The old wisdom is that the way to a man's heart is, yeah, through his stomach. Actually I think that's true, but I believe that the way to a parent's heart is through their children. And I have to admit that I'm one of those who feels that way. I mean, you really have a warm feeling toward people who are kind to your children and grandchildren. You know, when our kids were young, that was especially true. It was important to me when people remembered my child's name or maybe their birthday.

Most of all, I really felt warmly toward those people who didn't just act like my kids weren't there; they took time to actually talk with them like they were people. I guess I noticed the people who didn't treat my kids right too. You know, it was hard to have warm feelings toward them. I didn't have a grudge but it would have been nice if they'd at least noticed them. Actually there is a Heavenly Father watching you and me too, and He's responding to our treatment of some people He really loves. So, I wonder if you're giving your Father (capital F, Father) those warm feelings?

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Father, The Poor, and Your Heart."

Proverbs 19:17 is where we will find our word for today from the Word of God, and here's what it says: "He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will reward him for what he has done." Well, that's pretty clear what God is saying. There is a group of people that are very special to Him, and He's watching how they're treated, as I watch how people treat my children. We're told here that the poor are special to God.

That's not just in this verse. In fact, all through the Old Testament over and over again, righteousness is actually equated with how you treat the poor. The Old Testament law is very careful in providing for the care of the poor. And in Luke 4:18, Jesus preached His first sermon and He says, "I have come to preach good news to the poor."

It's pretty clear from this verse that our Heavenly Father is watching how we treat the poor. And not only that, but He takes it personally. It says that the person who was kind to the poor, lends not to them but to the Lord. That's interesting. It tells you something about your commitment to the Lord and your unselfish love when you do something for the poor. Do you know why? Because they can't do anything back for you. You're really giving. There's nothing in it for you. You know what? We're surrounded today by people who God the Father has His eyes on. They're the homeless people that might be within our reach, or that family out of work right within your circle of influence, a struggling single parent who's having a very difficult time making ends meet. There are some hungry people maybe near you and a world away from us.

If you are attuned to God's heart, you're going to be involved in treating the poor like Jesus did. Maybe you need to be looking for an inner city ministry working among poor people. See, the hardest ministry to support in America is work in the inner city or on Native American reservations. Well, everybody seems to care about their turf, and not so much about what's beyond your own personal world.

Put your money, your time, mobilize your church to do something about needy people wherever they are. I'm talking about getting your hands dirty, personal involvement, family involvement. Teach your kids how to have a heart for the poor. Work first hand with some less fortunate people; help lift their burden. Do the work of God on earth. By the way, those folks have a lot to teach you. Pray this: "Lord, it's so easy just to drive by; to write people off as lazy or just to care about what's done to me. But I know, Lord, You have Your eyes on the poor. Would you give me Your heart for the poor and a way to take a piece of that action in my world? And a way to do something about it in my world?" You know what the Bible says will happen? "He will reward you."

Embracing a poor person or a poor family? Seems like that's the way to your Father's heart.

I know voicemail can be efficient, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Sometimes they're entertaining. I have friends who have major productions or comedy monologues that greet people. But, you know, voice mail doesn't respond. It records, but doesn't respond. One friend captured how I feel in what he recorded tongue-in-cheek. You call, then you know, you get the little click and you hear the friend's voice saying, "In a world of cold and uncaring humans, isn't it refreshing to be greeted by a warm and friendly voicemail?" No! You just can't automate a personal response!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "An Answering Person or An Answering Machine?"

Actually, when it comes to the needs around you, you're probably one or the other: you're an answering person or an unresponsive person like an answering machine. Jesus was trying to point that out in Luke 10:30-34. It's our word for today from the Word of God. You know the story. He says, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, they beat him, they went away, leaving him half dead."

"A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So, too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine..."

It's a great story, huh? Yeah, but it's a troubling story. It's the professional God-lovers - the priest and the Levite - who don't stop for this obvious human need. And it's a Samaritan, one who's considered a spiritual reject by the Jews, who responds as Jesus would with above and beyond love.

