25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS MOMENTS FROM RON HUTCHCRAFT - DAY 5

Day 5:  The Christmas List Not to Miss

I've got a list for Christmas - with all the people I love on it. Santa's got a couple of lists - "naughty" and "nice." Surely I'm on the "nice" list.

God's got two lists this Christmas. They're like the lists posted in the White Star Line offices after the sinking of the Titanic - one said "known to be saved;" the other, "known to be lost." Well, listen to what the Bible says: "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that has the Son has life. He that does not have the Son of God does not have life" (1 John 5:11-12 ).

Those who've trusted in Jesus and His death for their sins have their sins forgiven. They're going to heaven. Those who don't have a relationship with Him still face the awful death penalty for their sins. But, thank God, we can change from the "lost" list to the "saved" list! I did. The moment I reached out to Jesus to make Him my Savior from my sins.

This Christmas, Jesus stands ready to change your eternal address. If you want to belong to Him, call us at 888-Need-Him or chat with us live at needhim.org. Let this be your Jesus-day.

25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS MOMENTS FROM RON HUTCHCRAFT - DAY 4

Day 4: The Littlest Shepherd

No sooner did our three-year-old granddaughter arrive for Christmas, and she was roaming through the house with an empty wrapping paper tube in her hand. She told me, "I'm a shepherd. I'm looking for my lost sheep." I thought, "She's on the same mission that brought the Son of God to earth that first Christmas." Looking for His lost sheep.

Jesus said He came "to seek and save what was lost" (Luke 19:10 ) and that He will "go to look for the one that has wandered off" (Matthew 18:12 ). And this Christmas, it could be that He's come looking for you. Because He knows you're lost. Maybe you know you're lost.

The Bible says we've all wandered away from God like sheep (Isaiah 53:6 ), and our only hope is if God comes looking for us. Well, that's Jesus. His search brought Him all the way to an awful cross. And now right to where you are - to give you this opportunity to grab Him as your Rescuer from your sin.

Now, if you're tired of "lost," we'd love to help you get started with Jesus. Call us at 888-Need-Him or chat with us live at needhim.org. He'll bring you "home" for Christmas.

25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS MOMENTS FROM RON HUTCHCRAFT - DAY 3

Day 3: A Bomb? On Christmas?

Words that go with Christmas - present...cookies...tree. Bomb? Well, you may remember that last Christmas Day a terrorist tried to blow up an airplane in Detroit. That's nice.


Sadly, it's a reminder that even in this season of "peace on earth," we live in a dangerous and unpredictable world. It's been a year of dizzying change. We're all trying to figure out the new normal. We're more confused about what's really secure - and more desperate than ever to find some solid rock to stand on.

Well, since that first Christmas, millions have found that rock in this Bible promise: "Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:39 ). Man, that's "unloseable" love. Recession-proof, terror-proof, divorce-proof, death-proof. Not in Christianity the religion. But in Christ - the relationship!

The Bible says He loves us so much that He gave His life to pay for our sins. Which makes possible a love relationship with God that nothing can take away. And you might be ready for that kind of unloseable love. Well, call us at 888-Need-Him or chat with us live at needhim.org. It's a crazy world. But there's a powerful Savior!

25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS MOMENTS FROM RON HUTCHCRAFT - DAY 2

 Day 2: Retro Christmas

Retro toys for Christmas - our crazy sons try to outdo each other by finding the ultimate toy to give from each other's childhood. The "A-Team"...Star Wars...superhero action figures. Echoes from the past.

Now of course, not all retro stuff is happy stuff. Christmas has a way of reigniting some painful memories from our past. The sins done against us. The sins we've done. The broken things. But Christmas brings hope for the pain and regrets of our past!

God says, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. I am doing a new thing!" (Isaiah 43:18 ). And, that "new thing" began at a stable in Bethlehem...it was made possible by Jesus' payment for our sin on the Cross...and it becomes yours the day you pin all your hopes on Him to be your Savior. He erases every sin of your life from God's book. He moves into your heart, He replaces despair with hope and brokenness with healing. It's the gift He's waiting to give you this Christmas.

We'd love to help you experience Him. Call us at 888-Need-Him or chat with us live at needhim.org. Make today Day One of the new you.

25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS MOMENTS FROM RON HUTCHCRAFT - DAY 1

Day 1: Christmas - and the End of Goodbyes

Hey, it's a great day when our missionary kids get home for Christmas. It's a hard day when they leave. Christmas goodbyes are tough. Now, a few weeks ago we buried my cousin, and this will be his family's first Christmas without him. But they know that Christmas means the end of goodbyes is just around the bend.

The Bible says "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ" (Romans 6:23 ). Jesus came on Christmas to make life "eternal." If the death-wages of our sin can somehow be paid. And that's why Jesus died on that cross. Because only He could die for our sin.

