At first, Rob's friends thought he was avoiding them. They'd ask him to go somewhere and he'd say, "Sorry, I can't." Eventually he told them why he couldn't go. He had something much more important to do. He would just say, "I've got to go to my meeting." Not too many teenagers would choose going to a meeting over going with their friends, but Rob made a good choice. See, Rob is a teenage drug addict, and he's being rehabilitated through a 12-step program modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous. One important key to fighting his problem is attending that support group meeting several times a week.

A few months ago he went back to cocaine. He had stopped going to the meetings. Actually, all of us addicts, like you and me, will only make it if we make the meetings.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Meeting Jesus, Daily Light."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Mark 1. I'm going to begin reading at verse 35, as we get a look inside some of the intimate side of the life of Jesus Christ. It says, "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed." Simon and his companions went to look for Him. And when they found Him, they said, 'Everyone is looking for You.' Jesus replied, 'Let us go somewhere else - to the nearby villages - so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.' So He traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons."

Now, in this passage, Jesus is doing what He does repeatedly in the gospels. He is modeling the highest priority of a busy schedule. And here is His highest priority - a regular one-on-one meeting with the Heavenly Father. If Jesus did it, we cannot possibly say we've got an excuse for not doing it. Scripture is filled with examples of this. Moses getting up to meet God in His tent of meeting. David saying, "Early will I seek You. Satisfy us in the morning with your love."

You see, we need our meeting because of our addiction. We're all earth addicts; we're hooked on this world's ideas. We're hooked on this world's entertainment. We're hooked on this world's ways of treating people. We're all sin addicts as well.

After following Christ for a while, Paul says, "The things that I want to do, I do not do. The things I don't want to do, I keep on doing" (Romans 7:15). We're addicted to sin. We're addicted to earth. Now, the 12-step dependency programs recognize that you can't change without regularly going to the support group meetings.

Now, our support group is a support person. We cannot stay away from sin unless we have our meeting - yeah, our meeting with God - regularly. The day you skip your meeting is the day you start to slip. We're not talking about some legalistic ritual where you have check the box Christianity: read my Bible and prayed. No, not doing your duty. It's a love thing. I must be with my Lord because I love Him; I want to be faithful to Him, not unfaithful. I need to plug into His power this day, picking up fresh manna for this day, getting His daily dose of strength for this day, getting His guidance for this day. I need that to fight my addiction to sin this day and my addiction to earth stuff. Yeah, today.

See, I've been hooked on things that hurt me, things that hurt others, things that hurt God. We were all addicts, and we just can't afford to miss those meetings. So, did you show up for yours today?

Disney World. The Magic Kingdom. How can a four-year-old girl be a little cranky in that dream destination for kids her age? Our granddaughter had been having a great day there with her mom and her cousins while her daddy was busy in meetings. She'd done all the princess stuff she loved, she'd gotten the autographs of Disney characters that she loved, she'd gone on rides she'd been looking forward to. But for some reason, by early afternoon she was just a little out of sorts. By that time, her dad was available, and he showed up to take her on some rides. And suddenly, it was like the clouds had blown away and the sun came out. She was the bouncy, happy little girl we all know again. In retrospect, I guess it was easy to diagnose why the clouds had rolled in. She was missing her Daddy!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Substitute For a Daddy."

It's true of every one of us, even if our childhood is way behind us. There's a spot in our heart and in our life that was meant to be filled by a father. If you've been trusted by God with the awesome assignment of being a father, don't ever forget there's nothing that can take your place in the life of your son or daughter. No matter how young or how old they are.

In Ephesians 6:4, our word for today from the Word of God, He speaks directly to dads: "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." We fail our children, and we fail the God who gave them to us when we continually "exasperate" them.

We exasperate them by our absence. We're so busy they just get our leftovers while everyone else gets our best. And that's wrong priorities. We exasperate our children by our unavailability. We're around them, but we're not with them. We're all tied up with sports on TV or some website, checking something out, we're doing our "chores" or we're involved in our hobby or our work. We're there, but they can't have us - because from the way it looks to them, there's something always more important than they are.

We exasperate our children by our criticism, too. How many of us have been wounded by the feeling that we could never be good enough for our dad? If you're always harping on what they need to improve, on what's wrong with them, that child is going to have a hard time believing they have a lot of value. The praise and encouragement of a dad is one of the most powerful life-shaping forces on earth.

