. The Jews are at the Red Sea, and it says, "The Egyptians, all Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen and troops pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they encamped by the sea." Okay, we're in a big jam here, right? But it says, "Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong East wind." You've got the Red Sea behind you, the enemy closing in. And then, just at that last moment, the waters parted. Oh yeah, about Larry, my pilot friend, we left him preparing for a crash landing. Nothing had worked - flipping switches, maneuvering, manuals, waiting. And so, as he made that approach, he simply said, "Lord, I need a miracle." He threw that switch one more time. He'd thrown it hundreds of times, and this time every light indicating trouble with his landing gear went off. He said, "I'm coming in! I've got full gear." They said, "Fly by" in the tower. He did. They turned the high light beams on. They said, "Hey, your landing gear is down!" He said, "I know." And he landed safely. The crowd said, "What happened?" He said, "A miracle of God." Oh, and he made it to his prayer meeting, too. Larry experienced it, Moses and the Israelites did, and maybe you will right now - our eleventh-hour Lord. He often comes through at the very last moment. There's never any doubt that He will, but it's that waiting that makes you wonder. Why? So we'll get to the end of our resources; so He can grow your faith like a muscle by stretching it. So He can demonstrate His power in a way where only God could get the glory. And so He can dramatically show His love to you. Maybe you've got your back to the Red Sea, the enemy's closing in and every solution has failed. Why don't you surrender completely to your Savior right now and cry out to Him, "Lord, I need a miracle." And you will be a candidate for that eleventh-hour Lord.

I'd done my whole adult life with my Karen, the only woman I ever needed. Suddenly, I had to figure out how to do the rest of my life without her. That Sunday night, we sat in the bleachers at our local football stadium and we watched our grandson graduate from high school as valedictorian and he gave a faith-filled valedictory message. Monday afternoon, she was gone. Wrapped in this huddle of sobs with our three adult children, I just choked out the words, "It hurts so bad." It really does. After some time, I'd walk into our living room, I'd still instinctively look for that beautiful hair. I called it her "crown of glory" as she sat in her favorite blue chair. I would go to make that oatmeal that she loved for breakfast. I turn to tell her about a conversation or situation and to hear her trademark laugh over my dumb jokes. Our four-year-old grandson said it all the first time he ran into our living room and saw her chair empty. He just ran back to his mommy and said, "Mommy, you were right. She's not here." No, she's not, and she won't be again. I probably shed more tears in those weeks than I've shed the rest of my life. But I have a story to tell. Actually, it's the Story that I've tried to tell folks my whole adult life. And suddenly I was living its ultimate validation. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Shattered Heart, A Certain Hope." Everything I've ever believed, everything I've ever taught about my Jesus is true! Everything that my death-crushing Savior promised, I can tell you, He delivers in the darkest, most devastating days of my life! He said of those who have put their total trust in His death on the cross for their sins, and this is in our word for today from the Word of God in John 14:19. He said, "Because I live, you will live also." Because Karen's Savior is alive, so is this woman I love. In God's own words, we have "a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3). I'm not talking about some "cross your fingers" hope. This is living hope. Hope is a Person - Jesus. He trampled death as He blasted out of His grave on Easter morning. The hope that is holding my heart together is as sure as our hope that spring will follow a seemingly endless winter. Spring is a sure thing. So is heaven for those who've pinned all their hopes on the One who died so we could go there. As much as I love Karen, she is now with the One who loves her the most. This amazing Jesus has got my Karen. And He's got me. I can tell you that by the peace that has lasted across the years now. That peace, along with that certain hope of a forever spring after this cold winter, is a powerful counterbalance on that scale that is so weighed down by grief. Through all my darkest hours, through my loneliest moments, the peace has never been shaken. Oh, this Jesus I've talked about, that I've written about, I've believed in all these years has come closer and become more real to me than ever before. He promised He would be, as the Bible says, "close to the brokenhearted" (Psalm 34:18). He really, really is. When you walk through the valley of the shadow, you've got to have Jesus to go there. And when you walk across that final frontier beyond our death, you've got to know you belong to Jesus. If you're not sure of that, would you please make this the day you get that settled? Tell Him, "Jesus, what you died for was me. I am yours. You're alive! I want you to live in me." Check out our website - you can find there how to be sure you belong to Him. That website is ANewStory.com. Look, I'm in the biggest storm of my life - the Cat 5 hurricane, the EF-5 tornado. Jesus is my safe room. Is He yours? He's stronger than the storm. The Bible says, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure" (Hebrews 6:19). And my friend, The Anchor holds.

All right, what famous TV personality said these words: "I love trash." All right, Sesame Street fans, yep, Oscar the Grouch, who even lived in a trash can. Now listen, I've got a few idiosyncrasies - not nearly as many as everybody else I know, but one of those is that it's very important to me that my trash gets picked up once a week. I try to be faithful in getting it out to the street like I'm supposed to on the day it's supposed to be there. What if the trash man doesn't come for one week? What if he didn't come for two weeks? What should I do about that? What if my approach to that problem were to go and tell all my neighbors, "My trash wasn't picked up!" Oh, and then the guy that delivers the mail; he comes up and I say, "Do you know what? That trashman didn't come and pick up my trash!" And I call my pastor and say, "Pastor, I'm not getting my trash picked up!" And the checkout girl while I'm at the grocery store; you know, she should know about this too. Oh, and when I get gas, you know what? I'm going to tell the guy at the gas station. "That guy didn't pick up my trash!" You'd say, "Ron, aren't you missing a pretty obvious step here?" Well, yeah. I forgot to talk to the only person who can explain why it's not there; I didn't talk to the only person who can change it - the trash man. You say, "Ron, that's stupid." Yeah, but I've just described our standard procedure for handling problems between Christians. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Going Direct." Okay, our word for today from the Word of God about going direct is found in Matthew 5:21-24. You may recognize this as coming from The Sermon on The Mount and Jesus is speaking. "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder,' and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell. Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift." Now, what Jesus is saying here basically is, "Don't come to Me until you've talked to your brother." That's interesting isn't it? He says, "Even though you're bringing a sacrifice in your hands, which is the holiest thing that a Jew could do at that time, even though you're coming to worship Me, you and I don't have much to talk about until you've gotten that conflict - that tension - squared away with your brother." You remember what I said about telling everyone about the trash man and my problem with him? That's really how we handle problems with each other. We go talk to everybody else about it except the person there's the problem with. We take all sorts of evasive action to avoid confronting someone. Oh, we're subtle about it, we ask for prayer, "Lord, you know...", "Please pray for me will you?", "Ask the Lord about this." And of course we get into sanctified gossip with our prayer requests sometimes, or we just unload it on our friends. We complain, we keep score, we sputter that he should know better. Have you talked to the person who has hurt you? Have you talked to the person that you have hurt? You say, "Well, if they'll make the first move." Jesus doesn't say that. He says, "You make the first move." You'll be surprised - if you'll just talk to them - by the reasons for their actions. Maybe you have totally misinterpreted their actions. It may clear up all kinds of misunderstanding; it could get rid of the growing cancer of bitterness inside of you. Even if they don't respond, you have dealt with the bitterness and anger that the Bible says causes you to forfeit the grace of God. And most of all, even if it doesn't resolve the relationship, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you've done it Jesus' way. You have obeyed. One of the most disobeyed commandments of Jesus is to settle things with your brother. I think we ought to be asking each other, when someone comes to us with a problem about another person, "Have you talked to them? Have you talked to the real person involved?" Because when it comes to healing broken relationships, don't go to any more outsiders. Do it the Jesus way, go direct!

It's always hard to lose someone you love. It's especially hard when it's a child. I had friends who lost their precious granddaughter, Amy. Two years old - went to sleep with a little cold and a little fever. By the end of the night, Amy was gone from a cause, well it was still a medical mystery. As I talked with the family at the visitation, of course there was deep grief, but there was also a little comfort from something beautiful that happened right before Amy went to sleep that night. Her mother began singing "Jesus Loves Me" to her and little Amy sang along with her. Her last words, "Jesus loves me, this I know." And then she was with Him. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Eternity Insurance." The way little Amy went into eternity is a wonderful way for any of us to go into eternity - knowing Jesus loves us and that we will be with Him forever. We all have our appointment to keep with God, and what happens there has everything to do with our response to that love. A love that little children sometimes seem to understand best. Maybe that's why, according to our word for today from the Word of God in Matthew 18, beginning at verse 2, "Jesus called a little child and had him stand among them. And He said: 'I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.'" When you put that in the context of a little two-year-old's simple trust in the love of Jesus, you see some of what Jesus is trying to say here. We've got all our sophistication, our questions, our doubts, our analysis, our hardness, and our pride. You and I don't want to believe that we can't earn heaven with our goodness, that all we can do is put all our trust in the Savior who died to remove the death penalty for our sin. No, no. We're strong, we're self-reliant, we're smart, we can figure things out, we can handle things, we can fix things. We struggle with simply reaching out to Jesus in uncomplicated, uninhibited faith. But there is no other way to, in Jesus' words, "enter the kingdom of heaven." But when our heart beats for the last time, it won't matter what degrees or positions we held, or how many people we know, or what religion we were, or what nice things they said about us at our funeral. All that will matter is whether or not you have grabbed the nail-scarred hand of Jesus Christ to forgive your sin and take you to His heaven. Grabbing a hand in total trust is something a child totally understands and something we grown-up children need to understand again. Because if you haven't trusted Jesus to be your personal Savior from your personal sin, you don't stand a chance in eternity. He's the only One who could forgive and erase what will keep you out of heaven - your sin and its death penalty. He's the only One who died that death penalty for you on the cross so you don't have to. You need to face eternity knowing that Jesus loves you and that you have responded to that love. You don't want to enter eternity, you don't want to face Jesus, knowing you've neglected or rejected His love for you poured out on His cross. Have you ever grabbed Jesus' hand in total trust to say, "Jesus, you're my only hope of being rescued from my sin"? If not, why would you risk another day without Him? Why would you live another day outside His love? Tell Him, "Jesus, I'm yours" right where you are today. I invite you to our website, because it's there simply to help you be sure you actually have begun this relationship with the only One who can rescue you from your sin. It's ANewStory.com. Please check it out today. So, this little girl enters eternity, knowing that Jesus loves her and showing you and me the love we so desperately need. "Jesus loves me, this I know."

In the fall I really got exercise in our yard. We had lots of trees in that yard, and lots of leaves. Our sons were gone, and I got to do just about all the raking. There was this one corner of the yard that was kind of nice to rake because it smelled nice. I'd be raking away and suddenly I'd smell the strong aroma of spearmint. Now, I don't chew gum and I don't wear spearmint scented deodorant usually. So, it had to be coming from what I was raking - and it was! That was my wife's herb garden, and when some of the spearmint plants got bruised by my rake that spearmint scent started to fill the air. My wife told me that's the way it is with lots of herbs, like with lemon balm, for example. If you take a little piece of that plant and you crush it between your fingers, the air will suddenly be sweetened by this scent of lemon. So I learned, crushing a plant releases its scent. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Walking Hope." In 2 Corinthians 2, where we get our word for today from the Word of God, the Apostle Paul has just told about hardships he has suffered, great pressure he was under, even the despair he'd been feeling. In the context of a lot of pain and pressure, he says in 2 Corinthians 2:14, "But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him." You see, God wants to spread to the people around you the experience of the beautiful aroma of what it's like to have God in your life. How does He release that scent? Oh, hardships and pressure. The scent of Jesus in Paul's life was probably never more beautiful than when it came to what he called his thorn in the flesh - some physical limitation that he begged God over and over to remove. He called it a messenger from Satan to torment him. That's in 2 Corinthians 12. Then he comes to terms in that passage with the fact that this pain is not going away. Then he discovers the unexpected, glorious result that can be released through his crushing. 2 Corinthians 12:9 - "But God said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.'" When you can't, there's an opportunity for everyone around you to see that God can. Paul goes on, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me." When people came in contact with the Apostle Paul they smelled power, they smelled grace. But it wasn't Paul's power or grace. People got to experience God's beauty because he had been bruised, and the bruising released the aroma of the love of God. That's what the Lord wants to do through you. Maybe you've been going through something that has bruised you or crushed you. If you've allowed yourself to become bitter, angry, or self-focused because of it there'll be a smell coming from you - probably like the smell that comes from what my wife used to call stink weed on the farm, and no one is going to want to be around you. They'll conclude that Christ doesn't make much of a difference in the times when we really need the difference made. But you've probably met, as I have, some precious men and women who have been deeply wounded, totally crushed, and they've surrendered all that pain to the Savior and they are a joy to be around. They're like walking hope. The aroma of God is all over them. Never do we have a greater opportunity to show the people around us the reality of our Savior than when we are in a time of great hurt. Maybe like you're in right now. If it's one of those times for you, would you open yourself up to a divine take-over of your feelings, your pain and your personality? You'll find that something very supernatural, something very beautiful will happen. The crushing you've experienced will release the incomparable aroma of the grace, and the love, and the peace of Almighty God. The Creator who releases beauty through a bruised, crushed plant, can surely do it through one of us - his blood-bought children.

