I used to sing this little song in Sunday school. Actually, all of the kids sang it: "Be careful little eyes what you see." That was the first verse. And then we went on to "Be careful little ears what you hear." And then "Be careful little hands what you do." Of course, "Be careful little feet where you go," and so on. Actually, there is a practical truth hidden in that little song. It's about this thing called sin, which isn't just a church word or a preacher's word. I mean, it's real. I mean, your hands sin, your eyes sin, your ears sin; it's not just a concept.

I've always found it convenient to think of sin in terms of things that someone else is doing, right? Well, when I make a list of the worst sins there are, it's usually things that I don't do. Maybe you do. Then I realize the body part that should be voted most likely to sin. Suddenly I'm on the list.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Most Sinful Part of Your Body."

Here's our word for today from the Word of God. We're in the third chapter of the book of Romans. It's a very interesting passage because it's like a spiritual X-ray, and the doctor, if you want to put it that way, gives the conclusion of this X-ray and what he has discovered in chapter 3 verse 12 and then again in verse 23. In verse 12 he says, "All have turned away, all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one." Then in verse 23 it's reiterated when he says, "For all have sinned..." I mean, there is no exception here. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The spiritual X-ray shows that we all have cancer - spiritual cancer.

Then he goes into more detail between verses 12 and 23 with how that sinful cancer shows up. Listen to these statements, "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." "Their feet are swift to shed blood." "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Did you notice there are six statements here that show the kind of spiritual cancer we have, and they all are really like biological; they involve parts of the body? One had to do with the eyes; one had to do with our feet. The other four had to do with the same area of the body: the tongue, lips, mouth and throat. So it would appear that most sinning is done with your mouth. Isn't that interesting? The most spiritually infected part of your body - the cancer comes out through our mouth more often than anywhere else.

The Bible says, "No human being can tame the tongue." That's in James 3:8. We tend to think of sin in terms of adultery, abortion, murder, abuse, drugs, stealing. But this brings it right down to where I live, because the greatest sins - the most frequent sins - are sins of the tongue. Think about it, the hurt that you and I inflict on people, the things we say in anger, the putdowns, the lies, the criticism, the negative comments, the gossip. They all come through our mouth.

This indictment tells me two things. Number one: I really need a Savior because if sin is mostly sin done with my mouth and my tongue, I really need a Savior. And you may have never experienced what it is to have the man who died for you on a cross forgive you of every wrong thing, every hurting thing, every angry thing, every dirty thing you've ever said or done. It's so wonderful to be clean. He can do that for you!

Secondly, I must focus the lordship of Christ on my mouth and say, "Jesus, be Lord of what I say; how I talk. The cancer of sin has poisoned our daily speech, but David said, "The Lord put a new song in my mouth."

Don't you want this transforming relationship with Jesus Christ? He'll make you a whole new creation, the Bible says. Let me show you how at our website. Check out ANewStory.com because maybe this is the first day of your new story.

There are those moments when I make life much harder than it has to be, and in fact sometimes I wonder if I'm slipping. There was a time not too long ago when I looked frantically for my house keys. And, of course, I mobilized the whole family and said, "I've got to get out of here! I'm running late! Everybody go on a search mission; we've got to find my keys." I found them in the door right where I'd left them. I've been doing that since I was about 20.

Did you ever find your car keys missing and you run all over the place, and you find them in your own hand? Oh, you say, "Oops!" Or your glasses and they're on your face. It happens more often than you might think. The answer you've been looking for frantically might be right there in front of you. You might be surprised how close the answer is to what you've been looking for.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Answer Under Your Nose."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God about the answer under your nose is in John 14, beginning at verse 6. "Jesus answered, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you really knew Me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.' Philip said, 'Lord, show us the Father and that would be enough for us.' Jesus answered, 'Don't you know Me, Philip, even after I have been among you for such a long time? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father"?'"