Our kids are also exasperated by a father's silence - he doesn't express his feelings, he doesn't show or speak his love for them. So they're never sure where they stand. And a dad can exasperate a child with just passivity - a failure to lead, to set and enforce consistent boundaries, to provide spiritual leadership for them.

Maybe you're thinking about the hole you have in your life because of what your father never was for you. I call it the daddy deficit. I've got a wonderful promise from God for you in Psalm 68:4-5. "His name is the Lord...a father to the fatherless." And Psalm 10:14 declares that "You, O God...are the helper of the fatherless." God is already your Creator. He wants to be your Father - to love you, to care for you, not like the earthly father you had, but like the father you always wished you had.

But first you've got to have the sins forgiven that stand between you and Him. God the Father sent His only Son, Jesus, to die to pay for those sins so you can belong to the ultimate Father you were made for. The day you put your total trust in Jesus to forgive your sins, you get a personal Savior and you get the Father that your heart is missing.

You ready for that? Tell Him you want to belong to Him. Tell Him today. Go to our website and find there the verses that will show you how to be sure you belong to Him. That site is ANewStory.com.

You know, as a Dad, there's a lot of regrets. He'll forgive every mistake, every sin we've ever committed. All the hurts we've inflicted, He died to pay for them. This could be your new beginning today.

He's waiting to welcome you into His big ol' Father's arms this very day.

Our daughter-in-law grew up in the desert. So, the first time she saw the ocean, and the seashells that are all over the beach at low tide, she said, "Can you keep them?" She did! I mean, the good news is, "Yes, you can." And we've loved collecting seashells when we've had opportunity to spend time along the coast. Some of those shells make it to the shore totally intact. Others, well you know, are broken, sometimes by the surf, sometimes by seagulls who've peck them open to get at their yummy tenants. Occasionally, I've found a particularly striking treasure, though, like the conch shell that I picked up a few years ago. It was badly broken. But inside there was some amazing beauty - beautiful swirls in white and blue and pearl, and it made an incredible design to behold. Outside, that shell was just like rough and plain - just another shell - but not on the inside. I never would have seen its unforgettable beauty if it hadn't been broken.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Beauty From Brokenness."

God displays some of His most beautiful creations through broken things. Maybe broken is a word that in some way describes you right now. Then it's possible He could show folks some of His beauty through you.

As hard as that might be for you to believe right now, you need to hear what your Creator has promised to broken people in our word for today from the Word of God. It's in Isaiah 61, beginning with verse 1. Speaking of Jesus, the Bible says, "The Sovereign Lord has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners...to comfort all those who mourn...to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." God says that, through His Son, He wants to unleash in your soul healing for the pain of your past, and a freedom from the darkness that has brought you down. He wants to turn what's been something ugly into something beautiful and something life-giving.

He goes on to say of the broken people He touches that "they will be called oaks of righteousness...for the display of His splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated...All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed." So, God says He wants to do a powerful restoring, hope-giving work in broken people, so He can use them to do a powerful, hope-giving work for Him in a broken world.

I know He does that. I've seen it in a team of young Native Americans who have lived the despair of the highest rates of alcohol and drug abuse, and sexual abuse, and suicide on this continent. They are broken! But with Christ now in their lives, they go on our On Eagles' Wings team to the heart of North America's reservations telling their hope stories. And a generation that hasn't listened to anyone, that's written off Jesus as the white man's God, listens to them. And they have led literally thousands of Native Americans to Christ, because the light shines more brightly through broken vessels...a broken vessel like you and me.

They will listen to you because of your scars. They can see through your wounds the amazing beauty of a joy and a hope that only a Savior like Jesus can give. If you'll turn away from your despair, and maybe your bitterness, anger, self-pity, and give your brokenness to Him, He can do that miracle for you.

The songwriter was right when he said this, "All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife. But He made something beautiful of my life."

The Lakota Sioux call them the Paha Sapa. We call them the Black Hills. The people who live in Keystone, South Dakota, call them their backyard. If you have ever visited Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills, you probably drove by or through Keystone. But the Keystone you drive through now isn't where Keystone used to be - not since the flood of 1972. It was devastating. Back then, Keystone was in the valley by a lazy little creek which suddenly became a raging flood one day in 1972, roaring through that valley, destroying the town, and claiming many lives in the area. Well, it was then that the folks of Keystone decided to make a change. When they rebuilt their business district and many of their homes, it wasn't on the ground they had always been on. No, the flood changed all that. They moved up the mountain to higher ground.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Living Where It's Safe."