Like me, you may be pretty busy in Christian activities and programs, and that can become a trap. I believe the priest and the Levite knew about meeting needs. I believe they knew about helping wounded people. But they may have confined their response to programs for helping people, to meetings to plan programs, to theological concepts about love and mercy and compassion. Tragically, the longer you've been around Christian things, the more you can replace personal acts of love with programs and structures to do it.

You know, it goes like this: "We have a program that ministers to the poor, the homeless, the brokenhearted, and the hurting. We have meetings that present Christ to lost and dying people. We're having a seminar on reaching people for the Lord." Answering machines - machines to answer the calls of men and women in need. Now I'm very much in favor of organized, large-scale efforts to respond to the needs of desperate people around us. But they're just no substitute for you being the Good Samaritan yourself, for the natural flow of love and mercy that stops for someone who needs money, or a listening ear, a word of encouragement, a chance to hear about Christ's love or to see it in action.

Like the Good Samaritan, I hope you don't lose that beautiful characteristic of your Master. A breakable heart. You got one? Sometime this week, you'll almost surely encounter someone who is wounded or someone who is without Christ. Will you excuse yourself because you're busy in a lot of Christian activity - your answering machines? Or will you stop and be the answer with your loving, personal, above-and-beyond response? That's what Jesus commands and commends.

When the people around you call, they don't need an answering machine, they need an answering person!

The driver pulled up and dumped it in my driveway, but I was very happy to see it. It was my cord of wood - a winter of warm fires in our fireplace! See, we had ordered it during a special sale, which others apparently took advantage of big time. The driver told me some people had ordered five cords of wood. When I asked why, he said, "It's for their wood stoves. They're depending on it to keep their house warm this winter!" No wonder they ordered a lot of wood for the winter. And when they run out of fuel, they run out of fire. When they run out of fire, it gets very cold.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Keep Your Fire Burning."

For somebody listening right now, it's winter spiritually - maybe for you. What used to be a warm and passionate relationship with Jesus has turned cold and practiced. Your fire for the Lord and for His work is burning pretty low, or maybe there are just the embers of a fire that once blazed high. The problem isn't the fire; the problem is a shortage of fuel.

See, spiritual fire is like those fires in people's stoves or fireplaces: you have to keep throwing another log on the fire. You can't just get it burning high and then expect it to stay that way indefinitely. Jesus obviously knew what to do to keep the fire going. He knew where the fuel was.

He demonstrates that in our word for today from the Word of God, beginning in Luke 4:40. "When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying His hands on each one, He healed them...He rebuked demons and would not allow them to speak. At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for Him and when they came to where He was, they tried to keep Him from leaving them. But He said, 'I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.' And He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea."

Now after a very full day and a very late night, Jesus gets up early to go to the spiritual woodpile - time with His Heavenly Father. He went for that spiritual fuel regularly. In Luke 6:12, we are told that "Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God." At another point, Luke tells us "Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." Notice in Luke 6 that Jesus comes back from His Father-time refueled for His work and refocused on what His work is supposed to be.

Now if the fire is burning low in your heart right now, it could very well be that you aren't spending the heart-to-heart time with God that you once did. That's where you find the logs to rekindle your fire because the flame of serving Christ has to be a deep love relationship with Him. See, it isn't all about Bible study, it isn't all about church or theology or ministry or living the Christian life. It's all about Jesus! And the pressure and stress of each crazy day make it so easy to forget that this is all about Jesus, it's all from Jesus, it's all for Jesus.

It could be that your time with Him has been more and more abbreviated, postponed or even canceled. You need to get back to what fueled your fire in the first place - belonging to Jesus, being with Jesus, loving Jesus. Without that regular time, that sweet relationship is replaced with a stressful rat race.

When Jesus had Father time, He came away knowing He couldn't just stay with the people who had already experienced Him. He had to move on to the unreached. So do you and I. Making your Father time the anchor of your daily schedule will not only fuel your fire for the Lord, but also for the lost people He died to rescue. And you'll feel again the excitement of joining Jesus in His eternal rescue mission.

