Certain birthdays are like, you know, special milestones. Every birthday is a milestone, but take 40 for example. For some reason, we sort of enshrine that particular one as a special marking place in your life. And I remember when my wife had her 40th birthday. I'm not going to tell you when that was, but she handled it very well. I mean, she was so cool about it; it was no big deal. I hope when I get to my 40th I'll be able to handle it as well. Well, it wasn't like she had just crossed some great river in her life. Then my 12-year-old son came along a few months later. He said this, "Hey Mom, do you know you've been on earth for 14,662 days?" You put it that way, it takes on a whole different feel. Forty years doesn't sound too bad, but 14,000 plus days? Hello, prehistoric! After he said that I got to thinking about the days that we had with our three children, and you begin to realize how many are gone, and how many are left, and how quickly they slipped away. And you think about kids. They don't think about next year, next month, or next week. It's all about the day isn't it? You know, we need to take a better look at the days we still have; the days that you have.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Capturing Days."

Our word for today from the Word of God is found in Ephesians 5. I'm going to begin reading in verse 15. "Be very careful how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is." This verse that's in the middle, verse 16, talks about making the most of every opportunity. It's sort of in a sandwich between two verses that have some very intriguing phrases, "Don't live unwisely." Live smart in other words. Don't be foolish.

And then it talks about your destiny here on earth - God's will. And it all seems to be wrapped around this phrase, "Making the most of every opportunity." You want to live smart? You want to get God's will? Seize every opportunity. Now, it's no coincidence that the verses that follow this are about family relationships. In fact, in chapter 6, verse 4, only a few verses later, it says this to fathers: "Bring up your children in the training and instruction of the Lord." I think the way you do that is to capture each 24-hour period as another moment to mold the lives of your children and your grandchildren. There's so little time to strengthen them for a world that is so lost.

We need to ask ourselves, "Lord, have we touched You together today as a family...me and my kids? Have we talked about where we saw the Lord today in our lives...our God sightings? Have we celebrated how something in the Bible helped us today, or have we prayed about something real and personal together today. Have we explored the Bible together today? Have we gone out to some people in need and done the work of Jesus together? Have we touched each other today? Have we expressed our love for each other today? Have we gotten in touch with what made each other happy today? Have we talked about things that were hurting the other members of our family?

See, the greatest classroom our kids will ever experience is the classroom of everyday life - that natural teaching that comes up in the flow of the day. See, by the time you finally have time to do this with the kids, they probably won't.

I know one of the greatest burdens of my life is the days we lost. One of the greatest challenges of my life: how do you make the most of the days ahead? It means reordering some priorities; it means leaving time in what tends to be a wall-to-wall schedule, and asking God each morning for the opportunities, the determination, the timing to mark your children for Christ that day.

Hey, the days are flying by. Grab each one; capture it for Christ. You can't have any of the days back that are already gone, but you can make the rest of your days the best of your days.

Think about what you looked like in seventh grade. You say, "Oh, no! Please, I'd rather not." Are you thinking, "Man, what a hunk I was! What a Miss America!" Probably not.

Our daughter had a funny experience in her senior French class in high school. There was some down time and some girls were comparing their wallet pictures, including our daughter. She had her senior picture and she also had her seventh grade picture. The teacher asked what everybody was laughing at. Now, my daughter has always had a beautiful smile, but I've got to tell you in seventh grade it was decorated with braces. She had glasses. Her hair was kind of kinky and curly, and she looked like a seventh grader.

Well, her French teacher looked at that picture next to the very beautiful senior in her graduation picture; no glasses, long hair, carefully curled hair, big, blue eyes not concealed by glasses. And that teacher had a simple two-word reaction. I think it was the French words, "La Miracle!" Well, my daughter was laughing with her friends and her teacher at that seventh grade picture because, it wasn't her anymore.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Miraculously Changed."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Corinthians 6:9. It starts out with very bad news and ends with some really good news. We read about people with a past here, with a reputation - a record. "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." That's a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, a lot of pain there.