Life's floods come in many forms; those major crises or disasters that carry away a lot of what we had been depending on. An illness, or maybe a death can do that, a divorce can do it, a disaster, a broken relationship, the loss of your job. There are a lot of upheavals that come rushing in and they change the landscape of our life forever. And they make you think, maybe for the first time, about where is the best place to build the rest of my life.

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 46: "God is our refuge and strength; an ever present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea" - here come the floods - "though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging" (verses 1-3). We're talking here about life's major upheavals - everything you used to count on getting washed away.

But remember, "God is our refuge and strength," so we don't have to fear those things. Why? Because when you've lost everything, you haven't lost everything! Not if you have a deep, personal love relationship with the God who never leaves, never lets go of those who belong to Him.

The Psalm goes on to say, "The Lord Almighty is with us, come and see the works of the Lord" (verses 7-8). And then a simple statement that may explain the reason the flood was allowed to happen, so you would finally, "Be still and know that I am God" (verse 10). Maybe, for all practical purposes, you've been "God" in your life. You've been controlling things; you've been living life your way. And you've been building your life around someone or something here on earth - something or someone that the flood may be washing away, or maybe it already has.

God's message to you through all of your stress and your pain is, "It's time to move to higher ground." Having seen how fragile, how losable all your earth stuff is, are you ready to build on something you can never lose, no matter what hits you? You were created to build your life on the One who gave you your life - God Himself. But the Bible says we've built it on ourselves. And it took the brutal death of God's Son, Jesus on the cross, to pay the death penalty for all of our "I'll be God" choices.

The folks in Keystone, South Dakota, would never have considered moving to higher ground until that flood hit. And maybe you would have never considered turning your life over to Jesus Christ, but now the floods have hit. And you now know that nothing earth can offer you will give you what your heart is so hungry for. Isn't it time to move up the hill? It's the hill where Jesus died for you so you could finally have something that's called "ever-lasting"?

If that's what you want, would you tell Jesus you're done running your life and you want to put your trust in the One who died for your sin? Check out our website today, it will help you know how to be sure you belong to Jesus. It's ANewStory.com.

The flood has done its damage, and maybe it's sent its message. The ground you've been on is not where you were meant to live. It's time to move to the higher ground that you were made for. And, Jesus is the higher ground. And you, my friend, will be safe. Safe forever.

My wife, my son and I were walking across a parking lot talking. All of a sudden the people who were walking in front of us whirled around and the lady said, "I know that voice!" Well, I'm always afraid when somebody says that to me; I wonder if it's like somebody I like, you know, I owe money to. But this does happen every once in a while, and sometimes it's someone I do owe money to, but more often than not it's someone who somehow has come into contact with this particular voice over the radio, and usually on a lot of occasions.

In fact, in the past, my son has said to me, "Dad, would you please talk in a different voice today? We just don't want anybody to know who it is." So I considered talking like this sometimes. Hello, how is this? But they weren't interested in that. No, it's not that bad.

It's really nice to meet some people who are friends by way of radio. People say to me, "Oh, I know that voice." Well, of course, they happen to tune in to the radio the same time every day, they happen to hear this voice a lot. In fact, one person came up to me and right in the middle of a Christian book store and they said, "Hey, you sound just like yourself." Uh...right, I always have! Actually I'm not the only one.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Knowing His Voice."

Our word for today from the Word of God - John 10:4-5. Jesus is speaking of himself as the Good Shepherd, and He says "His sheep follow him because they know his voice, but they will never follow a stranger. In fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." Then He goes on to say to us later in the chapter, "I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They, too, will listen to My voice." He keeps saying that over and over again, "Listen to my voice."

And then in John 10:27 Jesus says, "My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me." Jesus says here that the strategic issue in the life of one of His sheep (and that's you and me if you've given your life to Christ) is that they be able to recognize their shepherd's voice. And they can. The sheep do, because they hear the shepherd's voice all the time; they're used to listening to it.

Someone who is involved in the ministry asked me the other day, "Ron, how can you really know God's will when you're making a major decision?" You have to be able to recognize Jesus' voice saying, "Follow Me this way" in the middle of all the other voices. You can't recognize Jesus' voice in the major decisions if you haven't been listening to His voice every day. See, God's will for your life isn't three or four major decisions, it's a thousand daily obediences. "Lord, what's Your will for today?" You open His Book; you seek personal daily orders for today. You apply that verse to something you're facing today, and then you obey the Lord consciously in that particular area. You do what His voice said to do.