If you're a frequent flyer, as I have been in the past, they give you frequent flyer miles that eventually add up to a free ticket. Well, they give their really frequent flyers a few fringe benefits. The benefits aren't quite what they used to be, but like sometimes you can do early boarding. When one of our leaders and I were flying a lot together, it helped if we could board early. Because we could kind of get set up for a lot of work to get done on the flight. Now, he didn't have all the miles I did, but the boarding agents were pretty nice to him, because he boarded with me. My ticket, well, it has this special stamp that would indicate my high-mileage status. And on one occasion, they actually offered early boarding to us guys that they see all the time. They took my ticket and then he was following right behind me. He said, "I'm with him. Is that OK?" Yep. We went together. I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why God Will Let You In." Sometimes the one way you can get in is on the strength of who you know. "I'm with him." Well, for sure, it's the only way any of us will ever get into heaven the day we die. That important fact is dramatically demonstrated in our word for today from the Word of God from Luke 23 beginning at verse 42. The scene is that skull-shaped hill where Jesus is dying on the cross, with a criminal on a cross on either side of him. Now the Bible says of one of those men, "Then he said, 'Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.' Jesus answered him, 'I tell you the truth, today you will be with Me in paradise.'" When this man died and kept his appointment with God, I could just see him grabbing Jesus and saying to God, "I'm with Him." Now we know from Jesus Himself that that man is in heaven. Not because he was baptized. He wasn't. Not because he was confirmed. There was no time for that. Not because he was religious or righteous. He wasn't. He would go to heaven when he died for one reason. He had put his total trust in Jesus to forgive his sins and take him to heaven. It's the only way that thief could go to heaven. It's the only way I can; it's the only way you can. God puts it this way. "There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men" (1 Timothy 2:5). A ransom is the price you pay to get someone back, right? When Jesus died on that cross, He was absorbing all the guilt and all the punishment, all the hell of every sin you have ever committed. He was paying the price to get you back - the ransom. And no one else did that; no one else could. That's why your eternity depends on whether or not you grab Jesus to rescue you like a drowning person would grab a lifeguard. You might wonder if God can forgive some of the things you've done. Well that dying thief, with his life of crime, might well have wondered the same thing until he heard Jesus say of the men who had executed Him, "Father, forgive them." If Jesus would forgive the men who nailed Him to that cross, is there anything He won't forgive? He will forgive you! Don't wait another day to make sure you're going to heaven when you die. You just don't know when your date with God is. Say to Jesus, "Lord, remember me. Forgive me. Be the Savior for my sin." Your sins will be forgiven, and your name will be entered in His book of those who have eternal life in heaven that the Bible describes. This is the day to say, "Jesus, I'm yours. I want to be ready for eternity whenever it comes." I've laid out simply the path to begin your relationship with Him at our website. I urge you to go check it out today. It's ANewStory.com. Let today be the day you settle your eternity. So that when you meet God, you can say, "I'm with Him." And you'll hear Jesus say, "Today you will be with Me in paradise - and forever."

When I lived in the New York area, I occasionally spoke for the New York Giants, and the New York Jets, and the Yankees, and the Mets, and some of their visiting teams. Now, when people heard about that, guess what their first question usually was? Well, of course, they said, "Ron, what scripture verse did you speak on?" No! What they asked was, "Who was there? Who did you meet?" And they wanted to hear who attended and who I got to shake hands with. People got excited because I had been with some star they knew about. But much more frequently than those events, I've had the opportunity to be with some real VIPs, some real very important people. But you probably wouldn't recognize their names. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why the Little People Are the Big People." Ok, here comes our word for today from the Word of God. It's in the 10th chapter of the gospel of Mark. "Some Pharisees came and tested Jesus by asking, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?'" That's in verse 2, and this ongoing conversation continues with these very important people from Jerusalem. In the middle of all of that in verse 13 it says, "People were bringing little children to Jesus to have Him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them." I think in the Greek it says, "Go away, kid!" Well, "When Jesus saw this, He was indignant. He said to them, 'Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.' He took the children in His arms, put His hands on them and blessed them." Okay, here's the scene. Jesus is with the power brokers from Jerusalem, and then He's with these little kids crawling all over His lap. The question: when was Jesus with the VIPs? Not the big shots; not the power brokers. Oh, He was with the VIPs, He said, when He was with the children. The disciples got it wrong. Maybe they were running the nursery that day. Listen, have you ever been in the nursery when the pastor preached too long and the kids are going crazy? Well, the disciples are saying, "No, no, He's with important people now." Jesus said, "Uh-uh, these are the important people." You know, we have a tendency to really curry favor with the powerful, to oblige the rich, to try to get close to the stars in whatever our constellation is, whether it's business, or school, or church. But what Jesus models here is what I would call a VIP inversion. He says, "The little people are the big people to Him: children, the homeless, the hurting, the powerless, the misfit, the lonely, the excluded." Jesus gives prime time to those who can give Him nothing. He focuses on those who have no votes, no money, no favors to give. This must be a pretty important account, because it's recorded in three of the gospels. And we are told here that Jesus was indignant when the disciples made this values error. So, who do you think the VIPs are in your world? Well, if you see what Jesus sees, you'll know it's the little people. You'll know that you're becoming like Jesus when you start to lose your fascination with people who are powerful, or those who can do something for you. You're becoming like Jesus when you feel yourself wanting to be with the people He thinks are important, not the ones the world says are important. The ones the world sees as powerless and unimportant. See, when you get close to a little person, just ask Jesus, you are getting close to a real VIP.

If I'm ever on an airplane flight where the flight attendant becomes incapacitated, I think I might be able to do the safety instructions. I mean, I've heard them so many times. Actually, you know, they've now video-ized the presentation. It used to be they just kind of got up and did it. I like the part where that little yellow oxygen mask drops down from above your seat in the demonstration. In the video, everyone is wonderfully calm in this simulated oxygen problem. I'm sure that's very true-to-life. "Oh, look, my oxygen mask just fell down. That's nice." Well, the video shows a mother putting the mask on herself, and then on her little girl. The instructions go like this: "If the cabin pressure drops, get the oxygen to your face first, and then to your child's." I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Breathing The Air Your Child Needs." When it's crunch time on an airplane flight, you have to first get for yourself the oxygen you need as a parent, then you can give your son or daughter what they need. In these increasingly challenging days for parents and dangerous days for our kids, we've got to breathe deeply what our children need so we can pass it on to them. Over the years of youth and family work, I have often been asked by a parent, "Can you help my son or daughter?" Often, the most helpful answer would be, "Can we get the oxygen to you before we try to get it to them?" How many times has our child's weakness been a mirror of our own, their failure a mirror of our failure, their baggage, their needs? It's kind of like my child, my mirror. I have to get myself fixed before I can fix my son or daughter. And how in the world do we change things about ourselves that we haven't been able to change all these years? Hope! Yes, in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Peter 1:18 God says, "You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers with the precious blood of Christ." We have all gotten these destructive hand-me-down ways of living from our parents who probably got those same hurting ways from their parents, and so on and so on. And even though we may have been determined not to reproduce some of those traits (we may have hated some of those things), here they are popping up in our generation, marking another generation. Unless their hold can be stopped in your generation! Unless I can find the spiritual oxygen needed. If I can, then I can pass it on to my children who can be victorious over this. We've all got ways of doing things we have long wanted to change, and for a long time: my temper, my negative attitude, my lack of discipline, my critical tongue, this addictive personality, this controlling personality, this lack of affection, this dishonesty. But God injects into our lifelong struggle to change, this hope-giving word: "redeemed." We can be redeemed from it! But you can't help your child with that problem until you've breathed God's life-giving oxygen first. The bridge between the person you are and the person you need to be is spelled S-A-V-I-O-R. We need a Savior. Christ shed His blood on a cross to pay for a lifetime of your sins and mine, and He breaks the power of sin to enslave any person who belongs to Him. And the Savior becomes your personal Savior when you tell Him you're giving yourself to Him. Isn't it time you opened up to the One who died for you for your sake, for the sake of your precious child, for the sake of future generations? The greatest choice you could make for all of those people is to tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm yours." I think we can help you get that relationship started if you'll just check out our website - ANewStory.com. Jesus has redeeming grace for that son or daughter that you love so much. But first, you've got to breathe it yourself.

When I visited the Alamo I felt the emotion of a place that was made pretty special by sacrifice. It was February 1836 when that little Spanish mission went into the history books. You remember the story. The Mexican forces, thousands strong, were advancing to crush the little Texas independence movement. Sam Houston needed time to organize his troops in order to fight back, and he did get that time because of what happened at the Alamo, and he did win, and they did get their independence. But in the meantime, the Alamo was the key to victory. One hundred eighty-six freedom fighters took a stand in that little mission called the Alamo - a stand that is still over 150 years later synonymous with heroism. You know, "Remember the Alamo!" Colonel William Travis was in command that day. The enemy demanded surrender, and Travis's answer could not be misunderstood. In fact, it's the same answer I hope you will give to the enemy's demands on you. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Un-intimidated." Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Acts 4, and I'll begin reading at verse 24. It gives you a little insight into the battles being fought by the early church. Now, the Sanhedrin, the Jewish leaders, have called in Peter and John and have told them not to preach any more in the name of Jesus. And it says, "After further threats, they let them go." They could not decide on how to punish them because all the people were praising God for what had happened. So, they basically tried to shut down the witness of these people. The church gets together in a prayer meeting and prays like this in verse 29, "Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak Your Word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand and heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant, Jesus." Man, that's a powerful response! The Sanhedrin had organized the crucifixion of Jesus not long before. These men could have possibly arranged for the same fate for the apostles they were trying to shut down. But here this bold prayer comes back as an answer. Now, they're experiencing heavy pressure on their faith, and they seem unintimidated. They're talking about miracles; they're talking about boldness. Reminds me of that stand at the Alamo. Colonel Travis received the demand to surrender, and he said to his troops, "There has been a demand from the enemy that we surrender, and I have answered with a cannon shot." Huh! I love that! "I've answered with a cannon shot," he says, "and our flag still waves proudly. I will live and die as a soldier." Now, maybe the Devil's been trying to get you on the defensive lately and demanding your surrender - you're being hammered, and squeezed, maybe overwhelmed. The temptation is to back off, to retreat, to nurse your wounds and maybe to not take any risks. But would you look at your heritage in Christ? When other Christians in the first century were in that situation, they were bold; they came out asking for miracles to do the supernatural. Where did this bold response to trouble come from? This cannon shot? It comes from a prayer meeting; one that if you read their prayer here in Acts 4, focuses on God's character, God's power, God's history, and God's promises. And when you size up your situation, your opposition in light of God's power, you are ready to go on offense. You don't need to play defense. Hey, maybe the enemy has demanded your surrender. Well, answer with a prayer-ignited cannon shot, "I shall never surrender! I shall never retreat!" In spite of the bombardment, you can stand firm in Jesus' name, and you can be unintimidated.

Some years ago our family was vacationing on the eastern end of Long Island near a little village called Sag Harbor. It was amazing how much that village changed, though, over a period of just 24 hours. One day it was a sleepy little town of tourists kind of strolling from store to store. The next day it was a chaotic beehive with snarled traffic and anxious people rushing from store to store. Do you know what made the difference? A hurricane warning! Yes, a powerful storm was moving up the East Coast and it was expected to hit that part of Long Island. So people were rushing everywhere to get prepared. Batteries and candles suddenly appeared by every cash register in every store. And they quickly disappeared. People were suddenly living differently when there was a major storm. I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Year That Everything Changed." You might be living in a year like that right now; a year when a lot of things have changed. And times like these (hurricane times) can really change your perspective on what's important and how you should be living. In our word for today from the Word of God beginning with Isaiah 6:1, Isaiah says, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord." Now, you're probably not all broken up over Uzziah dying, but he had been king for 52 years. So if you were 52 or under, King Uzziah was the only ruler you had ever known. And he had brought his nation to an unparalleled level of prosperity and power. And suddenly he was gone. It was one of those years when everything changed. So let's think of these words in this way, "In the year that everything changed." That's when Isaiah says, "I saw the Lord." That's when you usually do - when everything is changing - when the hurricane is blowing you around. Maybe God has shaken your world recently so you'll see Him as you've never seen Him before and so you'll live differently. Now there are three perspectives God wants you to live by in a season when everything is changing. First, Isaiah says, "I saw the Lord, seated on a throne, high and exalted." Isaiah describes powerful angelic beings he sees "calling to one another, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory.'" Perspective #1 when everything is changing; "Lord, You are awesome." God wants you to enter His Throne Room as Isaiah did - by prayer. He wants you to see His majesty; to realize that, by praying, you are entering the Throne Room from which billions of galaxies are governed and bringing your life and your needs to the One who rules it all. When everything's changing, you need to dwell on the awesomeness of your God. Then Isaiah tells us he cried, "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." Then he describes how one of the angels touches his lips with a live coal from the altar and says, "Your guilt is taken away." Perspective #2 - "Lord, I'm a mess." See, God wants all this change to be a wakeup call that shows you the sin that you haven't dealt with and to let Him touch it with His forgiveness and His cleansing. Then God asks, "Whom shall I send?" And Isaiah says, "Here am I. Send me!" God wants you to look at His awesomeness, then at your sinfulness, and then at the lostness of the people around you. Perspective #3 - "They are dying." You've seen the King; they never have. And God has sent the storm to refocus your attention on the mission of rescuing the dying people around you. With all that's changing in our world, the things that really matter haven't changed. In fact, the changes make the important things more important than ever. Make frequent visits to God's Throne Room, go off and to Jesus' cross to get clean, and go on frequent missions to take some people to heaven with you. With the storm intensifying, focus on the things that really matter so this can be the time when you really see the Lord.

Honestly, I had a tough time sleeping when I was in Singapore some years ago. It was my first time overseas. It was hot all the time there; it's sub-equatorial. And I found myself lying awake almost all night long. I was there with another guy. We were ministering together there, teaching in seminars. So, since we couldn't sleep, we ended up talking and talking, and the ceiling fan over our heads made about one revolution per minute, so it wasn't doing much good. Finally about 3:00 to 3:30, just about the time you get to sleep, a little cooler at that point, and you wouldn't know it, you just doze off and suddenly you'd hear a rooster crowing right there in downtown Singapore. The roosters didn't care; they were still crowing. You could hear right after that, all the sounds of Singapore waking up...thank you Mr. Rooster, I just got to sleep. Now, I didn't grow up on a farm. So this was my first opportunity to listen each morning to the power of a rooster's wakeup call, whether I wanted to wake up or not. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Rooster In Your Heart." Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 26. It's a familiar account of the denial of Jesus by His main man, Simon Peter. And in verse 73, we come upon the third time Peter is going to deny his Lord. "After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, 'Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away.' Then he began to call down curses on himself, and he swore to them, 'I don't know the man!' Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken, 'Before the rooster crows you'll disown me three times.' And he went outside and wept bitterly." It appears here that Peter betrayed Jesus twice before and didn't deal with what he had done. He managed to get through that okay. But the third time, the Bible says, "He went out and wept bitterly." In fact, the Greek means he went out and wept bitterly and loudly. You could hear this man sobbing aloud after what he had done. And it was the sound of the rooster that triggered repentance. In a sense, that rooster did to Peter what roosters often do; he woke Peter up. Now, Jesus told us the Holy Spirit would specialize in wakeup calls. He said in John 16, "When the Holy Spirit has come, He will convict the world of sin." When you betray your Lord in some sin or some compromise, there is - in a sense - a rooster calling in your heart saying, "Wake up! Look what you're doing! Do you know how this makes your Savior feel?" It's like an arrow to the heart. The question is, "What do you do when the Holy Spirit's conviction says, 'What have you done?'" It's possible that the rooster's been crowing in your heart lately; things you've been doing in secret or when you're with that person that maybe you never should have been associated with. Or maybe when you've compromised the truth, or you've neglected your family again, you've hurt the people you love again, you rationalize what you should be repenting of. Peter graduated from spiritual treason to spiritual greatness after his denial. Why? He let God break his heart over his sin. He responded emotionally to the stabbing pain in his heart. Do you? Spiritual disaster begins when you begin to quench the Spirit of God, you ignore the call that should wake you up. Today, through this program, the rooster's crowing again. It's the Holy Spirit saying, "You're breaking Jesus' heart. It's time you shed some tears over it as He is. It's the cry of a rooster that means a new day is dawning. The conviction of the Holy Spirit can begin a whole new day in your life if you'll wake up.