Those who depend on a fire make sure they have plenty of fuel - and that they add logs to their fire regularly. For us to live as we were created to live, we need a blazing spiritual fire in our heart. So make sure your fuel supply is strong and consistent. Christian living and Christian service are all about Jesus! Staying in heart-to-heart contact with Him will give you all the logs you need for a fire that never goes out!

It was when the Star Wars movie "The Force Awakens" came out. It was a great story, I'm sure, in that great record crushing movie. I wasn't expecting to find a mirror reflecting the lives of so many people I've known. In the story, it's Rey's story. She's a young woman on a desolate planet, surviving by scavenging parts from a space junkyard. When she's asked, "Who are you?" she just zero-sums her life this way: "I am no one" until she discovers the truth that changes her life forever.

She's made for more. She finds that she's here for something much greater than just scavenging. She's destined for greatness as a warrior for a better world. And that's the image in the mirror of so many of us who've settled for just surviving, for just doing life, one predictable, one purposeless day at a time. Not a bad life, just an insignificant, too-small life - scavenging.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Made for More."

You know, maybe that's why a light has gone on inside millions of people when they've met a man named Jesus. He said in John 10:10 in the Bible, "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full." To the full, implying that we've been settling for less than full. Maybe we've been settling for empty, for less than we were created for.

I think we know that something or someone is missing. No matter how far, or not far, we may have climbed up Mount Happiness. No friendship, no scholarship, no championship, no relationship has filled the hole in our heart. They can't, because we're made for more. The "more" the Bible reveals in this statement about Jesus Christ: our word for today from the Word of God from Colossians 1:16 - "All things were created by Him and for Him."

So, I am created by Jesus, for a relationship with Jesus, just as the earth is created to revolve around the sun - its source of life. Anything less is, in reality, spiritual scavenging. It's not God's fault I've lived beneath my destiny. I, along with all my fellow humans, decided to live for me with God on the margins at best; maybe a compartment, but not my reason to live.

God had every right to let us have the life without Him that we seem to want. But He loves us too much for that. He proved it by sending His one and only Son not from "a galaxy far, far away," but from heaven to become one of us. And this takes my breath away - He sent Him to die for us; absorbing on a cross all the pain, all the penalty for all our hijacking of our life from Him.

I still can't get over it. From the day I trusted this Jesus to forgive my sin and pilot my life I've been discovering the "more." I was searching, and I finally found it. If you've never experienced the "more" of a relationship with Jesus...you know all the relationships, all the things you've been and done, have not filled that hole in your heart.

Well, with the love of Jesus and His grave-conquering power that He proved when He walked out of his grave, I've graduated from scavenging to being a warrior. He wants that for you - unleashing the force of His love in your family, and your work, and your personal world.

It doesn't have to be the way it's always been because of Jesus. But you take the initiative to begin that relationship with Him. He describes it as knocking on the door of your heart. I believe He may be in your heart, today. And if you feel that tug in your heart, would you take an action step and say, "Jesus, I am yours from this day on. I'm pinning all my hopes on You."

Check out our website and make sure you belong to Him. You'll find it at ANewStory.com.

Finding Jesus. Finding your destiny. Never "settling" again.

Now, if I said I was going to give you the great secrets of hitting a baseball, I don't think you're going to go right out and try them. You're going to be skeptical, and you should be. But if one of the game's greatest hitters were to tell you the secret of hitting a baseball, well now you should pay attention.

Pete Rose actually was one of those, and he was once interviewed for an article in Sports Illustrated, and I like the title. It was called Good Wood. And he said that he liked a heat-treated bat. Now, I didn't realize this, but he said that you put the bat through an intense heat and that the heat would seal the pores and it actually made the bat hit harder. Well, it worked for him! I guess it's true, heat-treated bats hit harder. Well, you know something? So do heat-treated people.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Your Pain is Your Friend."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God is found in Romans 5:3-4, and it talks about, well, heat treating. Here we go. "We, also, rejoice in our sufferings because we know suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope." Those are curious words. "We rejoice in our suffering?" This doesn't mean that Christian suffering feels any better than non-Christian suffering. It doesn't. It feels about the same, whether you're a Christian or not. But if you're a believer, pain is just as painful, unemployment is just as demoralizing, and pressure is just as stressful.