This passage introduces us to what I call the Philip Syndrome. Philip has this problem - we read about it in the New Testament. He seems to have the tendency to miss an answer that is right in front of him. And who knows, you might be suffering from the Philip Syndrome. Remember back to the feeding of the five thousand? Philip said, "Lord, what are we going to do? We don't have near enough money, even if we go to a bank and get a loan. How are we ever going to feed all these people?" And Jesus said, "Why don't you go look for a lunch? The answer's right here. All we need's a lunch - go find a lunch."

Here He's looking for some special event. He says, "Lord, we want to see the Father. We want to have a big, spiritual event here." And Jesus said, "Look at Me! I'm right in front of you." The answer in John 14 was right in front of Philip. I wonder if the answer you've been waiting for, straining for, praying for could be right in front of you. For example, maybe you've been waiting for just the right person to come along to fill a very important slot. Why don't you look around at the people you already have right now instead of pinning all your hopes on somebody that Scotty's going to beam down from the Enterprise? Maybe the person you need has been right under your nose all along, and you haven't seen what they could do.

Or maybe you need to look again at your money and your resources, and find if there's a creative way to use what you already have instead of waiting for more. Maybe the answer you've been looking for, praying for is right there in the resources you already have if you just used them differently. Or look at yourself. Maybe you're the answer to your prayer. Maybe God wants you to do what you've been praying for somebody else to do.

Our ministry started in New York years ago when a young woman came up to me and said, "Ron, I've been praying for a year for somebody to be the first Youth For Christ staff worker." She said, "You know what? I think it's me." The answer was right under her nose.

Yeah, maybe you're the answer to your own prayer. Maybe God is leading you to stop doing something or to start doing something. You're just not obeying, you're hoping for something easy. Quit running around looking for an answer. Stand back! Maybe you've got it. Maybe the answer is right in front of you.

Back when I was flying a great deal, people would often ask me where I lived, and I would frequently answer with the name of the airline I flew on the most. Now, when I hear of airplane crashes and disasters, it kind of hits me personally. I think it does anybody who has been a frequent flyer. Whether you're a flyer or not, though, there are images of certain airline tragedies that kind of forever imprint on your memory. One of those for me was the ValuJet crash in the everglades. It's been a number of years now, but the entire plane and all its passengers just vanished in the swamp.

But to one man, there's another image related to that crash. According to one news report, he used his I.D. to help his friend purchase his ticket for that flight. That friend didn't have sufficient I.D. with him at the time. And the man who bought the ticket watched his friend and all those other passengers boarding. The man who bought the ticket simply said, "I cannot forget their faces." And then he was quoted as saying, "If only there had been some signs of what was going to happen. If only I had known to warn them."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Getting Passengers Off the Fatal Flight."

Now, if anyone had a warning of what would have happened to that fatal flight, you know they would have done everything possible to keep the passengers from going. But seldom do we have such a warning. When it comes to when the people around us will go into eternity, we have all the signs, all the warning we need. God tells us in 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9, "Those who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord."

Without the Savior, no one we know is going to be able to get to heaven. That means hell. Now, our word for today from the Word of God, Proverbs 24:11 - "Rescue those being led away to death. Hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, 'But we knew nothing about this,' does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay each person according to what he has done?"

See, if you know people on a flight that leads to death, your responsibility is obvious. Rescue them! But if you look around at most of Jesus' followers today, we're not in a rescue mode. There's little sense of the life-or-death urgency about introducing those around us to Jesus. We need to ask, "Do we really believe the people we know will be lost forever if they don't know Christ? Do we really believe they're spiritually dying?"

Someone suggested to me recently, they called Christians practical Universalists. Now, in theological circles, a Universalist basically is someone who believes that everyone will eventually make it with Christ or not. Practical Universalists probably don't believe that, they believe, as the Bible teaches, that people must have the Savior to go to heaven; they just don't act like it. They act like the people who think that folks are going to make it without Jesus. Yet the Bible says, "There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." Without the man who died to pay for our sins, we'll have to pay for them.