A while ago, my sister-in-law introduced me to this tasty new addition to my usual breakfast menu. They're called English crumpets - low fat, great taste. Then I was hooked. In fact, I decided I had to go get myself more of them. I went to where I figured something in the English muffin/bagel category would be: the bread section, right? No, not crumpets. I finally tried something really radical. I asked someone who worked there. Yeah, a guy's last resort. He said, "They're in dairy." Dairy? Well, I guess these things are supposed to be refrigerated. And dairy is where I found them...at the end of a long search! I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Spiritual Shopping." Now in my search for what would satisfy my appetite, I was shopping in the right store, but not in the right aisle. You know, it's easy to make that same mistake when you're shopping spiritually - for something that will satisfy your appetite for meaning in life. You only have to watch a few talk shows or look at some of today's best selling books to see that more and more people are shopping in the store that says "Spirituality." We seem to have concluded rightly that earth-stuff doesn't satisfy the human soul. Ecclesiastes says, "God has placed eternity in the hearts of men." That's right. Earth stuff isn't going to fill that hole. But, see, earth stuff doesn't give the meaning and the fulfillment that we can only get from something bigger - something spiritual. It may be that your own search has taken you down several aisles, looking for truth, for peace, for significance. There are probably more aisles in the spiritual store than ever before. It's easy to get confused, to get deceived, then get lost. In our word for today from the Word of God, Jesus Christ makes a bold declaration about where we will find what our hearts are hungry for. It's in John 14:6. "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'" Now Jesus said our spiritual shopping comes to an end when we go to His aisle and find the way He's provided to belong to God. This 'coming to the Father' He talks about is all about finding a personal relationship with the One who created us, the One we're going to meet the moment we die. Basically, there are three possibilities in the Spiritual Store. One is religion. You can try to fill the spiritual vacuum in your heart with the rituals and the beliefs of a religion. The second possibility is spiritual experiences from meditating, channeling, occult arts, or a wide variety of New Age spiritualities. And the third possibility in the Spiritual Store is a love relationship with our Creator. And the world's best selling book, the Bible, makes clear in its timeless wisdom that it is that relationship we're really looking for. In fact, the Bible says we were "created by Him and for Him" (Colossians 1:16). In other words, we can't find our ultimate meaning until we belong to the One we were made by and made for. And the Bible goes on to point out that instead of living for Him, we have, day after day, lived for ourselves. And that has cut us off from our Creator, and left us looking to religion or spiritual experiences to fill the hole that only a God-relationship can fill. Jesus came to pay for, to fix the brokenness that has come from our self-rule. That's why He died on the cross. That's why He said He is the way to get to our Heavenly Father - because He's the only One who paid the price to remove what keeps us from God. A religion can't love you, neither can a spiritual experience. We need a Creator-relationship. And that begins when you reach out and trust Jesus, the Creator's Son, to bring you and God together. The day you say to Him, as you could right now, "Jesus, I'm pinning all my hopes on You and what You did on the cross to bring me into a love relationship with my Creator." Listen, if you want that, go to our website and find, there, the Biblical information that will help you get this settled. It's ANewStory.com. Most of all, let Jesus know you want him. Maybe Jesus was the last aisle you thought you'd find answers in. But He's the only aisle where you'll finally find what you've been shopping for so long.

My daughter was all excited about the sign she saw at the airport. It was actually over the door at a terminal, and it simply said, "Through these doors pass the greatest employees in the world." She said, "You know, Dad, that would make me feel like I was really doing a good job if I came under that every day." It gives you something you want to live up to. I hope you're posting the right kind of sign. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "I'll Become What You Call Me." Well, our word for today from the Word of God is from Acts 4, and I'm going to read beginning at verse 36 where a man gets a name change. "Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet." Now, notice Joseph becomes Barnabas, The Encourager. We read about him on several occasions in the book of Acts, not the least of which is when he came with Saul of Tarsus, who had just come to Christ. Now, remember, Saul had been persecuting the church. He was like public enemy number one for the Christians. But, "When Saul came to Jerusalem, (Acts says) he tried to join the disciples, and they were all afraid of him. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles." This is the kind of thing Barnabas does throughout his ministry. He goes on to encourage new Gentile believers in Antioch, and nobody's quite sure about them. He rehabilitates Mark when Paul fires him. The point is, the apostles called Joseph an encourager, and he just kept living up to what they called him. That's a principle of human behavior. We tend to become the name we're called. That airline seems to know that, "Through these doors pass the greatest employees in the world." If you call them that, maybe they'll live up to it. That means you have at your disposal a powerful tool for building people, or a destructive weapon for tearing them down. For example, what names do you call your son or daughter? How many times have you said stupid, or lazy, or rebel, or problem? Well, you're programming them with ideas about themselves, and they may then go on to just prove you right. Think about what you've called your husband or wife lately, or that person who frustrates you - that person who's so irritating, so negative. You can help change a person if you'll look for their strengths and tell them what you see. Call them that good thing. Find a name you can use to bring out their best. Maybe that person, for all of their weaknesses, all of their negativeness, maybe they're obnoxious, but are they generous? Maybe they're sensitive, they fight for their family. Maybe they're a person of conviction; they're organized. Maybe they have a great smile, or a great spirit, or a budding talent. Would you tell them what you see? Would they make a great Christian if they turned their mind and talents toward Christ? Sometimes I've said that to people. "You know what, you would make a great follower of Jesus." Then they look surprised and I tell them their qualities that would make them a great follower of His. "With a mind like yours, with a gift like yours, oh what a follower of Christ you would be!" Tell the people around you who they could be with the strengths that they have, even if you only see a little bit of it. Because by naming it, you can nurture it. Look at those people close to you as if they were wearing a big old sign that says, "I'll become what you call me."

Years ago when I went on my first international ministry trip, I went just about as far as you can go - 10,000 miles to Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. I was going to be away for three weeks, which was the longest I had ever left my wife and our three young children. My wife mobilized the kids to put little love notes all over and all through my luggage. We had a nice meal together on the way to the airport and then some special hugs and kisses at the airport. But I did have to go. And I'm not kidding you, it was a sad moment. My wife was trying to look like she was fine. The children were obviously not looking fine. I managed to hold myself together until I rounded the bend in the concourse, then I started wiping tears from my eyes. It was hard, but one thing made it OK. It was only temporary. We would be reunited. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Good News for Our Grief." Life's partings are tough when someone we love slips into eternity. Death rips us up inside, and the grief is sometimes almost unbearable. But because of Jesus, it's almost unbearable. I know, because I was the one several years ago burying the woman I loved - almost unbearable. Why almost? Well, I belong to Jesus, and my honey did, so that's not the termination of our relationship. No, because of Christ, it's just an interruption. I'm so glad. God describes this hope in our hurtingest times in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Thessalonians 4, beginning in verse 13. "We do not want you to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command and the dead in Christ will rise first." That's my Dad. That's my baby brother whose death brought our family to Christ. That's my grandparents. It's more and more of my friends and the woman I loved for a lifetime. The Bible goes on to say, "After that, we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so will we be with the Lord forever." Wow! When Jesus walked out of His grave, He conquered death for all those who would ever give their lives to Him. It doesn't mean our heart won't stop some day in this earth-suit called our body, it will die. But it means the real you, your soul, will go on forever uninterrupted in God's great Heaven. Is it any wonder the Bible says, "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory?" (1 Corinthians 15:54-55). You may be struggling with the loss of someone you love. I think I get that. The pain is very real. Death was never meant to be part of our lives. Sin brought in death. But Jesus died to pay the death penalty for our sin, and then, on Easter morning, He beat this monster that has beaten every person who ever lived. So now, because of Jesus, the very worst death can be for a believer is an interruption of the relationship, never a termination. Hallelujah! And if you've never put your total trust in Jesus Christ to be your Savior from your sin and its death penalty, please don't risk another day without Him. Would you tell Him, "Jesus, your death on the cross was to pay for my sin. It is my only hope of heaven. And the fact that You walked out of your grave proves that You can give eternal life that no one else can give. I'm Yours, Jesus, beginning today." If you're at that point where you want to begin that relationship and have that assurance, this is your day to check out our website and the information there that will help you know you've got this settled. The website is ANewStory.com. That day of my long trip...the pain, the tears were real. As they are on a much deeper level when someone we love is leaving us for eternity. But you can handle the leaving if you know what I knew that day at the airport...that this separation is only an interruption and hallelujah, the reunion is coming.

There's a stretch of nights in the fall when the moon is absolutely incredible! It's usually in October - harvest time for farmers. And when it's full moon time, you can see this huge, brilliant, yellowish moon rising in the eastern sky. It just makes you stop and almost catch your breath. I think it was in the days before electricity that farmers started calling it a "harvest moon." With so much depending on the harvest and so little time to bring it in, every hour had to count. And the days never seemed quite long enough to get it all in. So a bright full moon was more than just a beautiful view...it meant something much more important. With that extra light, God was giving them a little more time to harvest! I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Little More Time To Harvest." Maybe you and I are living right now in the light of a spiritual harvest moon - to bring to Jesus some of the lives around us that He died to rescue. Maybe that's why He's giving you a little more time. There's a powerful illustration of this in our word for today from the Word of God in Luke 13:6. "Then (Jesus) told this parable: 'A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?' 'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.'" I wonder how many of our lives this parable might be describing? Jesus comes looking for some fruit on a believer's life, especially in the form of some people that you've introduced to Him and He finds none. Why should He leave us here any longer, just soaking up the nutrients in our spiritual soil? But the answer comes, "Give him/give her a little more time to make a difference." By virtue of the fact that you and I are still here, Jesus has decided to let us have at least a little more time to take some people to heaven with us. I'll tell you, you feel it deeply when the time for you to bring someone home runs out - when harvest time is over. I still remember my high school friend Cathy. It's not somebody I dated; we were just good friends. One morning, during my freshman year of college, I remember waking up to a news story that mentioned her name. I woke up fast! The night before, a gunman had walked into the Student Union at the university Cathy attended, pulled out a gun, and shot her in cold blood. Suddenly, I was out of chances to tell Cathy about how she could go to heaven. We had talked about everything except Jesus! I had slept through the harvest, and time had run out. That's why the Bible says that when it comes to talking about Jesus, "Make the most of every opportunity" (Colossians 4:4). This spiritual harvest business; this is urgent stuff. Harvest always is. You know the opportunity isn't going to last long. You drop everything to bring it in, and if you wait, you miss it. God wants us to feel that kind of urgency about telling the people we know about the man who loved them enough to die for them. We never know when their time or our time will run out. So, like the farmer toiling feverishly in the extended light of a harvest moon, God has given you a little more time to bring in someone that His Son died for. Please don't keep putting it off. Don't let your life be so full of un-eternal stuff that you miss the mission that matters the most. Someone you know desperately needs the Jesus you know, and Jesus has given you a little more time to bring them home.

When my wife and I pulled up late to the Bed and Breakfast we were going to be staying at, I tried to be real quiet. Not a problem. That B & B was buzzing like a beehive. Inside there were ten women huddled around the dining room table, each one with a sewing machine right in front of her. I learned that the other guests - all women - were there that weekend for a Mystery Quilt weekend. And even though I felt like I had sort of crashed a grownup slumber party, I did ask a few questions like, "What pattern are you following?" They didn't know. See, it turns out that one of the women there, Millie, does these quilting weekends with ladies, and she has the pattern. It's a mystery quilt because each woman only has instructions for what to do with the next piece or pieces. The next day, one lady said to me, "I can't wait 'till I can see what all this is going to look like when it's all put together." Good thing she didn't leave early with her pile of pieces, huh? She would have never known what it all made. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Pieces Without The Plan." Actually, we've just talked about a description of some of our lives: pieces without the plan - because we're away from the only One who has the plan. I guess, in a way, life is a mystery quilt. All we can see is the block we're working on right now. But every once in a while, we find ourselves asking that question that has haunted us for years, "Why am I doing all this? What does all this make?" It could be that right now the pieces aren't making much sense at all. And you're not sure of the answer to the one question you have to answer while you're on earth, "Why am I here?" You miss that and you've missed the point of your whole life. And so far, none of the things, and none of the people you thought would make it make sense have done it. Life still seems like a pile of disconnected pieces. I hope you'll be encouraged by our word for today from the Word of God. Jeremiah 29:11 - "'I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" According to the Bible, you are a unique creation of God. Just look at your fingerprints - He's made you one of a kind. And He has plans for you - great plans. Like the lady who organized that quilting weekend, God has the plan in His hand, but if you're away from the One who has the plan, there's no way to put the pieces together right. So much of the confusion and many of the mistakes, a lot of the emptiness, the pain in your life, may have been because you've been trying to put it together without the only One who knows the plan. God is the only One who knows why you're here. The problem is that, again according to the Bible, every one of us has tried to do life our way instead of God's way. Here are God's words, "All of us have wandered away like sheep; each of us has turned to his own way." (Isaiah 53:6) Without divine intervention, you and I have hopelessly separated ourselves from the One who designed us. But divine intervention did come on a brutal cross on a hill outside Jerusalem, where God's one and only Son died as a substitute for you and me, carrying our death penalty for our running of our own lives. Which means that where there was once an uncrossable divide, there is a bridge now and His name is Jesus. And today, Jesus is coming to where you are, offering you the opportunity to tell Him that you want Him to be your Savior from your sin, to connect you to the God that you've been separated from, to be the One who holds the plans and purpose for your life in His hands. When you find Him, you have found the meaning of your life. Have you ever reached out to Him to begin your relationship with Him? Why not today? Tell Him, "Jesus, beginning today, I'm yours. You died for me." Then check out what the Bible has to say about this relationship at our website - ANewStory.com. Maybe life has been a pile of confusing, disconnected pieces long enough. You need to come home to Jesus, the One who created you, who has wonderful plans for you. If you'll open up to Him, you'll finally start to get a look at the plan that puts all the pieces together.