But listen to 1 Corinthians 6:11. Stand by for the very good news. "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified." That means made special again. "You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." People who are cleaned up, made special again, made right with God; only one possible way, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's like my daughter with her seventh grade picture. She couldn't laugh at it when she was that person, but she sure could as a senior because that photo represented who she was then, not now. That's the "la miracle" of being a new creation in Jesus Christ.

Here's what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 - "When you're in Christ you're a new creation. The old is gone; a new life has begun." He not only changes your eternal future from hell to heaven and makes your present meaningful and satisfying, but He miraculously makes your past sins irrelevant. It may be that you're sometimes pursued by a past you wish you could do over or erase, but the question is, "Did you honestly bring it to Jesus' cross and repent of it?"

Well, if that's so, Acts 3:19 says, "Repent and turn to God and your sins will be wiped away and times of refreshing will come from the Lord." It's gone! God is treating you as if you're a whole new person.

Listen to this: "He carried our sins in His own body on the tree that we might die to sin and live for righteousness" (1 Peter 2:24). He's dealt with your past. It's all paid for on His cross. It's all part of the sorrows He carried and the sin He was crushed for.

This very day you can have every one of those sins erased from God's Book if you would come to Jesus and say, "Jesus, you died for my sin, I'm putting my trust in You." That miracle could take place for you this very day. I would love to show you how. Just go to our website - it's ANewStory.com.

You can tear up the old photo. That was you. It won't be you any more because of Jesus.

There are few words that strike fear into the heart of a student like the word "test." Now, I'm informed that some are to be feared more than others. For example, an essay test is a 10 on the anxiety scale. You have to know your stuff. True and false, well, that's not as bad. And multiple choice, oh man, that seems to be especially popular among students. See, there's the right answer right in front of you; just pick the right one. Now, occasionally multiple choice tests are complicated by those confusing words: All of the above, or none of the above, which makes it a little tougher. Actually, academic tests are pretty good preparation for the real test that you take for the rest of your life.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Marriage Is a Multiple Choice Test."

Now, when you go into training on how to counsel people, one of the first things they'll tell you is to ask this question when you're counseling someone, "What are all your options?" And I've often done that when I've tried to help someone...to list all of the choices that they have in a given situation. So, get your multiple choices right in front of you. It's especially good advice when it's your marriage that's being tested. And, by the way, every marriage is tested some time or another.

Maybe it happens in all those expectations you had, or suddenly confronted with the reality and what you expected him or her to be, or what you expected marriage to be. Well, reality is almost always different. And maybe that's hitting you.

There's conflict that doesn't seem to be resolved. Maybe there are secrets about your spouse that you never realized before like you do now. Maybe you've been very wounded by this one who's closest to you. Or communication is like totally broken down. Maybe your mate is very busy and you're very lonely. Maybe you've even been violated by the ugliness of unfaithfulness. But when your marriage is hurting, what are your choices?

Well our word for today from the Word of God is in Malachi 2, beginning in verse 13. "Another thing you do..." God says, "...you flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because He no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, 'Why?' It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you've broken faith with her. Though she is your partner - the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the Lord made them one? Do not break faith with the wife of your youth. "I hate divorce," says the Lord God." Now, in a world where divorce is considered one of your multiple choices, God says, "I hate divorce." He doesn't say, "I hate divorced people." He says, "I hate divorce."

One of the most important choices my wife and I ever made was this: Divorce is not and never will be one of our options. You know what effect that has in a marriage? All your energy goes into fighting for your marriage. It's like a house you know you're going to stay in for the rest of your life. You put all your energy into making that one work and fixing it up. None of your energy should be converted into considering a divorce possibility. As soon as you acknowledge that possibility, you make it much more likely.

Now, there are a lot of multiple choices: To pray in faith that God will change things, to seek counsel, to talk to other couples, to schedule time to talk it through, to fight it through, to admit you've been wrong, to choose to forgive. But it strengthens that marriage to eliminate ending that marriage as an option.

Now, while the Christian world opens the door wider and wider for believers to choose divorce, God hasn't changed. He still hates divorce. Again, not divorced people. When marriage becomes a multiple choice test, use every choice there is to fight for your marriage. And don't divert energy into how to end it. Jesus' first miracle was at a wedding, and He's still doing marriage miracles.