What about the people you live with, you live close to, the people you work with, you go to school with? You see some of those faces? The Bible clearly teaches that sin has an eternal death penalty and that Jesus and only Jesus died to pay that death penalty. And that we will pay that death penalty for our sins if we don't accept the payment Jesus made because of His love for us.

The people around you are on a flight that ends in eternal death and you and I have the information that can save them. Pretty clear, our responsibility, huh? "Rescue those who are being led away to death." Begin to pray daily by name with life-or-death passion for the people around you. Ask God for the words and the opportunity to tell them about your Jesus.

You know what God's Word says, and He's the final word. You know where the Christ-less flight is headed. You can see their faces. Be the one who gets them off that fatal flight and onto the one that will take them to eternal life.

Do you remember Humpty Dumpty? Well, you might be in the middle of a Humpty Dumpty relationship right now. You remember he fell down, went to pieces and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again. Maybe that's how you feel right now; there are pieces all around you, and there's no one to put them together. The wreckage? Well, it could be a broken relationship or maybe a breaking relationship with a parent, or a child, a husband, a wife, or a friend. If you're one of the King's men or women, there's actually something you can do to put the pieces back together again if you will.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Putting Broken Back Together."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God really has something to do with broken or breaking relationships. It says in Romans 12:17-18, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."

Now, this says that there is a segment of any relationship that really is up to you. And as much as it depends on you; you cannot control the other person's response of course. But your part should always contribute to peace. Now, it's very easy to hide your responsibility for the brokenness of that relationship, or the strain, or the distance.

You can say, "Oh, listen, what good would it do? They're never going to change." Or, "He/she doesn't understand; they don't want to understand." Or how about this, "If I did talk to them, they'd never listen." Or, "Listen, you know, I've tried so hard. What's the use?"

Listen, that relationship is worth fighting for. You're going to carry with you wherever you go the remains of that broken relationship, like all the broken pieces of Humpty Dumpty, carried around inside of you. I wonder, would you take one more initiative? Would you try to build a paper bridge to that person? To be able to say, "As much as I could do, I have done." You know what I'm going to ask you to do? Write a letter.

Now, if you haven't written a letter to them yet, well then maybe you haven't done all you could. You see, when you write, here's what happens. It will be much clearer than if you don't write and you try to just say it, because when you just say it you get distracted. And they'll answer and you'll answer back. And also, if you'll write it they'll consider it a lot more seriously; they'll read it over and over again and they're not going to have to be thinking of what they're going to say next. So, you sort of have their full attention.

And I'd like to suggest to you five paragraphs in that letter with that person that, well, there's a strained relationship. I'll give you the opening sentence of each paragraph, and then it's up to you.

Paragraph number one, "I love you..." Start with that; explain your love for them. The second paragraph, "Thank you for..." Just begin to reflect on some of the things you do appreciate about them. I know there's a lot of things that frustrate you, bother you, but you never would have had a relationship with them if there weren't some things you appreciate about them too. Would you start to list those? "Thank you for..." The third paragraph begins with these very difficult words, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for my part of the brokenness; for anything I've contributed to a broken or strained relationship." The fourth paragraph says, "I wish we could... Here's how I'd like our relationship to be..." "Whatever's happened in the past, here's how I'd like it to be from now on." The last paragraph, "I promise..." "Here's my commitments to you." Okay, did you get that? "I love you," Thank you," "I'm sorry," "I wish we could," "I promise," and then you get on your knees and you lay that letter before the Lord and you pray over it.

And then you talk about it with the person after it arrives. Let them read it. Ask them if they would talk with you after it arrives. Look, what have you got to lose? And maybe it will be a new beginning. For some people I know it has been. And you will have fulfilled what the Scripture says, "As far as it depends on you, live at peace."

Give God a chance to take that relationship and mend it again, using that letter as a beginning, because that relationship is going to be a part of you wherever you go.