Don't you love it when someone gets a little smile on their face and they say, "We were just talking about you." Your mind starts racing, and you think, "What were they saying about me?" When they say that to me, I usually ask, "Oh, do I get a chance to defend myself?" You know that people talk about you when you're not around. That's true for just about everybody, and you've heard how folks talk about other people when you're there. So you have every reason to believe that they talk about you, and it might not be your best stuff. I know someone who's been talking about you, and it's definitely for your benefit. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Jesus Prays for You." Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Luke 22. Simon Peter, as we look at this passage, is about to head into the most intense spiritual battle of his life. And Jesus, in an intimate moment, looked him in the eye and said, "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." I believe what was going on here is that Jesus is indicating that the difference in Peter is going to be that Jesus is going to be praying for him. The difference for you is that Jesus is talking to His Father about you today. You say, "That's a pretty good description of how I feel...sifted. And maybe Satan wants to sift you as wheat, but it says Jesus is praying for you. In John 17:11 we find that He prays this way, "Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name - the name you gave Me. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave Me. My prayer is not that you should take them out of the world but that you should protect them from the evil one." You know, Hebrews 7:25 says that, "He ever lives to make intercession for us." Jesus is at His Father's right hand talking to Him about you and me. I think He's praying for your protection from all the Devil wants to do. John 17:16 - "Sanctify them by the truth; Your Word is truth." He's talking about "sanctify" as in, "Keep them special, Father." It's like that sign you see in a restaurant that says it's "reserved." What does that mean? Nobody else can have it. It's reserved just for the use of the person who's asked for it. Well, that's what "sanctify" means. It's set apart for God; reserved for God. That's what Jesus does for you. He wants you to be kept separate, special, and unpolluted. He talks about using His Word to keep your body pure, to keep your mind pure, your imagination, and your sense of humor. Those belong to Jesus, and He's praying for that. Then in chapter 17, verse 18, He says, "Father, as you sent Me, I have sent them into the world." Then He says, "My prayer is not for them alone, but for those who would believe in me through their message." Realize He is praying for your mission. He's praying that others will come to Christ. That means He's praying for us, who, years later, have come to Christ through their message. And He's praying for people that will be led to Christ as you and I declare His message. Look at what happens as a result of Jesus' praying for Peter. Ultimately, in the short term, yeah he came under attack. Yes, he denied Jesus; yes, he disappointed Jesus. But ultimately, he ended up safe, and secure, and pure, and powerful, because Jesus was praying for him. He's praying for you, and that's the ending you will have. You are not traveling this road alone. Someone's talking about you. Jesus is talking to His Father about you. Man, that's good to know. That will make all the difference.

Our son had just arrived in the southwestern United States to begin his work with Native Americans there. In fact, his supervisor in his non-profit work was a Native American. And our son was eager to show that he was coming with a servant spirit, you know. He had a tremendous opportunity to do just that. His supervisor needed his help in cleaning out a septic system. The job began with our son's hands having to work in that sewage. But the job got more and more involved and so did his body. Before he was finished, he was in that septic sewage up to his waist! Needless to say, he never felt more disgusting in his life. And then came the shower; that long, wonderful, heavenly shower! He said "Dad, I have never felt so dirty in all my life, and it never felt so good to be clean!" I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "So Good To Be Clean." Getting really clean after you've felt really dirty is a great feeling; one that you might be ready for - on the inside. So many of us carry the awful burden of the mistakes we've made. We've got guilt and regrets that weigh us down, maybe for some destructive choices we've made or some compromises or some sin we wish we could go back and erase. Sometimes it can feel disgusting like all that dirt that covered our son that day. We wonder if there's any way to get really clean, to finally be free of the weight of it all, the dirt, the guilt, the shame. When Mark Twain was asked what were the two most important words in the English language, he said. "Not guilty." But when we know we are guilty, how can we ever experience the freedom of those two glorious words? There is wonderful, cleansing news today. Yes, it's in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. God is talking to people who've got a past. He mentions "the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexual offenders, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers." And He delivers the bad news that those kind of people will never make it to heaven. It sounds hopeless until God turns on His cleansing shower in the next verse. He says, "And that is what some of you were." Did you get that? Were? You mean I can be free from the guilt and shame of the past? How? Well, He says, "But you were washed, you were sanctified (which means you were made special), you were justified (that means you were made right with God) in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." The liberating message God has for you and me is this: whatever you've done, whatever you've become doesn't ever have to matter again. Jesus Christ offers you the shower of a lifetime, to forgive every sin you've ever committed, to declare you "not guilty," to open the doors of heaven to you as a new, spiritually clean person. The forgiveness Jesus died to give you becomes yours when you tell Jesus that you're trusting Him to be your Rescuer from your sin. And at that moment the shower of God washes you completely clean for the first time in your life - and clean forever. Don't you want that? The past erased from God's Book? It happens when you say, "Jesus, I'm yours. You died for my sin. I'm putting all my trust in You and what You did on that cross." I pray you'll go to that cross and get forgiven today. Listen, if you go to our website you will have all the information you need from God's Word to be sure you belong to Him. That website is ANewStory.com. So many people have told me how they felt when they made this choice for Jesus. They've said, "It's like a huge weight was lifted off my back." That can happen to you right now, right where you are. And you can know how good it feels to finally be clean.

My friend, Brian, told me that he had spent most of the day in the bathroom. No, he wasn't sick, he didn't have the flu. He was installing marble. That's what he does for a living. And he told me that he was cutting slabs of marble to size, and his weapon for this job was a diamond saw - a saw with a diamond blade that cuts right through marble. He said, "You know, this saw is amazing. You can touch your finger to that blade and it won't cut you." And he went on to explain that a diamond blade is not the sharpest blade there is, it's just the hardest blade there is. It's so hard that it cuts through what sharp cannot. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Count-Onables." Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Corinthians 4, beginning at verse 2. It's a statement of what God values. You'll notice that it's pretty different from what most humans value. "Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must be found faithful." Verse 5 talks about reward time. "Therefore, judge nothing before your appointed time comes; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is seen in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God." Now, what does God reward? Success? No. It says faithfulness. We live in a world that values charisma and the bottom line. "Hey, how well did you do? What kind of results did you get?" We live in a world that values beauty, awards, and accomplishments. God says, though, that the winning trait is none of those. To Him the winning trait is faithfulness. In His opinion that's what matters. You know, it's not unlike that diamond saw. It can cut through marble because it's tough; it's hard; it just keeps coming. Nothing can stand up to its persistent, insistent advance. Now, maybe you feel that you're just not sharp enough to really be used by your Lord. You say, "Well, I don't have the training. I don't have the skill. I don't have the personality. I don't speak very well. I'm not that great looking. I'm just kind of average." But if God lays the burden on you, He wants you to be His tool. He isn't asking you to be successful; He's asking you to be faithful, to just keep coming: persistent, consistent, and insistent. Be a person who can be counted on. Be the one who stays with a responsibility even while others come and go; the one who works, whether they feel like it or not; someone who does whatever he does with all his heart; the person who keeps their commitments and keeps their word. So often the sharp blades, the ones with the great gift and the great charisma...oh, they cut for a while, and then they lose their edge and they break and they move on. But God's diamond blades are the ones who usually get the job done; they just keep coming faithfully. And what will it be that Jesus says on reward day? "Well done, good and faithful servant." There are few things on earth that will not eventually yield to faithfulness. So, let God use you as His diamond blade to cut through marble for Him.

Our church's youth group had just been out whitewater rafting all day. I had been invited to wrap up the day with an inspirational talk. And when I arrived at the rafting facility they were using, I was expecting to see just the youth group. As it turned out, this recreational company had 1,500 people on the river that day. They were all from all these different groups! So, I wandered around looking lost until someone from our church found me. And that night we had a wonderful get-together under the trees. Now, I didn't know that one girl at the back was there, and she had not planned to be there at all. She was a Girl Scout who had been there for the day with her troop. And they had somehow gone off and left her all alone. And she saw this group of teenagers meeting, so she wandered over to check it out. And she stayed...and she listened...and at the end, she was one of the young people who indicated they wanted to begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That's cool! I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Lost No More." That was one very happy Girl Scout, even before she found a ride home. In a very real sense, she got left so she could get found...spiritually. Actually, that could be what's happening in your life right now. You're probably not a Girl Scout, and you're not stuck out in the woods, but it could be that you have been left, or you're feeling lost. A person you were counting on bailed out or maybe even died. Or something that has been one of your life anchors isn't there any more. You've been left out or left behind or left high and dry. And you're not sure which way home is. Because so much in life is temporary, it's only a matter of time before we all experience the pain of being left or being lost. Which makes our word for today from the Word of God especially important. It's Jesus' personal mission statement in Luke 19:10 - "The Son of Man (that's Jesus) came to seek and to save what was lost." Now He's talking about you and me. That Girl Scout at that camp that night was lost, separated from the people who could get her home. Well, that's the picture the Bible paints of you and me. Oh, sure, on the outside we look like we've got it all together. But inside, there's a lot of loneliness, a lot of hurt, and a lot of unanswered questions. We are, in Jesus' words, "lost" because we're separated from the one Person who can get us home - who is home for our searching heart...our Creator. In God's own words, "Your sins have separated you from your God" (Isaiah 59:2). See, we have broken God's laws and we're paying the price. It's a wall between Him and us - a wall that's there forever if we die with it still there. A wall that Jesus died on a cross to remove by paying the death penalty for all the sinning we ever did. But He has a hard time getting us to realize that He's the only one who can finally fill that hole in our heart. Maybe that's why God has allowed you to be left or to be lost - so you'd finally realize no earth-love is going to be enough. I have to tell you honestly, it isn't until our earth-anchors let us down and leave us stranded, that we finally realize we were made for Jesus and we were paid for by Jesus. And now this Savior has come looking for you. He said He would "seek and save what was lost." That tug you feel in your heart? That's Jesus Himself, knocking on the door of your heart. Your relationship with Him can begin right where you are if you'll just tell Him that you're trusting Him to be your Savior from your sin. All the disappointments have been so you could finally find the one love that will never let you down, never leave you, and never die on you. You tell Him, "Jesus, I'm putting all my faith in what You did on the cross, paying for my sin. I believe You walked out of your grave; you're alive. Come into my life today." Tell Him that, where you are. And please go to our website, and there I've laid out very simply the things that can help you know, from God's Word, that you belong to Jesus. It's ANewStory.com. Jesus has allowed you to be left, to be lost...so you could get found. By the One who went all the way to a cross to bring you home.

There are many ways to prepare food for dinner. You can bake it, boil it, fry it, simmer it, or as we've discovered in the age of radiated ravioli, you can nuke it. Yea, microwave, the ultimate symbol of the too-busy-to-cook generation! Actually, they do come in handy when your stomach is growling and your time is short. Microwave ovens cook some things better than others, I've discovered. I don't know if you've had the appetizing experience I've had on occasion. Your dinner comes out nice and warm on the outside, but cold on the inside. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Warm on the Outside, Cold on the Inside." Now, our word for today from the Word of God is sobering because it's about people who believed the Scriptures, never missed a meeting at church, and lived rigorously righteous lives. It could be us! Our word for today from the Word of God is in Mark 7:6-7. "Jesus replied, 'Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" You know, Jesus is describing here in modern terms what I call microwave folks in the church. He says that their lips are sounding a good sound but their hearts are cold. They might look warm on the outside, but they're cold on the inside. Oh, their faith has gotten to the outside, but it somehow never warmed on the inside. Twenty centuries later, still religious people are there who are warm on the outside but cold on the inside. You and I have to look at ourselves and say, "Hey, could this be me?" Now, you can't judge by spiritual talk. Jesus said, "Their lips are saying the right words." They're praising, and preaching, and witnessing, but they have a distant heart. You can't judge by religious activity. I mean, these people, according to Jesus, do worshipping things. But He says it's in vain; they're wasting their time. Revelation 2 describes Christians who are working hard, dealing with compromise, enduring hardships. Everything that men can see checks out great, but something's missing. He says, "You have forsaken your first love." Could it be you've grown cold on the inside, even though you still seem pretty warm on the outside? What you used to do for love you now do for duty. What used to be spontaneous for the Lord is kind of formal and mechanical. What used to be close is now distant, isn't it? It's time to get back to your first love; to visit that cross with the recent sin that you need to repent of, not just all the sins of years ago. But I mean the things you need to catch up on, to catch up your repentance. To remember at that cross what it cost to pay for you - the blood of the very Son of God. To go there and confess the compromises that have crept in, and then spend some extended time to be there by your Lord, with your Lord, who gave His life there for you. You know, you could be becoming a microwave believer. You might be cold on the inside. And cold on the inside just isn't worth it, you're missing so much of what it means to serve your Lord. That's not what He wants. What He cares about is the warmth of your heart.