My cousin put all his trust in Jesus to forgive his sin. So has his family. So that graveside was so much more than a steel box, a hole in the ground. We were sending our loved one ahead to a heaven Jesus guaranteed. Because of Jesus, the reunion's comin'!

Now, if you're not sure you're going to heaven when you die, you can get that settled with Jesus this very day. Call us at 888-Need-Him or chat with us live at needhim.org.

RED'S STORY

My friend Lara, director of Walk by Faith Ministries, has posted an awesome testimony of God's love and healing power on her blog, which I would like to share with you.  Just click on this link--Walk by Faith Ministry: special tails.  It is the second "tail" on the page.

I hope it blesses you as much as it blessed me.

GOD OF SECOND CHANCES

"But Jesus looked at them and said to them,
With men this is impossible,  but with God
all things are possible." - (Matthew 19:26)

Over the years, the Lord has used my gardening attempts to teach me many lessons.  Usually it's through my tomato plants, and it's something like how at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up (Witnessing a Miracle, and More Lessons from the Tomato Plant).

This year's lesson was a bit different.  The Lord used a couple of "dead" indoor plants. to teach me volumes about His grace.

These plants had become real eyesores, and yet I didn't have the heart to throw them away.  Instead, I stuck them out on the balcony and told the Lord they were all His to do with as He pleased.  I figured they could stay out there for the summer, and if they were  still "dead" by then, I wouldn't feel so bad about getting rid of them.

The one pot looked like there was nothing left in it except for a bunch of dirt, and the few leaves left on the aloe plant were all brown and dried out looking.

Now I wish I had thought to take pictures to document how truly beyond redemption they appeared, instead of waiting until some signs of life took me by surprise and I excitedly snapped the picture on the left.

What a powerful reminder of  how God doesn't look at things the way we do with our limited vision.  I tend to get so stuck in the moment, I  forget things are not always the way they seem, and that I'm just seeing one piece of the puzzle instead of the whole picture, as only He can do. 

It is never too late or too seemingly impossible for God to change things around.  (The picture on the right is what those "dead" plants look like now.)

A POWERFUL MESSAGE FROM A FRIEND

Just wanted to share this powerful message by my friend Lara Moody, Director of Walk by Faith Ministries. May it bless and encourage you wherever you find yourself today.

GOD NEVER TURNS A DEAF EAR WHEN WE CALL

"Call to Me, and I will answer
you, and show you great and
mighty things, which you do
not know." - (Jeremiah 33:3)

These last several weeks I've been having major issues with my Internet provider. I've been missing several e-mails, and even worse, a great many of mine are not reaching their destinations--even when flagged as High Priority.

At first I was unaware of the problem, and found myself jumping to conclusions as to why people were not responding, and the more conclusions I jumped to, the more upset I became. But oddly enough, even after I found out that it was nothing personal or intentional, but rather that these people really weren't getting my e-mails, that upset feeling lingered on.

When I called my provider to report the problem, they checked my settings and some other things on their side, and then pretty much blew me off, saying it had to be a problem on my end since everything seemed to be working fine on theirs. And then to add insult to injury,  a well intentioned friend sided with the provider and told me I must be doing something wrong because a server doesn't have the intelligence to let some e-mails go through and not others. It would be an all or nothing proposition.

Overwhelmed by feelings of hurt and powerlesness, I decided to have a pity party instead of taking it all to the foot of the Cross.  Long forgotten tapes started playing in my mind.  The times the most important people in my life, who I thought would be there for me, took the other person's side; the never knowing what it was like to be loved unconditionally; the times when I had been made fun of, or been picked last for a team; and on and on. 

After I had wallowed in that for a while, I thought back to the little girl whose mom would punish her by giving her the silent treatment for what seemed like an eternity, and turn a deaf ear no matter how she cried or apologized, or even became hysrterical in her attempts to have her presence acknowledged by the one she counted on for her survival. 

Then as suddenly as the pity party started, it came to an end, and as I snapped back to reality, I found myself thinking, wow!  Where did all that come from?  It wasn't so long ago that I had told a friend how I didn't hold on to things for long.  This flood of buried memories surely proved me wrong.  Oh Lord, help me to release them and let them go.  Forgive me for dwelling on them for even a moment.  I could have turned those tapes off the instant they started playing and focused, instead, on all the awesome ways you have manifested in my life.  Those are the tapes I should have been playing and focusing on.

How could I forget for even a moment that you loved me so much (and dear reader, this applies to you too), that you sent Jesus to die for me on the cross so I could be forgiven of my sins and enjoy eternal life; that my face is engraved on the palm of your hand and you save my tears in a vial; that you rejoice over me with singing; that I am a one of a kind original created by you for a special purpose nobody else can fulfill.  I may be powerless to do things in my own strength, but you can use me in a powerful way if I yield myself to you, and when I stop trying to be in control and lay my burdens down at the foot of the Cross, you come through as only you can do.  There are so many things that are impossible with man, but all things are possible with you.