It was quite a few years ago when I heard about this young man on Long Island who took his sister for a ride in the family car. You say, "Oh, big deal." Well, it's no big deal except that the boy was five years old. Yes, it's true! His mother was sick in bed and his little sister said, "I want to go to New York City." So he crawled up on top of the refrigerator, got his mother's car keys out of her purse, took his sister out, belted her in, put on his seat belt, and turned on the car. It's crazy but it's true! He drove to a stop light and stopped. Then he moved forward when he was supposed to.

Finally a policeman became involved. He had just seen a driverless car go by! So, he drove up behind it and turned on the siren. As soon as the young boy heard the siren he pulled the car over very neatly, got out and talked to the officer. It was pretty incredible. And fortunately, he didn't go very far.

This little amusing incident could have turned into a horrible tragedy. A five-year-old child has no business driving, and neither do you.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Never Meant To Drive."

The Apostle Paul's lifelong struggle finally led him through some of the most intense pressure of his life. And then he let go, and he learned a liberating lesson. It's recorded for us in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 1. I'll begin reading at verse 8. He talks about "the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia." "We were under great pressure..." Maybe you can relate to some of this. "...far beyond our ability to endure, so we despaired even of life. Indeed in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened..." Now, he's found out the reason for it all, "...this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God."

Paul says, "I finally turned over the wheel to Jesus." You and I were never meant to drive just like that little five-year-old boy. Oh, we'll give God a lot. We'll give Him time, we'll give Him money, we'll give Him our talents, we'll give Him attendance at His meetings, we'll give Him service, and we'll hold offices. We'll give Him everything but control; that's the last bastion. Who's really in charge? For Paul there had to be some dents, some damage, some crashes until he finally relinquished control; until he said, "I quit relying on me, it is totally up to You, Lord."

We keep trying to negotiate a partnership with God, and God insists on nothing less than ownership. If you could see your life as God sees it, you might see this little guy or girl (that's you or me) trying to see over the steering wheel of your life, doing your best to drive. You can pull it off for a little while, but you know ultimately you're going to crash. In fact, maybe things are even swerving a little bit right now. Maybe you can hear the siren behind you. Maybe you're busy serving the Lord. Paul was. Maybe you know God's Word. Paul sure did. Maybe you've really proclaimed Christ as your Lord. Well, Paul had. But Paul also was still relying on his own strength, and education, and gifts, and brilliance. Thirty years in, he finally learned to really turn over the wheel fully to the Lord Jesus.

How many crashes will it take before you realize you really are doing the driving and that you were never meant to? He's calling you to a deeper "yieldedness" than you've ever allowed before. And it could be that you have never even considered giving Jesus the wheel of your life. The Bible says that sin really is us running our life instead of God running it; hijacking it from the One who gave it to us. Jesus went to a cross to make it possible for you to have every sin of your life forgiven and for Him to take your life where it was created to go.

Maybe you've never surrendered the wheel to Him. Why try to drive any longer? Tell Him today, "I'm not driving any more, Jesus. You are. From now on, I am Yours." Our website will help you know you belong to Him, finally. Go to ANewStory.com.

Life becomes a whole lot safer when you relinquish that steering wheel that you've been clenching so tightly and so long. You're a whole lot safer when you're the passenger and Jesus is driving.

When our kids were growing up we occasionally had our own personal emergency room at our house! Our youngest son dislocated his ankle in football, so the doctor put an air cast on his ankle for about six weeks for support. Oh, and then the oldest son, yeah he had surgery for a knee injury that he got in sports. So they recommended that he wear a knee brace whenever he played a game where he had to pivot much. So, let's see. You've got your ankle cast; you've got your knee brace. It's all based on a simple principle that prevents further injury.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fortifying Your Weak Spot."

Okay, our word for today from the Word of God is from Luke 4 where Jesus is in the desert. "He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them He was hungry. The Devil said to Him, 'If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.' Jesus answered, 'It is written, man does not live on bread alone.'" And at that point He is quoting a Scripture that He has obviously memorized from Deuteronomy 8:3.