The old cliché says, "Two's company, three's a crowd." That's really true when it comes to romance. Okay, guy meets girl, guy falls in love with girl, guy falls in love with another girl in addition to first girl. That's like putting a match in gasoline. That is a centuries-old formula for an explosion. It's the infamous love triangle! Soap operas thrive on them; marriages are destroyed by them. A love triangle is usually a prescription for broken hearts unless you have the kind of love triangle that keeps hearts from being broken. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Love Triangle That Strengthens a Marriage." Now, there's a formula in our word for today from the Word of God in Ecclesiastes 4. It's a formula for lasting bonds between people. I would call it the arithmetic of love. Here's what it says beginning at verse 9: "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up. If two lie down together they will keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." That passage is a powerful statement about relationships, especially if you apply it to the ultimate relationship of marriage. It says two work together better than one, two walk together better than one, two stand together better than one, and then suddenly the number changes. Suddenly it's talking about three strands. Wait, I thought we were talking about two. Enter the love triangle: a husband, a wife, and a Savior. That's the kind of love triangle that avoids broken hearts. Ephesians 5:21 alludes to it when it says; speaking to husbands and wives, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." It's the Jesus factor in a home. Now, the triangle is the strongest geometric figure there is, and a love triangle with Christ at the top is virtually indestructible. In other words, you've got the man and woman joined together by that line along the bottom, but they both have a line going up to Jesus at the top. That bond between the man and the woman will fray sometimes. There's interference, there's disappointment, there's disillusionment, there's hurt. But if both the man and woman are connected to Christ at the top of the triangle, that bond will hold them together when the bond of human compatibility is unraveling. The question is, "How much is Jesus Christ a real presence in your marriage?" Do you pray together about real life issues as if Jesus is right there with you? "Lord, we've got to talk to You about this together." Do you often ask together, "What would Jesus do?" Are you cultivating the habit of sharing what Christ has said to you from His Word that day with each other? Are you at church together? Do you get on your knees together and fight for your children? Before you get married, wait for someone who is joined to Jesus as you are, because it is worth the wait. And after you marry, practice His presence daily in your home. A love triangle with Jesus as that real third person is the strongest bond on earth.

I was about nine years old when my parents took me to meet Paul Bunyan. Actually it was a giant statue of that legendary lumberjack seated on this huge chair. My dad went to the ticket booth, paid for us, and then I went through the turnstile and into Paul's big yard. And there he was in his red plaid shirt and a little log cabin at his feet that showed how huge he was. And then came the heart attack. Suddenly this big voice boomed out for everybody to hear, "Hello, Ronnie." Man, for one of those rare moments in my life, I was totally speechless! How could I know that the ticket guy had asked my father my name (little scam going on here!) and then he relayed it to a man in that little log cabin - a man with a very big microphone. I was just amazed that someone that big actually knew me! I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "You Can't Go Unnoticed." For many people, life has been a lot of not being recognized, not being acknowledged, not being known, not being seen. Until, much to their amazement, like me as a little boy with that giant, they find out that the biggest Person in the world - in the universe - really knows and cares about who they are. And there comes that moment when it's as if He seems to call you by name. It happened to a woman in Jesus' day, and it can happen to you, no matter how you've been treated in your life. Our word for today from the Word of God is found in Luke 8:42. "As Jesus was on His way, the crowds almost crushed Him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She came up behind Him and touched the edge of His cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped." Now Jesus goes on to ask who touched Him, which surprises His disciples that He could sense an individual encounter in such a crowd of people. Here's the part I love. "Then, the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at His feet." She was utterly amazed. This woman, who had been ignored and passed over by so many people, had been noticed by the Son of God. So have you. In fact, you have no idea what you mean to Jesus. First, because you're His one-of-a-kind creation. In the words of the Bible, "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:10). You are very special to Jesus. He made you. But not only are you His unique creation, you are His very expensive purchase. When Jesus went to that brutal cross, it was literally to die in your place, to absorb all the guilt and all the death penalty for every sin you have ever sinned. He took your hell so you could go to His heaven. So no matter how excluded or unimportant or lonely you may feel, the most important person in the universe never stops thinking about you; never stops loving you. Every time Jesus looks at His hands He sees the nail prints left by the price He paid for you because He loves you so much. The question isn't whether Jesus has noticed you, it's whether you have noticed Him. That woman in the Bible received what Jesus had because she reached out in faith to Him. Has there ever been a time when you reached out to Jesus and said, "Lord, You are my only hope of knowing God, of being forgiven, of going to heaven. I'm yours." You'll never experience His love or His life until you do. If you want to begin your relationship with this One who loves you as no one else ever has? Well, tell Him that now where you are. And I'd love to walk you through how to be sure you belong to Him at our website, which is there for that very reason. Check it out today - ANewStory.com. Even while you've been too busy to notice Jesus, He's been reaching out to you. Today His nail-scarred hand is reaching your way one more time. Please, don't miss Him.

You know, when I was growing up, it was a pretty long trip to get to the ocean. I grew up in Illinois, so we didn't have a lot of ocean experience. Needless to say, when I lived along the East Coast for over 20 years, I became fascinated with the ocean. I still love to watch it, I love to walk along the beach, I love to romp in the waves a little, but I haven't gotten used to those big breakers rolling in. Hey, listen, I'm a lake boy, okay; a pool kid. But those big old waves, they make me feel as if they could pick me up and carry me all the way to England, which I would rather fly to anyway than go by way of the Atlantic Ocean. But I have good friends who really know what to do with those giant waves. They've taught me that what you do is you surf on it if you know how, and they're good at it. They wait for that big old curl to come roaring down on them, they leap on their surfboard and they ride that wave. Now, I see a mega wave as a threat. My friends? They see it as a vehicle. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Surfing the Wave That Could Sink You." Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Acts 8, and it talks about the day that a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem. All except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. It really sounds like a large wave coming in against God's people. But listen to what they did with it. "Those who had been scattered," chapter 8, verse 4 says, "preached the Word wherever they went." Now, here is this violent enemy attack on the infant church, and it forces the believers out of their little nest in Jerusalem. Probably losing their home, and their family connections, and possibly their job. What did they do? Did they sink? No, they surfed on that big wave! They started spreading the Gospel in all the places they were forced to go. Now, that's just what God had predicted in Acts 1:8, when He said, "You'll be My witnesses in Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria, and in the uttermost parts of the earth." But they weren't leaving Jerusalem until this persecution hit. See, the attacks of the enemy often end up facilitating the plans of God (don't you love it?), because of how believers handle the heavy waves of crisis that come crashing toward them. You could do that. It's called capturing your crisis for Christ. This type of believer surfs on a wave of trouble instead of sinking under it. Let's fast-forward 2,000 years from the book of Acts to your life right now. You've got pressure. What's the wave that's coming in at you right now? You've got stress, you've got some anxiety. Can you see it? There's a crisis that's threatening you, or maybe a disappointment, or a disease, a disaster. Capture your crisis for Christ. Do what these early Christians did. They used it as a platform to proclaim Jesus. They said, "Well, if the crisis has forced me into a place I never wanted to be, I'm going to use this as a place to proclaim Christ." Basically, they believed that their situation was their assignment wherever God put them. See, the crises of life put us in positions where a lot of folks are watching what we do; where we meet new people, where we can find a platform for saying, "Jesus is enough, even in this; especially in this situation." Now, the enemy would love to use this wave that you see coming at you to sink you, but don't go down under it. Remember, your situation is your assignment from God. Do what the great surfers do! Ride on top of this wave; surf on it. Capture it for Christ.

"The Mad Cleaning Man" That's one of the nicknames affectionately given to me by my family. And I've worked pretty hard to earn that name. Let's put it this way, I hate clutter. I'm not the neatest guy in the world, but I can only function so long when mess is building up around me, you know? So, often without warning, I would go on a straightening rampage. And what was the best way to keep from having to pick something up again? Right! You throw it away! I look at things before I trash them. Come on, you should know that. I'm not irresponsible. But over the years, a family member would walk into a room that was messy when they left but had since had my magic touch. But they would say "Oh no! Dad's been at it again." Which could be followed by cries of frustration as they look for some item, "Dad, where's my such-and-such? It was right here!" Then they would see the glazed eyes of "The Mad Cleaning Man" and they gave up asking. Cleaning up is good, right? But it can be irritating. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Catch, Then Clean." You can be that way with a house. You can be that way with people. Trying to clean them up, that is. Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 5:17. And it starts with this exciting news: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" When Jesus comes into a person's life a wonderful transformation begins. The old person we were when we were outside of Christ starts to disappear, and we start becoming this new person that only Jesus can make us when we are "in Christ." Cleaned up by Jesus Christ. Now the passage goes on to tell us that God has reconciled people to Himself through Christ's forgiveness and that He "has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors." In other words, God's counting on you to let people know how to have peace with Him through Jesus. That's our mission - bringing a lost person to the Savior. Not cleaning them up. Jesus said we're fishers of men. And you know what? Every fisherman knows you've got to catch fish before you clean them! But sometimes we approach lost people like "The Mad Cleaning Man" approaches our house, "must get you cleaned up." And it alienates the very people we're trying to tell about God's amazing grace. In a blatantly sinful and godless culture, we see more and more behaviors that aggravate us, offend us, and anger us. We're really bothered by their sexual immorality, their language, the things they talk about, the things they joke about, or just their disregard of one or another of God's commandments. And that should bother us. And while we want them to begin a relationship with Jesus, we also want to clean up their act! But it's a mistake to try to clean people up before they have the Cleaner-Upper! 2 Corinthians 5:17 doesn't say that they will be in Christ when they become a new creation. It says they'll become a new creation when they're finally in Christ! We need to be stressing relationship, not reform. The message of reconciliation God has trusted to us is all about Jesus! People sin because they're sinners, and they will be sinners until they know the Savior of sinners! So stick to Jesus and stick to His cross, and don't encumber that simple Gospel with an attempt to clean up their lifestyle. Yes when they come to Jesus there is repentance with their faith to recognize that there's someone new in charge and life is going to change. But Jesus will do the cleaning up. Even as a parent or spiritual mentor, we may have gotten hung up on someone's deeds more than their needs or on correcting their behavior which can build walls, instead of building our relationship which builds bridges. Oh yes, cleaning up is a very important part of coming to Christ. It's called repentance. But Jesus does the cleaning from the inside out. Cleaning them up - that's not my job. Introducing them to the Cleaner-Upper - that's my job!

My microwave has this very useful ability to bring food back to life; like, oh, store bought baked goods for example. Have you ever noticed? It's just better if you pop them in the microwave. You know, nuking it? If you get some of that store bought coffee cake or donuts or muffins, you know, they may not be fresh from the bakery. But we found that they are so much better if you heat them up. What happens is the heat makes them softer. The other day I had a cookie that was getting a little on the old side, and I put it in the microwave and it was like it came right out of the oven - soft and warm. Sometimes the box will even tell you that you ought to "nuke it." And sometimes it will say, "Better when heated" or something like that. Actually, that would be true of about half of the human race. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Heat That Heals a Heart." Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Kings 5:1. We're reading about a man named Naaman who it says is "commander of the army of the king of Aram. He's a great man in the sight of his master, highly regarded, he was a valiant soldier." Now, that's at the beginning of the story. At the end of the story in verse 17, he is saying to God's man, Elisha the prophet, "Your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord." Wow! Something happened in between these two verses, something that made this man of war into a man of God. Now, what is it that makes a warrior into a worshipper? Well, I didn't read it after it said "He was a valiant soldier." Let's go on. "...but he had leprosy." So he goes, and Elisha tells him he has to wash in the dirty waters of the Jordan River seven times in order to get well. It says Naaman went away angry. He said, "I won't go into the dirty river. We've got great rivers back in our country I could get into." And his servants say, "Hey, if he asked you to do some great act, you would do it wouldn't you? Why don't you go wash and be cleansed." Then we read in verse 14, "So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times." He's finally humble. "And his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy." Now, Naaman did not yield to God until there was something bigger than he could possibly handle. When I say that, we've probably just described about half the human race; my half of the human race, the male half of the human race. When God turned up the heat on Naaman, He softened his heart so He could save him. You know, a man says, "Hey, I can handle it." That's our motto, "I can handle it!" And we give God money, we give Him time, we give Him belief, but we want the control. God hears us say, "I can handle it" and He says, "Oh no, you can't." And so He sends to us men something that all our ability, and our power, and our connections cannot handle: a child goes astray, something happens to our health, our job, our marriage, an injury. The breaking of the man is the making of the man. It's not because God doesn't love you, it's because He does. One man told me recently, "God could never get control of my life until my son attempted suicide." Another man recently said, "I almost died in an accident, and finally I surrendered to Christ." See, God does this over and over again with us men, this humbling thing so we will finally let go to the Lord. And guess what? Then we're finally complete; we're finally whole like Naaman was only after he was broken. See, God turns up the heat on us men because we get pretty hard like those old pastries, and He uses this heat to soften us up so we can finally become all we were created to be. Maybe He's been turning up the heat so you will finally turn your heart to Jesus. Would you do that today and let Him make you a man you could never be without Him. We're always better after we've been through God's heat, because remember, the breaking of a man by the Lord is the making of the man.

It's a good thing that over the years I haven't had to wear a nametag when I went to see the dentist. Yeah, I'm doing better now. But, you know, for years I didn't really anxiously await my opportunity to spend time in the dentist's chair. I'm not sure you do either. I mean, look, we all have a tendency to avoid appointments that may be unpleasant, don't we? And, in most cases, you could put off - even cancel - meetings you don't want to have. In most cases. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Appointment You Will Keep." In our word for today from the Word of God, God announces an appointment. It's in His Book; it's not in yours. Hebrews 9:27 - "Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment." God makes it very clear: we have an appointment with our Creator - or, as the old-timers used to say, "meet our Maker." Now that final reality is something that, well, we'd rather run from than face a lot of times. One alternative idea we hear a lot about is reincarnation. Of course, that's not really a new idea. Reincarnation proposes that we can escape this day of reckoning indefinitely through this endless cycle of starting over. Of course, the only One who knows for sure what happens beyond death is God Himself. And He leaves absolutely no room for us going around again when it says man's destiny is to, "die once and after that to face judgment." When God talks about facing judgment, He says you and I will have to account to Him for our life; a life that, according to the Bible, has been lived outside our Creator's plans. In God's own words, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Nobody has lived up to God's standards. Everybody has the death penalty of sin to deal with. That's why so many people become religious and try to do good. We hope we can somehow pay off our sins. But again, our way of getting ready for our appointment with God is useless. The Bible says that at the time of judgment, "Every mouth will be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous (that means right with God...qualified to go to heaven) by observing the law" (or doing all the right things). There's no way you can pay your sin-bill with your religion, your generosity, or your goodness. The only way this eternal bill could be paid was by God's eternal Son, Jesus Christ. The payment we're trying to make with our goodness was already made by Jesus when He took our death penalty on His cross. The only question God's going to ask you when you keep your appointment with Him is, "What did you do with My Son?" Years ago when prairie fires would sweep across Indian lands, Native Americans would literally fight fire with fire. They would actually set a fire in a trench around their village. When the prairie fire hit that already burned area, it stopped. The principle of stopping the fire was simple: the fire cannot go where the fire has already been. The fire of God's judgment for the sinning we've all done has already fallen on His Son at the cross. If you put your trust in Jesus to be your Savior from your sin, your judgment is canceled, because the fire cannot go where the fire has already been. Other appointments can be postponed or canceled, but not your appointment with your God. Denying it, ignoring it, running from it won't change it. The only thing to do is be prepared for it! You can do that by telling Jesus right where you are that you want to begin this life-saving relationship with Him. You say, "Jesus, I'm Yours." Listen, there's much more information about how to begin with Him at our website. Please check it out, it's ANewStory.com. Somewhere in this country someone is going to keep their appointment with God today. And just like you, no one thinks it will be him or her. Someone will be wrong. Please be sure that you've settled your relationship with the Man who died so you could live. Then whenever your appointment with God is, you'll have nothing to fear.