But you rejoice, not because it feels better, you rejoice because in Christ, pain has a point. A minus can be made into a plus. Suffering can be made into perseverance, character and hope. Just ask Pete Rose's bat. He said that heat heals up the holes in the bat and makes it more solid. Well, could it be that the heat that you're undergoing right now is heat-treating you and the holes in your life are being healed up by it and you're becoming more solid because of it? The heat you're feeling is not to burn you up, even though it feels like you might not make it through it. It's to make you strong; to build into you great perseverance, great character, great hope.

Right now you are in a position to learn more about the resources of God than any person who's in a comfortable setting. Sure you'd like to be comfortable again. I hope you will be. Sure you'd like this insecurity, this pain to pass. But right now you have a chance to know the resources, and the power, and the grace of God more deeply than you and those around you perhaps have ever known. You are learning, or you can learn, how to wait, how to overcome, how to really, urgently, desperately pray.

Perhaps you're being forced to close up some of the holes in your life; weaknesses, unconfessed sin, broken relationships that have been called to your attention by this hard time. Things you might not have given attention to any other way. And you can, because of the fire, be forced to deal with the weaknesses that you might otherwise still tolerate. And when you do, you have added a new kind of strength.

The fire turns spiritual wimps into spiritual warriors. So, rejoice as you see what you are becoming or can become through heat-treating, and only through heat-treating. You are becoming a heavy hitter in the hands of Almighty God.

Be encouraged! You're becoming good wood.

Kissimmee, Florida is right in the middle of some of Florida's most exciting tourist attractions. So, it's usually associated with happy times. But in February of 1998 the headlines were about tragedy in Kissimmee; 38 people killed in the deadliest tornado outbreak in the state's history up to that time. In its lead front page story, USA Today told about one couple who cowered in horror. And it said, "The wind sucked like a vacuum cleaner, pulling their five-year-old daughter, Elissa, away. Her Dad said, 'She was horizontal, and my wife was holding onto her legs. There was all this glass and everything started to disappear, all the furniture, and the insides of the walls. If my wife had let go of Elissa, we wouldn't have been able to find her." USA Today said, "But Judy's grip held. And in a few moments, the tornado had passed and Elissa was safe in her arms." Wow!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Holding Onto Your Child In The Storm."

If you're a parent, you may know that feeling because there are unusually stormy times right now in which to raise a son or daughter. And sometimes you feel like all that's swirling around them threatens to take them away. There may be days when you feel like you're hanging on for dear life.

Our word for today from the Word of God, though it isn't addressed specifically to parents, is a great parent scripture. 2 Timothy 1:7 says this, "God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline." God doesn't want your parent-heart to be a fearful heart. In fact, He has made this strong promise to parents in Isaiah 54:13, "All your children will be taught of the Lord; and great will be the peace of your children."

You can keep your child from being torn away by the storm. Take time to casually debrief each day with them; helping them interpret what they have experienced that day. Give them boundaries, but with positive reasons - not just boundaries. Focus on today - not the problems of yesterday or the prospects of tomorrow. Make your home an island of sanity in an otherwise insane world, where when they close that door, they know they're safe, not on another battlefield. And each new day, give that child back to the God who gave you that child in the first place.

The ultimate secret of holding onto your child in the storm is - in a sense - letting go of your child. After the writer talks about having a spirit of power and love instead of a spirit of fear, he tells how that's possible with so much at stake. Speaking of his personal relationship with Jesus he says, "I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard what (or who) I have entrusted to Him" (2 Timothy 1:12).

There is a relationship that provides a life-anchor - for anyone, but especially for parents raising children in stormy times. If you have begun that personal love-relationship with Jesus, you can commit your precious child to Him and He'll hang onto them as you never could.

But first Jesus has to be hanging onto you. There is nothing like being a parent to make you aware of your need for help, for the power to change, of your limitations, your need for forgiveness and for inner healing. And Jesus is a Mom's Savior, a Dad's Savior. He died on the cross to pay for all the sinning you and I have ever done, to tear down the wall between God and us and to open up all of God's love and power to you as a Mom or Dad.