Okay, where was Jesus' weak spot there in the wilderness? Well, obviously after 40 days, it was His need for food. Where did the Devil aim his temptation? Well, at Jesus' need for food, of course. And you notice Jesus' response - a verse that directly addresses the point where He was vulnerable. It's about bread. It's about food. Basically a verse that says, "Life is bigger than food." Okay, I've got a feeling that wasn't the first time Jesus said that verse. I have a feeling that during those days of fasting, He'd been drawing strength from that verse frequently. It's like a brace on a weakened knee - He applied Scripture to the area where He would tend to be weak.

Now, unlike what the four spiritual laws say about God, "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life," the Devil hates you and has a terrible plan for your life. He's sized up that vulnerable spot, and he's going to try to bring you down with that. So it's pretty important that you size it up, or you're going to be easy prey. Jesus knew his vulnerable spot, and He braced it with Scripture; specific Scripture that dealt with that specific issue. If the Devil is going to bring you down, what weakness do you think he'll use? Oh, you probably know. He's pushed that button many times. It's worked all too often. See, it's important for you to find Scripture that gives you God's view on your weak spot. Memorize it; repeat it to yourself frequently, not just when you're under attack. I think that's what Jesus did.

Re-program yourself by thinking Scripture where you usually think sin, and then hammer the Devil with God's Word and a response that is biblical whenever temptation comes. Temptation comes to the door, God's Word answers it. The Devil can't stand a biblical response.

So, where is the hole in your armor; that weak spot? Is it an old bitterness, maybe the tendency to think you're worthless, your sexual desires, maybe your thought life, tending to worry a lot, tending to run ahead of God. The need to be in control all the time. You know what it is. You've lived with that weakness for a long time; now it's time to cover it, fortify it with Scripture.

You're ready for the Devil when you keep covering your weak spot with God's Word about it. That's a strong spiritual brace that will help you avoid any further injury. So, support that weak spot with the strength of words from God.

I'll always remember, it was Friday in August. All of us who were landing at O'Hare Airport in Chicago that day had plans, and schedules, and things we had to do, and places we had to be. But as far as I know, none of us made it. That day Chicago had a record-breaking rain storm followed by massive flooding. And since there's only one viaduct that goes into O'Hare Airport and out, it had four feet of water. O'Hare became an island. Welcome to Camp O'Hare! It was flooded closed.

Well, many people spent the day trying to find either a way out, which didn't work very well, or a place to spend the night, but virtually no one did what they'd planned to do that day, including me, all because of one storm. No matter how rich you were or how poor, or how powerful or insignificant, how young, how old, suddenly your destiny was out of your control. You know, storms always have that effect.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Safe in Any Storm."

Our word for today from the Word of God is going to come from the sometimes obscure book of Nahum, one of those Minor Prophets in the Old Testament. Minor because the book is short, not because what they have to say is minor. Remember as we look at this verse that life's hard times are often portrayed in scripture as storms, and that's appropriate because it speaks of situations where you can no longer control your outcome.

That's what storms in our life - what they do to us. Medical storms, financial storms, family storms; maybe that's the kind of situation you're in right now. Maybe in your business, it's an out-of-control time. Maybe your marriage, maybe it's one of your children, maybe medically. Well, listen to our word for today from the Word of God. Nahum 1:3 - "The Lord is great in power. He has His way in the whirlwind and the storm."

Wow! It seems like the storm is having its way. It seems like everything's out-of-control. But God reassures us here that even when it appears that things are out-of-control, God is having His way. Paul experienced that in the incident recorded in Acts 27. As a prisoner on a ship that was taking him to Rome where he was to witness for Christ, for two weeks they sailed from Israel and they were in this violent storm, they couldn't see the sun, the moon, the stars. They didn't know where they were. They were blown way off course, they thought, and finally they went aground two weeks later. And much to their surprise, they landed on the Island of Malta, very close to Italy - their destination.

