Friday, January 18, 2019
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You know, the opening of a new store in town usually creates a buzz. Like maybe one of those major discount stores, or that do-it-yourself place like Home Depot or something. Well, that stirred things up when it opened in our community some years ago. I’m not doing a commercial; it’s just an observation. Some observers say that Home Depot's comprehensive inventory and competitive prices have actually helped interest a whole new wave of people in doing their own home improvements. (If I only had the ability to use those things they sell!) But any, it's sort of meant to be a one-stop shopping place for everything you need to build your home.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Everything You Need to Build Your Home."
If only building or improving a home was just a matter of plywood, sheetrock, and tile. That will take care of a place called home, but not necessarily the people who are really what home is. Building a marriage, building your children—that's a lot more challenging. And you can't just go to a store to pick up the materials you need to be the right kind of mom or dad, to be what your wife needs, to be what your husband needs.
And there's nothing like trying to make a family work to make you face things that need work inside of you; inside your personality, your heart, your priorities, your attitude, your soul. Living in the intensity of a family really exposes the baggage you're carrying from your past, your weaknesses, your selfishness, and your dark side. There's this person we want to be that our family really needs us to be. Then there's this person we really are, and we just don't know how to get from who we are to who we need to be. The ugly stuff in us is now marking another generation and it’s hurting the very people we love the most. If we could change, we would have changed by now.
But there’s a place you can go to find everything you need to build your home; to someone whose spiritual resources have transformed millions of people for thousands of years. Our word for today from the Word of God spells out concisely but clearly the secret of a home that works. In Psalm 127:1, the inventor of the family says: "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain."
The simple truth is: you need the Lord to make you what your family needs you to be. Because the darkness inside us is a cancer we can't cure; the "disease of me" that no one on earth can cure. God calls it "sin," and the Bible makes it clear this cancer is incurable. It's actually terminal. The Bible says, "Sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death" (James 1:15). That death includes the death of many marriages and many parent relationships over the years.
We're like a drowning person or a person trapped in the rubble of an earthquake. Our only hope is a rescue. And because God loves you so much, He launched a rescue mission for you and me on a skull-shaped hill near Jerusalem called Golgotha. The Bible says, "He loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood" (Revelation 1:6).
Your new beginning starts when you, in your heart, find your way to the cross of Jesus to claim His forgiveness for every wrong thing and every hurting thing you have ever done. He died for you to forgive you, and then He rose from the dead to prove He has the power to conquer anything including that darkness inside you. In the Bible's words, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
You begin this transforming relationship with Jesus the moment you claim what He did on the cross for yourself personally; when you tell Him with all your heart, "I'm totally yours, Jesus. From this moment on, I won’t be driving anymore. You’re in the driver’s seat." That new beginning could be today for you.
In fact, our website is called ANewStory.com, and many people have begun a new story in their life by going there simply to find the words from God that will help you know you belong to Jesus and have Him now in your life and your home.
The greatest gift you can give the people you love is for you to give yourself to Jesus. He alone can give you everything you need to build your home.