If you've never put your personal trust in Jesus Christ to be your Savior, don't wait another day for your sake; for the sake of the child you love. Our website is there to help you get this settled. It's ANewStory.com.

In a world that is so dangerous and confusing, it isn't easy to keep your child from being taken away by the storm. But you can hang onto your son or daughter if you have the Son of God hanging onto you.

It's amazing how quickly you can get 300 college men to change their plans on a moment's notice. It happened several times when I was in school. Oh, it's late at night; we're all up in our rooms studying, sleeping, or goofing off, and we're certainly not planning to go out. Yet, within a matter of minutes all three hundred men are out of their rooms and out of the dorm. It's amazing what one fire bell can do, huh? Oh, there was no fire, just an occasional fire drill. But the call summoned us from whatever we were buried in, brought us out of our rooms, and out into the night.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The People Who Need You Are Outside the Building."

Now, you can't read the book of Acts without marveling at the explosive impact of those first Christians. They saw thousands come to Christ. And they saw people coming to Christ daily. They made such an impact it spread across the world and twenty centuries, and guess what? They had the same Savior we have, and the same Holy Spirit living in them! So what happened? Well, let's look at one of those keys to life-changing, city-changing, world-changing Christianity.

Our word for today from the Word of God, Acts 4:31, it says, "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God boldly. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions were his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the Apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all" If you compare this chapter with chapter 2, it says in just three verses, they were together, together, together. Three times it says that. See, these people had a life or death message to deliver. They realized the urgency and the enormity of getting the Gospel out to an area that was unreached, and they knew they had to work on it together.

C. S. Lewis suggested that Christianity is like this big house. And I'm going to borrow from his example and add to it a little. Everybody enters the house through the same long hallway. In that corridor you've got the cross and the empty tomb. We all went there to get our sins forgiven, and that's how we came to Christ. Now, off the hall are a lot of little rooms. Not long after we come in the center corridor we find that we like one of those rooms and we go in it, and we stay there like college students on a busy night of studying.

In one of the rooms off the central corridor they're sprinkling people to baptize them, in another room they're dunking them, in another room they're speaking in tongues, in another room they're talking about people who speak in tongues. You know, in our rooms, we spend a lot of time on our group's distinctive features; the things that make us, us; things that tend to divide us from the folks in the other rooms. Meanwhile, just outside the front door thousands are dying without Christ!

There is one call that has the power to do what the fire alarm did in our dorm that night and summoned us from our individual rooms to go out together. It is the call of Jesus to seek and save those who are lost. They need to be brought to the center corridor that we all claim, to get to the cross to have their sins forgiven, and the empty tomb to meet their living Savior. While we've been busy building our Christian subcultures we've lost our culture. One third of Americans say they've had no religious training. Most of the people around you know almost nothing about our Book or our Savior. Could it be because we've lost one of the most powerful words of the early church - together?

This is a time for ordinary believers to look out the window and see the urgency and the enormity of reaching the lost out there and to begin to pull people out of their little rooms, out of their denominational and doctrinal silos, to join in urgent prayer together for the lost, and to make aggressive plans to work together to reach them.

The Lord is sounding the alarm! If we hear His cry for harvest workers, we'll be out of our little room and pulling others out of theirs to rescue the people who are dying just outside the front door.

My farm girl had a high tolerance for pain. "I know," you say, "she married you." No, I mean physical pain. She seldom complained and I often didn't know she was hurting. There was a season in her life when she was in constant pain for about eight years. A lot of remedies and treatments took their turn trying to help her but actually nothing worked; the flare-ups continued...until something happened. With a big smile on her face, she said, "I am pain-free for the first time in eight years." And she was so grateful. What happened? Our family doctor went to work diagnosing the problem and he concluded it was fibromyalgia. And once our doctor diagnosed what the real problem was, we could start working on some real relief!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Real Disease - Beyond Your Symptoms."