So you have a God's will day and then seven of those make a God's will week. After 30 times it becomes a God's will month, and then eventually those months become a "God's will" year. And through each daily obedience He is making you into the right person, who will be at the right place, at the right time, with the right people. So, you walk naturally into His will for your future one day at a time. But you cannot skip His daily broadcasts; His daily "I want to have a word with you today." You follow your Lord on a 24-hour basis. He will lead you where you ought to be, because He's just a good leader. You have to be able, though, to recognize His voice, and God sounds just like Himself.

Listen to Him regularly. And when you're looking for His special leading for a special decision, you'll sense His pull, and you know what you're going to say? "I know that voice."

There were only two words in the headline in USA Today, but most of us understand the urgency of those two words: "Blood needed!" They were talking about an alarming shortage of blood available in blood banks due to a severe winter, a holiday season, and a bad flu season. One spokesman for the Association of Blood Banks said, "If you've had a bad car accident or a couple of gunshot wounds, you're in a world of trouble." I guess so. There is no fact more basic to human life - without the blood you need, you die.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Blood, No Life."

We understand the need for blood physically. But if God didn't explain it to us, we'd never understand our need for blood to live spiritually and to live eternally after we die. Our word for today from the Word of God tells us about it and it's a good thing. It's in Hebrews 9:22. It says, "Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness." That's pretty straight up isn't it?

The reason forgiveness is so critical is because that's the only way to have the sins of your life removed from God's book. There's no chance of heaven for you or me if we try to go there with our sin, and there's no way to get rid of our sin without God's forgiveness. And here God tells us there's no way to get that forgiveness without blood - blood that is shed for the death penalty that sin carries.

For God's ancient people, the Jews, that meant a system of regular animal sacrifices where the shedding of a substitute's blood - the blood of that animal - could provide a way to be forgiven. But it was only temporary and it was very incomplete because, as God says later in Hebrews, "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4). But then God sent to earth the only One who was perfect enough to be the substitute for all of us, shedding His blood for us. "We have been made holy" the Bible says. That means acceptable to God, "through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all" (Hebrews 10:10).

Now, there are some people who don't like all this talk about blood. But this isn't about gore. It's about love. We just don't understand the seriousness of our condition with God. We're lifelong rebels against His rule over us. We're under an eternal death penalty that can only be paid by someone dying! If you want to see the horror of all of our lies and our selfishness and our lust and our pride and our sexual sins and all the hurting we've done, just walk up to the Cross of Jesus and look at the mangled form of the Son of God. Listen as He cries out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" That's what our sin looks like. That's what it took to pay for my sin. It took the blood of the Son of God.

If you're depending on anything else, no matter how spiritual or how religious to get you to God, you're not going to make it. God provided this way for you to be forgiven, for you to live forever. The question is, have you ever been to Jesus' cross in your heart and put all your trust in the One who died there in your place? There's no reason you have to pay for your sin. Not when Jesus, in His love, already paid it for you as your substitute. The Bible says, "He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world"... and yours.

Have you ever put your total trust in Jesus to be your Savior, your Rescuer, your Forgiver? If not, why not begin your relationship with Him today? Just say, "Jesus, I've been running my own life. I resign. Today, I'm abandoning all trust in everything else and putting all my trust in You.

I'd love to help you make that commitment to Christ and understand it better. That's why our website's there. Please check it out today. It's ANewStory.com.

For you to have a relationship with your creator, for you to ever go to heaven, there's blood needed - the blood of Jesus Christ covering the sin of your life. Without the blood, we die. But life is within your reach right now, right where you are. Jesus is there.

One of the temporary after effects of my wife's bout with hepatitis years ago was some memory loss. Now, I forget a lot of things and I don't have an excuse. Well, for a while, my wife had a great excuse for forgetting some things, because that memory loss had some real effects. Like the day she left the pot of water on the stove to boil. She promptly moved away from the kitchen and forgot all about it. She told me she even forgot about it after she smelled something burning. So, she went all through the house; checked the dryer, checked the furnace. "What in the world is that burning smell?" Well, when she finally decided to check the kitchen, you can probably guess what the scene was. Oh yeah, there was no more water left in that pot; it had boiled dry. The burner was red hot; the pan had become part of the burner. It was bonded to the burner. It literally had to be broken off. Yeah, she needed some heat to do her job, but not that much heat!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Not More Than You Can Bear."