Okay, I admit it. I talk pretty fast. But maybe that's because I lived in the New York area for so long. Everyone there talks fast! Or maybe it's because I always have so much to say before the time runs out. But I am sort of a, I guess, a verbal machine gun. But I did come across someone who finally succeeded in slowing me down by about maybe two-thirds. He's a Russian doctor who had recently immigrated to the United States. He hadn't planned to come here, but persecution and the prospect of threatened imprisonment in the days of the Cold War had driven him to America. I groped for words that he would understand, and he groped for what would be the English word to express his feelings. It was kind of a long conversation. It took a while to exchange just basic information, but it was worth the effort. The doctor - a committed Christian, and for years he was secretly copying the scriptures and Christian literature when that door was closed in his country. He also ran a network of people who did the same - getting precious scriptures out to people. All that time he risked his secure, professional position to be spreading the Gospel. Finally, he had to leave, and he was trying to find some place to work in the United States. And I said to him, "You know, you are one of God's heroes." And he had kind of a pained look on his face like he didn't understand. I said, "Winner! One of God's champions. Olympics!" I was trying to be understood. And then I realized that his pained expression wasn't because he didn't understand; it was because he did. Then in this one line of broken English he gave me a Christ-like perspective on all the work we do. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Champions With No Trophy." Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Mark 14:3. "While Jesus was in Bethany reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar (very expensive perfume, that is). She broke the jar and poured the perfume on His head." Now, there is some criticism for that. After that in verse 8 He says, "She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body and forehead to prepare for my burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the Gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.'" And sure enough we just did it today again, didn't we? We talked about her. Now, in a sense, what the doctor said about his serving the Lord at such a great price in the Soviet Union is what we all ought to say. He said in his broken English, "I only do what I could." He didn't want to be a hero. He said, "I've only done what I could. No big deal." You know, I think the ultimate epitaph for our life would be what Jesus said about this woman, "She/he has done what she/he could." I wonder if that could be said about your life? My Russian friend knew that that's really all God expects. Now, He does expect all we have to give as this woman literally lavished her most expensive possession on the Lord. But He also wants us to know that it's no big deal to give Him all you have. Jesus thinks it's a big enough deal to reward though. It's important that we don't think that it's that big of a sacrifice. We shouldn't think, "Wow! Look what I just did." But on the other hand, He'll never forget it. Maybe you've got a sense of inadequacy right now, you compare yourself. You say, "Well, I don't have much to give. I'm not as talented. I can't do as much for the Lord as somebody else can." Are you giving what you have for Jesus' sake? That's all He asks. Lavish what you have...all the little or all the much on Jesus. Maybe the problem is pride. But then, how could you do any less for the Lord. Don't be proud, it's no big deal to give all the little that you have for the much that He gave for you. That Russian doctor? He didn't think he was a hero. None of us should. But if you just give it, don't be surprised if Jesus welcomes you in heaven with a hero's welcome.

It's the word you hope you'll never hear when you're in your doctor's office - cancer. Recently, though, there's been a beautiful four-letter word that may go with that ugly word. It's the word "cure." At least they're hoping so. The possible breakthroughs have to do with one of the greatest killers of women - breast cancer. But the discoveries may turn out to open up ways to cure other cancers, too. This entirely new approach to fighting cancer - one that has so far shown promising results in lengthening the lives of terminally ill cancer patients has been described as "attacking cancer at its genetic roots." The gene is called HER-2, and it produces this protein on the surface of our cells that ultimately helps accelerate that abnormal growth that becomes cancer. Scientists have developed a treatment that attacks this genetic malfunction that causes some cancers. One researcher offers hope to millions who have cancer or may develop cancer when he puts it this way, "If we understand what is broken in the malignant cell, we might be able to fix it." They're calling this one of the hottest areas of cancer research, and it makes sense - stop the cancer by stopping its genetic root. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Curing Cancer of the Heart." Now you may be one of the blessed people like me who when you hear about cancer, you can say, "Well, not me so far." I wish I could say that about the cancer that infects every single one of us - the deadliest cancer there is. You might call it heart cancer. It's that spiritual cancer in the human heart that causes so much hurt, guilt, shame, and brokenness. The Bible calls it sin, with the middle letter "I." We were created by God to live life His way. According to the Bible, we've all said, "No. No God's way. My way." That's the root of our deadly spiritual cancer. And it is always terminal. No matter how religious or how nice we are, God makes it clear, "the wages of our sin is death" (Romans 6:23) - that's death as in being eternally cut off from God, from His life and from His love. This is the spiritual cancer that devastates our self-respect, our family, the people we love - and that's the ones we hurt the most. It takes away our inner peace, and it destroys our eternity. And like mankind's battle against physical cancer, the battle against this disease of "me" has been going on for a long time. Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Romans 7:15. "What I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do." Sound familiar? That's our losing battle against the dark disease in our heart. The writer of these words is desperate for a cure, and he asks, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24) Just like us, he's found no cure that can get at the root cause of all the dark things that come out of us. Then comes the announcement of the breakthrough, as this fellow-sinner asks, "Who will rescue me?" He answers, "Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Jesus has pioneered the cure for this spiritual cancer that has seemed so unstoppable, so incurable. He shed His blood on the cross, absorbed all the sin, all the punishment, and attacked the root causes of the actions and the attitudes we hate - and He broke the power of sin by taking all its punishment. So many people - maybe even people you know - have opened their lives to Jesus and they have found forgiveness and moral victory that is changing their lives and their homes. And it's within your reach today if you will say, "Jesus, I'm trusting you to be my savior for my sin." You know our website is all about beginning to win the battle by beginning a relationship with Him. It's ANewStory.com - I hope you'll go there today. The disease of me is a ravaging spiritual cancer and it's terminal. But the cure is within your reach. The only reason you would go one more day still dying is if you refuse to reach out to Jesus for this cure He paid for with his life.

It seems as if the movie comes around again about once a year on TV, and we get a chance to see that charming story called "The Wizard of Oz." What a quartet! I mean, Dorothy, the little Kansas farm girl blown into the Land of Oz. She wants to see the Wizard to get help to get home. Then remember, there's a Scarecrow, he wants to see the Wizard to get some brains. And the Tin Woodsman, well, he's looking for a heart. And last but not least, there's that lovable feline, the Cowardly Lion. Now I know some people who could use some brains, I know some people who could use a little more heart; but we're surrounded by people who could use more of what that Cowardly Lion was looking for. Remember, "I need courage." I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Lifting People Up." Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Hebrews 10, and I'm going to begin reading at verse 24: "Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching." Okay, so we're supposed to be in the business of spurring people on to be what they need to be, to do what they need to do. In other words, people should be better off because they've been around you. That was the effect Jesus had on the people that He was around. How will that happen? Well, it happens when we do this: "Let us encourage one another." I was thinking the other day about what encourage means. Just reverse it - courage in. It means you're putting courage in people. It's like a gasoline fill-up except it's a motivation fill-up. When you encourage someone, you literally put courage in them. You give them courage to take a risk, to trust God, maybe just to get through a very tough day. You put courage in someone when you stop and you pray with them. I said with them, by the way, not just for them. An arm around them says, "Wait, let's stop and pray about your situation right now." I have seen people literally change before my eyes when I would just take a moment to pray with them. You encourage a person when you give them specific praise for something they did or more importantly for something they are. Sometimes the courage injection comes from a scripture verse you share with them, or a spontaneous note or an email you write, or a text, maybe just a minute spent honestly inquiring how they're really doing. I can't tell you how many times someone's word, or note, or prayer of encouragement has literally put courage in me on a day when courage was really needed. And the encourager could never have known how much I needed it. But they were literally the channel for God to say to me, "Ron, I love you. It's going to be okay. Take courage, man." Encouragement restores your perspective when it's been battered and beat up by the pressures of the day. The great thing about the ministry of putting courage in people is that anybody can do it. It doesn't require any great gifts. It doesn't require any musical ability, or speaking or leadership, or a seminary degree - just a heart. It takes a genuine interest and it looks for ways to give that person encouragement, to build them up. That Cowardly Lion finally got his courage largely from being with three other friends who carried him through the tough times. People around you don't need a wizard to give them courage. But they may very well need some courage to take the next step on the road of their life. They just need somebody like you. They need the courage-giving love of a Jesus follower...maybe you.

Dr. Henry was one of the most challenging professors I had in college. And I anticipated the final exam in his class was going to be a monumental challenge. Who knows what questions Dr. Henry could throw at us from his incredible intellect! Well, word began to leak out about his final from the first students that took it. They didn't give any details - they just shared one surprising, tantalizing fact. They said, "There's only one question on the exam!" Well, most of us took that news as encouragement as we stood on the edge of academic survival. But when Dr. Henry set the exam in front of us, we weren't quite as encouraged. This entire semester of theology class had been devoted to what the Bible says about the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The professor's question? "Describe the Person and work of the Holy Spirit." Oh come on! One question, but what a question! I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Single Question on Your Final Exam." You may have been out of school a while. I'm sure you don't miss final exams, but you still have one more. We all do. The day your heart beats its last and you stand before the God who made you. And it appears from God's Word, the Bible, that there will only be one question on your final exam. But what a question! Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 John 5:11-12. "God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life." God says the human race is divided into two groups, and only two. Those who have Jesus and therefore have eternal life - they will go to heaven when they die. And those who do not have Jesus and therefore do not have eternal life - they'll go to eternal separation from God. In the words of John 3:36, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him." Now there's no question where God wants you to be forever - with Him in heaven. That's why He paid such a high price to remove what would keep you out of heaven - the sin of your life; all those countless times you've done it your way instead of God's way. You can't get into heaven with sin. And it won't work just trying to repay the wrong we've done with religion or being good. Sin has to be removed, not repaid. And that seems impossible when the penalty for running our own lives is an eternal death penalty. But God loves you so much that, according to John 3:16, "He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." God sent His Son to carry all the guilt and all the dying of your sin - to literally die your death penalty. So you shouldn't be surprised when you stand before God and He asks you that one question on His final exam - the one that determines where you'll be forever. "What did you do with My Son?" Not, "What good things did you do?" Not, "Did you believe the right things?" Not, "What religion were you?" God is interested in only one thing, "What did you do with His Son who gave His life for you?" The only answer that will open the gates of heaven to you is, "Lord, I invited Your Son, Jesus, into my heart and I put my total trust in Him to be my Rescuer from my sin." Has there ever been a time when you've done that? If you're not sure, please let today be your Jesus-day. Tell Him you want to be His - you want to belong to Him. "Jesus, I believe when You died on that cross it was for me. And I'm putting all my trust in You today." Our website exists to help you to cross over from death to life this very day. I hope you'll check it out - ANewStory.com. The final exam is coming - God has set the time. He'll ask you, "What did you do with My Son?" I pray you'll be able to point to this very day as the day you say, "I asked Him to save me from my sin."

A lot of what goes into winning a football game is behind the scenes. Oh, we see all the plays and all the action, and all the heroics on the field. But a lot goes on we never see. Let's take our local high school football team that I worked with for example. Each week someone from the coaching staff was out scouting the other team during the season. And sometimes I'd show up at the locker room and I'd ask, "Well, what are we up against this week? Tell me about the team we're playing this coming weekend." Almost always I'd get a rundown on what that team was good at, who their high scorer was, and what we would have to do to contain them, where their weaknesses were, and what we needed to go after. See, those scouting reports helped our coaches know how to best play that other team. Now, unfortunately, a lot of us are playing as if we haven't heard the scouting report on the other team. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How Satan Plans to Stop You." Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Revelation 12. I'll begin at verse 12: "Woe to the earth! The Devil has gone down to you. He is filled with fury because he knows the time is short." Verse 17 says, "The dragon (that's the Devil) went off to make war." Now, the book of Revelation talks about the Devil seeing time run out on the game clock. I call it panic in hell. He says, "Wow! There's not much time left." He accelerates his attacks, and I believe he's doing that now because I don't think he has much time left. You're probably on the receiving end of one of these attacks. If you're going to understand what's going on in your life; if you're going to respond in a winning way, you need to hear the scouting report. Here's attack number one: the Devil is trying to distract unbelievers so they won't look at Jesus. 2 Corinthians 4:4 talks about "the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ." See, if you don't know Jesus, the Devil does this to keep you in his grasp; he does this blinding thing. He's got you too busy impressing other people, or busy building a career, or a family, or studying, or having a good time; believing almost anything spiritual other than being rescued through Jesus. But the longer you wait, the harder it will be for you to ever know Christ. Your heart's getting harder. The Devil wants to distract you so you will never really see Jesus. Attack number two is to dissuade young believers so they won't live for Jesus. That's talked about in Mark 4:15, "As soon as they hear the Word, Satan comes and takes away the Word that was sown in them." See, if you're a young believer, the Devil's attack as he's feeling his panic in hell, is to get your eyes off of this new Savior before you become a threat; to put in front of you whatever could detour you: a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a job, a temptation, popularity. Do you see what the Devil's trying to do? Don't fall for this! Don't let him draw you away from the person you've spent your whole life looking for, your Jesus. And then his third attack is to discourage God's warriors so they won't lead for Jesus. These are the people who are making a difference. Maybe you're one of those. 1 Peter 5:7 addressed to spiritual leaders says, "Cast all your care on Him, because He cares for you. The Devil goes about like a lion seeking whom he may devour." See, I think he tries to devour them with discouragement. Maybe he's trying to neutralize you because you're one of the few people who's really in the battle. He's using people; he's using circumstances to destroy your motivation and your effectiveness. Listen to Galatians 6:9, "Don't be weary in well doing, for in due time you will reap if you do not faint." See, the Devil is luring you, he's desperately doing whatever it takes to pull you away from Jesus; to get your focus somewhere else because he can't beat Him. But if you fight back in Jesus' name, you'll be causing even more panic in hell.