It may be that you've been experiencing some painful symptoms in your life recently. I'm talking emotionally, not necessarily physically. There have been too many blowups, too many dark times, too much loneliness, more and more stress, less and less peace. Like my wife with her physical pain, you're experiencing some painful, disturbing symptoms. And so far, no treatment, no pain reliever has really taken away the pain.

It's time to bring in the Specialist, the One who can get beyond the symptoms and give you the diagnosis of the underlying problem. That would be your Creator. Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Romans 3 where God talks about some ugly symptoms. People, it says, whose "tongues practice deceit," whose "mouths are full of cursing and bitterness," it says "their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways." There's this dark side of us that lies and hurts people and basically is out of control. Here's a phrase that might sum up a lot of your life, "And the way of peace they do not know."

Then comes the diagnosis of what's behind so much of the pain in our lives. "There is no one righteous, not even one...all have turned away...there is no fear of God before their eyes." And then, the sobering bottom line, Romans 3:23 - "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." You're in there, I'm in there, we're "all" in there. Our symptom might be loneliness or depression or guilt or darkness inside, but the disease is the cancer called sin. We've done our life our way instead of God's way so we're cut off from the "glory" of His love, His help, and His peace. Just like my wife with her years of physical pain, your symptoms won't start clearing up until you treat the disease that's causing them.

But God doesn't just diagnose the disease, He provides the cure. In verse 24: "We are justified (made right with God) freely by God's grace through the redemption (the rescue!) that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood." In plain language, we had no hope of our sin-cancer being cured, but God, the very One we sinned against, sacrificed His one and only Son to pay the death penalty for our sin. The cure involves blood - the blood Jesus poured out when He died to remove the guilt and the hell of your sin and mine.

That blood cure becomes your cure when you put all your trust in Jesus to forgive every sin you've ever done. He's ready to begin that healing right now if you're ready to begin a trust relationship with Him as your personal Savior. You can tell Him that right now. A real life on earth and eternal life when you die. That's real life. Tell Him, "Jesus, I'm yours."

Go to our website. There are some things there that I've written just to help you walk right into this relationship with Him. Go to ANewStory.com.

After all this pain, God has diagnosed the disease that caused so much of it. And He has paid the ultimate price for you to be spiritually healed. Today He stands ready to do for you what only He can do. Just ask Him to.

Oh, when the auditor leaves from our annual audit, man, our administrative team is high-fivin'. Partly because, well, we've been blessed to get a clean audit year after year, and partly it's just because it's over! They work pretty hard to be ready for all the things the auditor wants to check out.

In the business world, and sometimes even in the Christian world, audits aren't always happy. Auditors can find things that get you in trouble with your boss, with the government, even with the law. Audits uncover hidden secrets.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Audit Of A Lifetime."

Now, I have a meeting scheduled with the auditor in the future. Except, I don't know when it is, because the appointment is with The Auditor, and only He knows when my audit of a lifetime is going to be. Fact is we're all facing the audit of our lives. Our word for today from the word of God in Romans 14:12 says "...each of us will give an account of himself to God."

There will be no exceptions, "...each of us." There will be no excuses, "...will give account of himself to God." No blaming your spouse, your parents, your kids, your friends, your coworkers, your environment. I will answer for me and me alone. Also, there will be no secrets. Romans 2:16 says, "God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ." The Auditor knows every website we've ever visited, every e-mail or conversation we've been involved with, every sin we thought we got away with.

Many times I've seen a road sign with these stark words: "Prepare to meet your God" (Amos 4:12). Since heaven's all-knowing Auditor will expose everything about my life, it actually makes sense to work on what I'll face in His presence. The Auditor has let us know what He'll be auditing. I'd like to know that now.

Now, I know He'll be auditing the words I speak. Jesus said so; "Men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless (or worthless that means) word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned" (Matthew 12:36-37). All our words, including the gossip, the angry stuff, the putdowns, the dirty stuff, will be there to meet us on the day of judgment and there will be no denying my own words.