In other words, all the time they had apparently been out-of-control, they were actually right on course. So are you. See, that's what the Old Testament prophet meant. The storm may have made things out of your control, but they're in God's control. He often teaches us through those storms how much we need Him; how much we can rely on Him.

Maybe right now the winds in your life are intensifying, storm warnings are up, the flood of your frustration is rising. You're powerless to do anything about it. Let me assure you because of what God has said about storms, everything is under control. "The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and the storm." And it is often the storm that He uses to blow us home to the harbor we were made for.

The Bible says in Hebrews 6:19, speaking of Jesus, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul firm and secure." And it often is not until things are out of our control that we understand we were never meant to run our lives. We were created by Jesus, for Jesus. He died to bring us back to Him, and maybe He is right now using your storm to blow you right into His loving arms.

If you want to begin a relationship with Him, if you never have, and find the one safe place there really is, will you go to our website and let me show you, there, how you can begin your relationship with Him. That's ANewStory.com.

See, if you let God navigate, you'll find that all the time you've been blown around, you were actually storming home.

I wonder if someday I'm going to be banned from restaurants. I've been known to give the help a hard time. Now, believe me, that's not what I'm trying to do. And if you're a waiter or a waitress, don't write a nasty letter to me. I just figure that it can get pretty boring to be a server at a restaurant. I mean sometimes people just start to treat them like they're part of the menu or like a vending machine. I decide that I think they're people and I think we can have fun.

So, I've been known to go out to lunch with somebody and I'll tell them, "Oh by the way, he just moved her from another country and doesn't speak English." And so we have a lot of fun! Of course they start ordering in English.

I love to tell the waitress or the waiter, "Hey, you're a great cook!" And they look at me and say, "uh, I...I didn't cook it." In fact I literally have been told, "I didn't cook it, I just serve it." Yeah, I knew that.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Surprising Simplicity of Serving Christ."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Corinthians 3:5. Here's what Paul says about himself and another great Christian leader of that time, Apollos. "What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe - as the Lord has assigned to each his task." Now, I'm sure there were people who would have said, "Oh, Paul got me to Christ." "Apollos got me to Christ." Paul said, "No, I didn't. It wasn't from me. It was through me." That's the power of prepositions. "We are only servants through whom, not by whom, not from whom. Only through whom you came to believe."

What is it that qualifies me to visit with you daily by radio like this? These thoughts don't come from me; they come through me. That's all. It's like that server in the restaurant. It's not her recipe, it's not her effort. She just delivers what someone else has worked on; something that someone else has made possible.

That's what Jesus was saying when He said, "I am the vine. You are the branches." The branch doesn't produce the fruit. It looks like it's producing the fruit, but it comes from the vine through the branches. You know what that means to you? There are things that you can risk doing for your Lord that you thought you could not do, that were too much for you.

You can dare to open your mouth about Jesus. You can dare to step up to that leadership role He's calling you to. You could dare to start that Christian group or Bible study, or prayer fellowship. You could dare to say "yes" to an assignment for the Lord that you've been saying "no" to. Why? Because the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:24, "The One who calls you will do it." And then Philippians 2:13 - "It is God who works in you, both to will and to do His good pleasure." God will give you the words. God will give you the insight. God will give you the plan. He'll give you the message. He'll give you the strength.

See, any true work for Christ is Christ doing the work through you, not you doing the work for Him. Through - that's the preposition that opens up your life to all kinds of powerful new possibilities. It only comes through you. Just be available.

There are a lot of meals I would have never eaten in a restaurant if it had been up to the waiter or the waitress to grow the food and prepare the food. But there was something they could do. They could deliver it. That's what Paul says we are; we're just "servants." The ones who deliver what God has prepared. That's what God's asking you to do - to deliver to hungry lives what He has prepared for them. Look, you could serve it couldn't you?