By the way, lest you be too concerned, that was a temporary memory loss, and she got it all back. Let's look at our word for today from the Word of God. Because it's a promise for people who are in the oven, you might say, who are suffering in some intense heat right now. 1 Corinthians 10:13. Listen to these familiar words: "No temptation (or testing it could be translated) has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted (or tested) beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted (or tested), He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

Don't you love the promise of those words, "Not beyond what you can bear"? Those are words with your name on them maybe today because of what you're having to bear today. God promises He will not take you beyond what you can handle.

I've always found potters to be intriguing. When we go to colonial villages I always enjoy watching them. I saw an interview with a potter, and she talked about how they take this formless lump of clay. And with their skilled hands on that wheel, they're able to make it into something beautiful and useful, and then the oven. They cook that piece of pottery that they've molded. They cook it at temperatures of up to 2,200 degrees to make sure that the shaping will last. It actually takes extreme heat to make the beauty and the usefulness permanent.

The interviewer said, "Well, is it possible to get the oven too hot for the pottery?" She said, "Oh, yeah. For example, if you get it up to say 3,000 degrees it will just melt down." But then she said, "The potter always knows the melting point." So does yours. God's bottom line in Romans 8:29 - "He has predestined that you would be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus." He wants you to be like Jesus, so He uses the heat in your life to burn off the junk that might otherwise never come off. And God has been building in you lately a new love, a new patience, new purity, a new hunger for His word, new faith to trust Him, new character. But if it's never tested, it won't last. You have to take that new you into some intense heat for it to become tough and permanent. If the new you can get through this heat, you'll have a powerful new confidence in God's work in you.

Right now, maybe all you know is it's just really hot. Well, you have a guarantee from the Master Potter, "not beyond what you can bear." Oh, He might take you to the edge, but He'll never allow you to go over. God will let the heat make you stronger, but He'll never leave His masterpiece in the oven too long.

For any of us who were alive at the time, we'll never forget those images of the World Trade Center attacks and those heroic rescue efforts that followed them. One moment still sticks with me. It hit me. It was this interview with a big guy who was helping the rescuers. He was sitting on a curb at Ground Zero, talking with a reporter from a cable news network. He told how he had been delivering food to the rescuers, and then he was making his way back through the rubble when he decided to reach into that rubble just on the chance someone might be there. Unbelievably he suddenly felt this warm hand grabbing his arm. Immediately, he went and got helpers who pulled a firefighter out of there alive! And then that's when he lost it in that interview, and he choked out these words, "He touched me first."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Rescue - No Greater Honor."

That man at Ground Zero had been part of one of the most moving experiences a human being can have - being involved in the rescue of someone who otherwise would have died. It's an experience that God intends for every one of His children to have, except the rescue isn't the physical kind that might give a person 30 or 40 more years on earth. No, it's a spiritual rescue that will give a person heaven!

Wherever you live, wherever you work or go to school, wherever you shop or wherever you recreate, you've been assigned as God's rescuer in your circle of influence. Listen to the incredible position God has entrusted to you. It's described in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 5:19-20. "God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation." Translation: it's up to you whether or not the people in your personal world find out that what Jesus did on the cross was for them. Verse 20: "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us."

So you are Jesus' personal representative to the people you know. Yes, to show them Jesus by your life, what Jesus is and how real He can be in a life. But that's not enough. They can only get God's message about Jesus if you tell them about Him. And it's life-or-death information that you've got locked up inside you. You're going in for the spiritual rescue of someone whose only hope may be what you know about Jesus!

Now, how do you begin your rescue work? By praying by name, faithfully, for people who don't know Christ. Pray for God to open up natural opportunities for you to explain your relationship with Jesus. Look for an opportunity to pray with them about something that's bothering them. Invest some time in being with them, doing things with them, building bridges into their life. Don't just spend all your time with people who are already going to heaven!

D. L. Moody, the great evangelist once said, "There is no greater honor than to be the instrument in God's hands to lead one person out of the kingdom of darkness and into the glorious light of heaven." And may I add, there is no greater thrill. Just ask a man who has been the first to touch someone who otherwise would have died.

When it's rescue - when it's life-or-death, you drop everything, you risk everything, you do whatever it takes to bring that person out. For some person you know, you are that rescuer. You are their chance!