The Auditor's also going to examine why I do what I do. The Bible says, "Wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts" (1 Corinthians 4:5). I'm not too excited about those new full body scans that they're installing at airports; they reveal what no one else can see. But that's nothing compared to God's full heart scan at the judgment seat. No matter how good what I've done may be, it will burn if my real motive was me, not Him. God cares a lot more about why we do than what we do. If it wasn't for His glory, if it wasn't because of pure love, it will never survive the audit.

Then Jesus said, "Give an account of your management" (Luke 16:2). The audit is going to be about what I've done with what He's given to me: my money, my influence, my home, my abilities, my opportunities. I'm suspecting that a lot of us are going to be feeling the shame and sadness of what might have been, of how much we could have done and should have done.

And then this warning. "When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not...speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood" (Ezekiel 3:18). Whew! God will confront me with all the people I didn't tell about Jesus, whose eternity depended on hearing about Him.

And here is the hardest-hitting exposure of all, the audit of a lifetime, "...the books were opened. Another book was opened which is the Book of Life...If anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:12, 15). What an unspeakably awful moment.

Jesus checks the Book of Life to see if a person's name is there. If it's not, it's too late. It's entered there when you pin all your hopes on the Christ who died on the cross so you would never have to have that moment. You could have your name put in His book today by giving your life to Him.

The audit is coming, be ready for the audit. Prepare to meet your God.

Over the years our son-in-law's made no secret of his basketball loyalties. Even when he was living in the heart of New York Knicks, he was boldly and passionately a Chicago Bulls fan.

Like many Bulls fans, my son-in-law was wrapped up in Michael Jordan when he was at the top of his career in the 1990s. He read his biography, he taped his championship games, and of course he had to go see him play, and he bought the sports memorabilia associated with a superstar player. At Christmas, we would all fall into his trap and we'd feed his Jordan thing with Jordan presents. He was a walking encyclopedia of facts about Michael Jordan. But if he were to give him a call, I'm afraid Mr. Jordan would just say, "Who is this?" Even though our son-in-law knew almost everything about him, he didn't know him. That's the big difference isn't it?

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Knowing The Facts, Missing The Relationship."

The gap between knowing about someone and knowing someone is huge, especially when it comes to whether or not you know the God who made you. When you read our word for today from the Word of God, it appears that a lot of people are living with a false sense of spiritual security thinking they're okay because they know a lot about Jesus.

Matthew 7:21-23 are some of the most disturbing verses in the Bible. Listen to Jesus: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from Me.'"

What awful words to hear Jesus say on Judgment Day "I never knew you." And He'll say it to people who knew all the right words, who had all the right beliefs, and they did all the right things, they were at all the right meetings. Apparently, it's possible to have a lot of Christianity and miss Christ; to know a lot about Jesus but not to know Him.

Jesus said the one He knows and who knows Him is "he who does the will of My Father." Well, what is that? John 6:40 says "My Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life." So the difference between eternal life and eternal judgment is "looking to the Son" and "believing in Him." That "believe" word means to totally trust, to commit yourself to. And it's possible to know all the verses, to have been around Jesus your whole life, to be in a religion that's all about Jesus, and miss the step of actually making Him your own Savior from your own sin. To miss that moment of telling Jesus, "I'm putting all my trust in you, Jesus, and what you did on the cross when you died for the sins I've done."

For some people, the distance between heaven and hell is 18 inches - the distance from their head to their heart. Could it be you've got Jesus in your head, but you've never invited Him into your heart? That you agree with everything about Him, but you've never actually committed yourself to Him? If you have done that, it's settled. But if you don't know you have, you probably haven't.

But that could change in these next few moments if you'd just finally admit that for all you know about Jesus, you don't know Him. And tell Him right where you are that you're moving Him from your head to your heart; that you're trusting Him as your own Savior from your own sin.

Do you know you've done that? Are you sure? Get it done today. Our website is there as an anchor place for you to find the information that will help you be sure you belong to Him. Please go there. It's ANewStory.com.

"I never knew you." Those are words I don't ever want you to hear from Jesus. They're words He doesn't want you to hear. Get to His cross today, where you can finally know the One that you know so much about. And have Him in your heart, not just your head.