"Be a man." Three words that have gotten a lot of guys in trouble. Too many of us have done too many dumb things to prove what a "man" we were. But it seems more confusing than ever to know what that even means. Being a man. Is it changing diapers and watching Hallmark movies? Or increasing your bench press and wearing camos? Is it conquest or compassion? Tenderness or toughness? Is it hiding your feelings or feeling your feelings? "Toxic masculinity" at one pole, passive manhood at the other. As we approach another Father's Day, I'm not feeling a great urge to pontificate on manhood. What I do have is an urge to remember my Dad. And the man who changed him. When I was a kid, Dad was a machinist. By the time I was a teenager he'd become a plant manager - only a high school graduate. On his own time, he was a leader at church, even chairman of a couple nonprofit boards. Recently I was asked to write a paragraph about my dad for a broadcasters' magazine. He was strong in his convictions and honest. Mischievously funny. Hardworking. Always fair. Always there. But as I sat at my keyboard, staring at the wall for the words, one word just kept coming to mind. "Tenderhearted." For all my dad's obvious strengths as a leader, I remember the man who wasn't afraid of tears. When he was moved, you knew it. He was moved by a son's adolescent accomplishments... when he became a grandpa... when he saw people hurt. Most of all, he was deeply moved when he thought about my baby brother who died suddenly at six months. And he really teared up when he thought about the man he used to be and the God who changed him. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Messy Manhood and Dynamite Dads." My dad thought of himself as very average. His priorities were anything but average. You can read it on his tombstone. With all the titles he had in his life, on his grave it simply says, "John Hutchcraft. Husband. Father." And after all is said and done, that's his legacy. Others could be foreman or chairman or boss. Only he could be our husband and father. So with all the craziness about manhood, this Father's Day I'll go with the one who defined the word Dad for a boy named Ronnie. He was strong but sensitive. Fighting for what is right, but still a peacemaker. Neither toxic nor timid. Achieving but putting people first. But most of all, I think about the Man who changed my Dad into the man I've been describing. For when my brother died, my Dad was totally lost. His broken heart led him to an old rugged cross. Where Jesus died to pay for every sin John Hutchcraft ever did. John Hutchcraft gave up driving that day - his life, that is. And Jesus took the wheel. And made him the man I remember, I love, and I miss. Our word for today from the Word of God makes me think of my dad. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." Jesus. Tough enough to single handedly drive crooks out of the temple, but tender enough that children clamored to sit on his lap. Strong enough that men would leave everything to follow Him. Yet caring enough to elevate women in a world that crushed their dreams. The Savior who has made many a man what he could never have been without Him. I'm one of them. When a man experiences Jesus forgiving... His unconditional love... His power to change - he now has nothing to prove. Nothing to hide. And nothing to lose. He is free to lead. And free to love. My friend, if you want to begin a relationship with Him (which I hope you do!), go to our website. There's more there about how you can belong to Him. The website is ANewStory.com. So I'm very blessed this Father's Day. I think I know all I need to know about being a man. From the one I call Dad. And, most of all, from the One I call Savior.

Man, when I see my grown children eat now, it surprises me they ever needed help! But they did. And, of course, they're doing great now all by themselves. But there was a time when they had to be fed. And then I watched that with my grandchildren. See, sometimes - especially the very little ones - they need help, especially when they have this big piece of meat or chicken placed in front of them. If you're little and you can barely see over the top of the table, a piece of meat on your plate looks like this pretty daunting challenge! You can imagine as you sit there you might be going, "How do I tackle that?" So, Dads come or Moms come and cut that meat into little pieces that the little guy can handle. That's how you tackle it. Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Parenting in Bite-Sized Chunks." Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 118:24. It's a familiar verse, probably one you've sung or maybe memorized. But let's apply it to life's great challenge called parenting. "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." I have repeated here that scriptural impression that life is meant to be handled in days. It comes up over and over again, not just here. David said, "This is the day...I'm going to handle life as days." But all through the Bible it talks about these 24-hour bite-sized chunks that we're supposed to do. It talks about strength that comes as your days come; picking up your cross daily, getting mercies that are new every morning. The Bible says "our inward man is renewed day by day," and then the Psalmist comes along and says, "I've got this day the Lord made." Not this year, not this month, not this life - I've got this day. Now, that's really helpful when it comes to the challenge of parenting. Man, you look at all that needs to be done in your child's life. They need to know that they're loved by you. You say, "Oh, there's so much to learn about discipline. They've got weaknesses I really need to work on! They've got strengths they don't believe they have, and I really need to build them up. And they have so much to learn about the Lord. There's so much to learn about life, and I have so much to get done in their life." And you look at all you need to accomplish in their lives and you're overwhelmed; you're paralyzed like a little child looking at this big piece of meat on his plate. But you've got to cut it into bite-sized chunks called days. Your mission is simply to have a good day with your child. Don't try to put a whole life, or even a whole month together. Have one good day. One day where you show your child demonstrated affection, where you debrief each other's day; one good day where you just have some laughs with each other. One day where you deal with one piece of an issue in your life or their life. One day when you give them a specific compliment. One day where you touch the Lord together and talk to Him together about something. And then let the Lord stitch those days together into a tapestry that makes a life. See, we tend to be paralyzed by guilt over the past or anxiety over the future. Our fears. Why not trust the Lord to cover both of those, and you have a good day today. That's how you build a better future. So, don't be overwhelmed by that whole piece of things you need to do as a parent. Just take it one bite at a time.

I was in downtown Oklahoma City, and I had the privilege to visit the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing back in April of 1995. I don't think any of us who were alive at that time will ever forget the images of the day that that Federal Office Building was destroyed by a terrorist bomb. The images of that devastated building and of the frantic rescue efforts there, a baby in a fireman's arms. It was a day of heart-wrenching tragedy and it was a day of incredible heroism. Literally, an entire city dropped everything to respond in whatever way they could to this life-or-death situation. The job was clear that day: rescue the dying whatever it takes. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Cause That's Calling You." When Jesus came, the job was clear: rescue the dying whatever it takes. Our word for today from the Word of God is in Luke 19:10. "The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." God's Son came here to aggressively pursue and rescue lost people like those rescuers going into the wreckage of that building. The "save" word here isn't just a theological concept - it's a rescue word as in what those rescuers did in Oklahoma City or at Ground Zero some years later. If they didn't get to the people trapped in that building and save them, they would die. Then Jesus says to us in John 20:21, "As the Father has sent Me, I'm sending you." Our job is clear - to rescue the dying people around us whatever it takes. Paul makes our responsibility very clear when he says in 2 Corinthians 5:20, "We are Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you..." Notice the passion here, the urgency "We implore you on Christ's behalf. Be reconciled to God." See, that's why you are where you are - in your school, in that neighborhood. Jesus put you there to be His personal representative to that group of people. It's a divine assignment. So, how are you doing? He's put you there to, well as they say in kindergarten, "show and tell" them about Jesus. You need to show them what Jesus is like by your attitude and your actions and your treatment of them. But you can't just show - you have to tell. Look, they're never going to guess that Jesus died on the cross to pay for their sins just because you're a nice person. You have to tell them. And it really is a life-or-death assignment. See, sin carries an eternal death penalty which can only be canceled one way - by a person putting their total trust in the One who paid that penalty for them - in Jesus. Jesus took their hell so they don't have to, but chances are they don't know that. It's up to you to lovingly deliver that life-saving message. God put you in their life! Rescue the dying whatever it takes. It's easy to forget that most important mission of all. But they didn't forget that mission that day in Oklahoma City, or that awful day in Ground Zero in New York City, because they knew the lives of dying people were at stake. They dropped everything. And I think that's what we've forgotten - that the people in hell will look just like the people we work with, we live near. They don't look like they're spiritually dying, but the sentence for sin is very clear. You have to ask Jesus to give you His broken heart for those people; His eyes to see what He sees when He looks at the people around you. Would you dare to pray this prayer? "Go ahead, God, and break my heart for the lost people in my personal world." Churches forget what our life-or-death mission is and all of us rescuers tend to forget it. We do what's easy - just talk to the people who are already safe. But when you realize that people's lives, people's eternities are in the balance, you put everything on hold to save them. The job is clear, my friend, rescue the dying whatever it takes.

It is almost as if God had sent us an angel. We were coming back from a Christmas party years ago. All five members of the Hutchcraft family together with the families of the youth ministry I worked for had been there for the annual Christmas party. Now, Joe, one of our dearest friends - our greatest helpers, helped us load up all of our equipment into the back of the car and we headed home. Well, we had only driven just a few miles when a drunk driver crossed the centerline, plowed into our car and totaled it! Well, here we were sitting there dazed with the kids crying. I couldn't even see the car that had hit us! It had spun off behind me. I just sat there going, "What happened? What happened?" Well it became an even longer night with police reports, x-rays, emergency room vigils, and trying to rearrange schedules for the next few days. As we sat there in this total confusion in our totaled car, I suddenly saw a familiar face at the window. There was Joe, our dear friend. He had decided (without telling us) that he would follow us to help us unload when we got home. There he was, right there when the accident happened; right there to bring us comfort and to bring us help all night long. On one of the toughest, longest nights we'd ever had, Joe was the angel we needed. He was just the right man at just the right place at just the right time. So are you. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Positioned to Make a Difference." Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from the book of Esther 4:14. Let me review for you the life of Esther up to the point where we'll begin reading. She was a young, Jewish maiden. She was approached to be the new queen of Persia. Nobody knew she was Jewish. Well, after all of the possible candidates that could have become queen, she is selected to become the new Queen of Persia. And now we are at a point where an evil man named Haman was plotting and prodding the king to give a decree that will cause the deaths of all of the Jews. Now, if Esther reveals herself and goes before the king, she may lose her life. But if she doesn't, it may cost the lives of her people. She's in a position to talk to the King Xerxes. And here's a statement from God's Word, "Who knows whether you have come into the kingdom for such a time as this." In other words, "Esther, it's no accident you are where you are. God put you here to be the right person at just the right place at just the right time." You know, God is very good at this business of positioning people to make a difference. He's done it with you. You say, "Well, I just go to this school. I just play on that team. I just work at this office. I'm just involved in this club. I just work at that plant. I just live in this neighborhood. Oh, come on! You know what? You are divinely, uniquely positioned by God. There is someone near you that God knows you can help with what you know; with who you are; with your biographical credentials. Maybe you're in a position where you can open a door for some ministry need. There was such a man like that in a key position to dispose of the vans his company was getting rid of, and he saw our need in our ministry at just the point when we desperately needed them. He came into the job at just the right moment and provided those vans. See, just an example of divine positioning. Above all else, God knows who around you needs to hear about your Jesus. He's divinely positioned you, like He did Esther; to be in a spot where you can save lives because of the influence He's given you; because of the shared life experiences you have with that person. They will listen to you, because you're one of them. Wherever God has put you, you can be sure it is to accomplish His divine purposes. God has a mission for you where you are. Be the best you can be, so you'll have people's respect, and know that you're where God wants you to assist Him at this place, at this time. Who knows? Maybe God has you there for such a time as this. So, use what He's given you to make a difference for Him.

Caterpillars are ugly. I hope none are listening. I don't mean to be critical, but let's face it, those hairy crawlers are not the beauty queens of the animal kingdom. I suppose someone could try a makeover on a caterpillar, shave off some of that hair, give him a little color. But who could ever imagine that one of the uglier critters around could actually become one of the most beautiful animals in the world - a butterfly! You don't see many pictures of caterpillars on things, but you see pictures of butterflies everywhere! A critter covered with ugly black hair becomes a butterfly splashed with these amazing colors. An animal that lives off the leaves on the ground becomes the connoisseur of flower nectar. And a creature that once crawled everywhere becomes one that can fly everywhere. We're not talking makeover here. We're talking miracle! I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Transformation Miracle." The Creator who so miraculously transforms caterpillars does something far more amazing. He does it for people like you and me. He did it for my wife's grandfather, and He changed the course of her family's history...not to mention mine. My wife's grandfather, Bill, was a handsome, successful guy with a fatal flaw - alcohol. He'd been hooked since he was 12 years old, and no one could get him unhooked...including himself. His addiction eventually cost him his job, his relationship with his family, even his freedom, landing him in prison for a while. He was, in essence, crawling through life on a caterpillar level because of something inside him he could not change. So, one night Bill decided to die. He was on his way to Lake Michigan in Chicago to end his life when he heard this vaguely familiar song coming out of an old rescue mission. It was a song his mother used to sing. He decided to go in for a minute - never dreaming that the caterpillar who went into that mission would emerge a butterfly. From that night on, Bill never touched a drop of alcohol again. He became a wonderful husband, a loving father, and a respected spokesman for the Man who had changed his life. That night he was planning to die, Bill began a new life by beginning a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Now, while your struggles with your own darkness may be different from Bill's, the same kind of miracle can happen to you. It's described in our word for today from the Word of God, 2 Corinthians 5:17. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" For the rest of his life, my wife's grandfather dedicated himself to telling as many people as possible about the life-changing miracle that only Jesus could accomplish. And I've had the privilege of being married to some of his heritage - a heritage of spiritual transformation that has now affected another generation in our own children, and then again in our grandchildren. Transformation? That's what Jesus does. Bill would always tell people, "An old derelict like me could never be reformed. I was transformed by Jesus Christ!" That's the testimony of millions of people over hundreds of years, including the guy talking with you right now. We all fight our own monsters inside us - the sinful, hurtful, even shameful urges, attitudes and actions that we've never been able to conquer. And even being religious or spiritual, even our best efforts at self-improvement have only turned out to be an unsuccessful makeover for a caterpillar. See, Jesus died on the cross to pay for the sin that enslaves you, and now He offers to begin transforming you from the inside out if you'll invite Him to be your Savior. If you have never begun that relationship with Jesus Christ then tell Him, today, that you want to be His from now on. And I think you'll be glad to find information at our website that will help you be sure you belong to Him. That website is ANewStory.com. Trying to be reformed can only change you on the outside. Jesus offers to transform you from the inside out - to make what had been so ugly into something so beautiful. It's time to let Jesus do what only He can do.

