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.

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.