Grateful doesn't even start to describe how I feel about your faithfulness and unfailing love; your mercies that are new every morning; and that you never give up on me, even when I am ready to give up on myself; Thank you for never being too busy, or turning a deaf ear when I call.

"To the Lord our God belong mercy and

forgiveness, though we have rebelled 

against him." - (Daniel 9:9)                

WHY?

Some hard questions are shrouded in mystery
too deep for human minds to understand;
the hidden answers aren't meant to be unlocked
until the soul is ready to see life whole.
Every good thing has its shadow
and every dark night is the back side
of a new day waiting to dawn.
                                       Marilyn Morgan King

The above quote is from an old devotional that I had never completed.  Amazingly, the place I left off was just what I needed to see at this time of my life.  How cool is that?

You see, I have been asking 'why' an awful lot lately as I try to run my race.  That question has been triggered, not only by my own frustrations and setbacks, but by what I see going on in the lives of several friends, and even the world at large. More often than not I have felt like throwing in the towel and taking the easy way out, but then, on second thought, there is no easy way out.

So I keep on keeping on, trusting in a God I know loves me (and you too) so much that He sent His one and only son, Jesus, to suffer and die the most cruel of deaths so that our sins would be forgiven and we could enjoy eternal life.  And as I plod along, I feel buoyed by the thought of that crowd of witnesses in the Heavenlies who are watching us run our race and cheering us on (Hebrews 12:1-2).

WHERE ELSE CAN I GO?

Life is full of peaks and valleys, or at least that's what my experience of it has been. Just when things are going smoothly and I'm settling into a comfortable routine, something unexpected comes along to shake things up and test my faith. That's where I am right now. Questioning God, and not getting answers.

Aside from some frustrating issues I'm butting my head against, the prayer team at church (of which I am a member) has been getting more and more prayer requests from people going through Job-like experiences. Not just ill health, or the loss of a job or a loved one, but a whole string of such events, one following the other. And then there is my awesome blog friend, Renee, whose life seems to be the brunt of the cruelest imaginable joke of fate, except there is no fate and God does not play cruel jokes.

My powerlessness over all these circumstances, and the seemingly meaninglessness of my prayers makes me so angry I want to scream out to God, are you there? Are you watching? Hearing? Listening to our prayers? What happened to your promises? This is not the way it's supposed to be! Do you even care? Why can't you give these folks even a small reprieve in the midst of their suffering? Just a glimmer of hope?

But, of course, deep in my heart I know that our prayers are never meaningless, and God really does care. It's just that we get so fixated on the piece of the puzzle before us it is hard, at least for me, to trust that God sees the whole picture and is working things out for our ultimate good and for His glory.

I'm thinking of a time about 12 years ago when I was going through another bitter period where many tears were shed as I kept asking over and over again, why Lord did you let this happen to me when I not only prayed, but even begged you to close all the doors if this decision was not of you. In my helpless fury I even started thinking of where else I could go for help, and there was only one answer. Nowhere.

Now that I look back in retrospect to that stage of my life, and even further back to other periods of great anguish and devastation, I can see how death led to newness of life, and closed doors led to better ones opening, even though I would never have believed it had someone told me that would be the case at the time of my hurt. Instead I would have felt outrage at such comments.

So once again, I lay my burdens at the foot of the Cross, and put my trust in Him who gave His life for me (and for you too) so that we could be reconciled with the Father and enjoy eternal life.

A CALL TO ANGUISH

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those
who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it
is the power of God. . . . For since, in the wisdom
of God, the world through wisdom did not know
God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the
message preached to save those who believe."
(1 Corinthians 1:18,21)




Lord have mercy on my sisters and brothers who come to this blog and do not yet know you. I pray that you would open their eyes and their hearts and their minds to the truth of your word and the incomprehensible love of Jesus that is so great that He would have come and died for any one of them, even if they were the only ones here on this earth. Enable them to grasp the truth that the salvation you bought for us through the shed blood of Jesus is a free gift to be received by faith. It is not something we can earn by our good deeds, lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Friend, if you are reading this and think that what you have done is too bad to be forgiven, or that it is too late for you, that is a lie from the pit of hell. Satan knows his time is short and so the battle he is waging for our souls has become more desperate and intense. He is doing everything in his power to keep those who do not believe blinded, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them (2 Corinthians 4:4).

The Gospel truth is that God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned (John 3:17-18a). The Lord is near to all those who have a broken heart (Psalm 34:18), and, If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9). The slate will be wiped clean, and it will be as if you had been born again into newness of life. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Jesus is patiently standing at the door of your heart, knocking and knocking, but He won't come in unless you invite Him to do so (Revelation 3:20). I pray that you would open the door before it is too late.