The occasion was a silver anniversary buffet for our 25th class reunion from college. Of course I was much younger than any of those mid-life folks that I graduated with. What happened to them? But anyway, the location was our alma mater, Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. That was a great training place - it was founded and named after the outstanding evangelist of the 19th century, D. L. Moody. Now, we met for breakfast in one of several private dining rooms off of the main dining room; they kind of reserve these for special occasions. And as you might expect, each one is named after a person who prominently figured in the founding of the school or the leadership of the school. But we were in the Kimball Room. So, I surveyed our group of distinguished alumni and I said, "Who was Kimball? We're in his room. Who was Kimball?" No one knew. But none of us would have been there if it hadn't been for him. Who knows, maybe you're a Kimball. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Extraordinary Ordinary." Our word for today from the Word of God - Acts 4:13. Peter and John are in big trouble. They have been preaching about Jesus in the temple, they have attracted quite a crowd, and as a result the Sanhedrin, the governing body, calls them before them for a private hearing. They are not pleased with the preaching of Peter and John. However, it says, "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus." The Jewish leaders were astonished that such ordinary men could be living such extraordinary lives. Now back to the question we began with, "Who was Edward Kimball?" Well, he was a Sunday School teacher in Boston many years ago, teaching this little class of teenage boys. One of those boys in particular was biblically illiterate. He was out-of-step with everybody else in the class - he couldn't find anything in his Bible, didn't know anything in the Bible. One day Edward Kimball felt led by the Lord to go where this lost young man worked at a shoe store. He felt led to go there and speak to him about accepting Christ, and the young man did. That shoe salesman prayed to give his heart to Jesus in the back room of that shoe store. Now, hardly anyone has ever heard of Edward Kimball the Sunday School teacher, but everyone in the Christian world has heard of D. L. Moody. Because it was Dwight Moody, that powerful evangelist, the founder of a place that has trained thousands of people for Christian work, that was the young man that gave his heart to Christ that day. There never would have been a D. L. Moody if it hadn't been for the faithfulness of one of God's ordinary people. Is that an encouragement to you? I hope so. Maybe you consider yourself very ordinary, but God loves to do extraordinary things through ordinary people. That's what Acts 4:13 is all about. But they weren't ordinary anymore, because they had been with Jesus. Daily contact with Jesus leads to a total control by Jesus, and it leads to power being released in your life through which you can really make a difference. You say, "Oh, I'm just a Sunday School teacher. I'm just a helper. I'm just a choir member. I'm just an untrained, simple person who loves Jesus." You're not a "just a..." Stop it! Don't keep saying you're "just a..." You're not that if you open yourself up to letting the Holy Spirit make your ordinary extraordinary. Did Edward Kimball know how extraordinary that little conversation would turn out to be? No, we never do. We do these little things for Jesus that turn out to be big things. You can count on the Lord to take an ordinary person, doing ordinary things, and if you obey Him, He will make ordinary extraordinary.

My wife and I had been staying at a friend's house at the New Jersey shore. It was a great setting to be working on a book about "Peaceful Living in a Stressful World." One night this powerful storm hit the area, and we heard the wind howling and the rain was bombarding that house all night long. By morning, the storm was over, and I wanted to go to the beach to see what the storm tide might have deposited there. Even though the sun was out and the storm was history, the sea was still churning all brown. In fact, even when there wasn't a storm that week, the ocean never rested. I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Peace Deficit." There are times when the sea is more turbulent than others - like during and after that storm we experienced - but it's never really calm. Not unlike what's going on inside a lot of people's hearts - maybe yours. There are times that are more turbulent than others for sure, but there's never any lasting personal peace. It's not that we don't try to find something that will give us peace. We try all kinds of antidotes, all kinds of anesthetics, all kinds of escapes, all kinds of experiences, relationships, or people. But still where's the lasting peace? The Bible tells us about a condition that's described in our word for today from the Word of God very graphically in Isaiah 57:20-21. What a picture this is! "The wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud." Now, we can all picture that. If you've ever been to the ocean, you can picture it. That's a human heart. "'There is no peace,' says my God, 'for the wicked.'" Now, we don't want to think we're part of the people God calls "the wicked." But I am and so are you. Because God is referring to all those who have broken His laws, who have run their own lives, and who have missed His standard of perfection. Hello? That would be every one of us. And the Bible says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). And God's X-ray of what's going on in our heart reveals a two-word bottom line - "No peace." It may be a feeling that you know all too well. No relationship has ever given you lasting personal peace, no accomplishment, not even a religion or spiritual experience. After golfer Payne Stewart died in a plane crash, some years ago really, a lot of us learned about a personal commitment he had made to Jesus Christ about a year before. In that last year of his life, he said "I'm so much more at peace with myself than I've ever been in my life. I don't understand how I lived so long without it." Maybe you've lived long enough without that peace. You'll find it where Payne Stewart and millions of others have found it...in a relationship with Jesus Christ. There's no peace until you have peace with God. And there's no peace with God until that sin that separates you from Him is forgiven. And there's no forgiveness without the Savior who died to pay for your sin. As the Bible says, "The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him" (Isaiah 53:5). Are you ready for some peace in your soul; the peace that has eluded you all these years? Then you're ready for Jesus. You're ready to begin your personal relationship with Jesus Christ - the love you were made for. And you begin it by giving you to Him. You can tell Him that right where you are, "Jesus, I'm done running my own life. I deserve the penalty for that, but you took it on the cross. And because you love me that much, I love you back and I'm giving me to you beginning today. I am yours." At that point, I can say, "Welcome to the family of God." I want you to go to our website and there find the information that will help you be sure you belong to Jesus Christ. It's ANewStory.com. Like the ocean that never rests, your heart may have never really been at peace. But it's about to be if you'll claim this promise from Jesus Himself, "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you."

Every once in a while we think someone left the floodlight on in the backyard, so I look outside the window to discover the floodlight isn't on - the moonlight is! It's one of those really impressive full-moon nights. The most beautiful one that my wife and I had, was when we were on vacation in the mountains. Our cabin was nestled in this quiet valley next to a gentle little stream. Not long after dark, I noticed that the valley was ablaze with light! The full moon was rising in the eastern sky and it was casting this celestial glow over everything. It was perfectly positioned in the sky to just totally illuminate the valley we were in. But then, something made me realize what I was really looking at, and I said as we stood on the porch in admiration, "You know, that moon really isn't producing any light at all. It's just reflecting the light of the sun." I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Surprisingly Competent." Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 3:18. Paul says, "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." Now as followers of Jesus Christ we're supposed to light our world. Right? God has positioned you where you work, or live, or go to school, or where you shop, to make a difference, a Jesus-difference by your love, joy, your Jesus-treatment of people. See, you're supposed to light up what would otherwise be a much darker environment. But we are like the moon; we have no glory of our own. This verse says we reflect Jesus' glory! He says it in another way in chapter 4, verse 7. "We have this treasure in jars of clay so that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." See, anything we do for the Lord, it's all God. Now we should be a lot brighter, I think, than we are. There are a lot of important things He wants to do through you, but maybe you're not making nearly the difference you should be making. It's probably because of one basic spiritual misunderstanding about who is the "sun" and who is the "moon." Maybe these are things you've been asked to do for the Lord, but you're afraid to say "yes" because you feel inadequate. You want people you're around to hear about Jesus, but you haven't said anything because you're afraid you'll mess it up. God is putting before you some ways He wants you to make a difference, but you keep shrinking back. But see, you're missing something. You're not the "sun." You don't have to produce the power, or the words, or the strength, or the light to pull it off. It's Jesus who does the work. He's only asking for you to be available. He knows you and I can't produce the light - that's His job! He just wants you to be in a position to reflect His light onto the people around you. Doesn't that take a lot of pressure off? That means you can help somebody be in heaven with you someday. In chapter 3, verse 5 in 2 Corinthians He says, "Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent." See, you can dare to step up to responsibility that would be impossible if it depended on you. It doesn't. It depends on the Son of God! This "reflected" glory neutralizes our feelings of inadequacy and pride. Maybe you've begun to feel a little prouder of the kind of Christian you've been, or some of the things you've done for the Lord. News flash! You haven't done them! You are just - I am just - a glowing piece of rock. It's all Jesus, reflecting His glory through you. Why are you taking any credit for it? If the sun were to go out some full-moon night, we would immediately know where the light's been coming from all along and how little the moon has to do with it. The light of the Son of God never goes out, and He chooses to reflect in your valley, through your life, your personality, your abilities, and even your weaknesses. Isn't that amazing? You can light up your world with light that doesn't come from you, but from the very Son of God himself!

The lady in the airplane seat next to me was from Norway. And I knew she had experienced something I needed to know about - winter months with very long nights and summer months with very long days. With our Native American team planning some major summer outreach among Native young people in Alaska at that point, I was especially interested in what our days would be like up there. My neighbor from Norway made the answer very clear - they'd be endless! She said that even after all the years living there, she could never sleep much in those northern days where there is virtually no dark. I thought, "O-o-o, it should be a lot of fun getting our team to sleep at night, when there is no night." But then I was curious to know about those December days when we have only about nine hours or so of daylight. She told me about a time when it was, in her words, "almost always dark" where she lives. It's hard for me to imagine weeks where you basically never see the light of the sun. It's not hard for me to imagine the way my Norwegian neighbor said many people feel during that time - really depressed. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When It's Dark All the Time." A long, depressing darkness. You don't have to live in the North Country to know what darkness like that feels like. I mean you can feel it in your heart. It may have been winter inside your soul for a long time - maybe concealed from others. You've got this smile, this really busy life, but it's still dark inside most of the time. Maybe it's the guilt of past mistakes you've made that has brought on the long winter. Or just this nagging sense of worthlessness that goes way back, or a chronic despair over the pain of your past or maybe the meaninglessness of the present, or it could be the darkness might be summed up in one increasingly, desperate word - loneliness. But whatever the cause, this heaviness inside, this relentless darkness has been there long enough. The end of a long, long night can begin with a hope-filled promise made by Jesus Christ - who has never made a promise He did not keep. It's our word for today from the Word of God in John 8:12, "Jesus said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'" Jesus promises that if you belong to Him, if you stay close to Him, He will lead you out of the darkness that no one else has been able to dispel. And that's the beginning of the end of your long, dark winter in your soul. But only Jesus can replace your darkness with what He called "the light of life." Why? Because our problem really isn't the darkness. Near the North Pole in winter, the problem is that the sun doesn't shine there. Our problem isn't ultimately the darkness of our loneliness or our despair. It's the absence of the Light! We were created to live in the light of a love-relationship with our Creator, which we have lost by running our lives our way instead of His way. In God's words, "Your sins have separated you from your God." (Isaiah 59:2) That separation could only be healed by the death penalty for your sin being erased. And that's what was going on when Jesus Christ was bleeding and dying on a cross. He was voluntarily paying for your sin, which is the ultimate cause of the darkness in your soul. And the forgiveness, the peace, and the light that He died to give you becomes yours when you tell Him you're trusting Him to be your Savior from your sin. If you do that, Jesus will shed His light on every dark stretch you ever walk, including the darkest stretch of all, when one day you walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Why don't you open your heart to Jesus today right where you are? It's been dark long enough. Tell Him, "Jesus, I'm yours." If you really want to know that you've begun this relationship, that's why our website is there. Check it out today! It's ANewStory.com. This wonderful promise of God will be all about you. It says, "God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves" (Colossians 1:13).

We were shooting some video footage of a group of teenagers and they were kind of surprised when they saw the result on a TV screen. We were seated in a little cluster on the floor discussing various youth issues, and what surprised them was the fact that when they saw it on the screen they realized we had focused close-up on each individual as they were commenting. Of course, they went, "Oh, no! Look at me!" See, they thought it was going to be this big group shot. We didn't want the viewers to be distracted by anyone else, so most of the time we would zoom our lens in a real tight close-up, so you would only see one person. The telephoto effect actually makes a big difference. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Love Through a Telephoto Lens." Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Proverbs 5:15, and it's talking about married love. It speaks about it in symbolic terms and then gets pretty direct. "Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth." And then God expresses here as the Inventor of sex that He is, some of the joy that He intended married couples to have, "A loving doe," it says, "a graceful deermay her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love." This is really a passage about focused love. It's about a man who has eyes for only one woman and doesn't let his springs overflow anywhere else, who really has decided there's only one place for his love. As a result he enjoys a fulfilling and exciting relationship with her. Now, whether you're a husband or a wife, this secret of happiness is still the same. Marital and sexual fulfillment is the byproduct of focused love. Lasered love. Notice here it says, "Let your ability to express love be yours alone" in so many words. And then in the King James Version, I like the way it says, "Rejoice with the wife of your youth. Let her satisfy you always." In other words there's a choice here. Let her/let him be enough. I choose to focus my telephoto lens on one person; there's no one else in my picture. As soon as you widen your focus, the discontentment, the dissatisfaction begins. Maybe you've been allowing other fantasies into your heart; maybe some of those sites you visited have fueled that kind of mental unfaithfulness. Where should your heart be? Focusing all your fantasies on your husband or your wife. Those sexually-oriented pictures, the ads, the videos, the movies, the websites - they let other women and other men into a place that should be reserved for just one person. That's the way The Creator made it. Maybe you joke about having a wandering eye. That's no joke! It dilutes your focus on that one man and that one woman. The soap opera love affairs, the flirtations with that other person, all those mental wanderings erode the excitement of focused love. Don't betray your lifetime partner in your fantasies. You'll both lose. Decide to let her or let him be enough. Ask for Christ's strength to narrow your focus and you'll see just a close-up on one person. The best of married love is for those who choose love through that telephoto lens.