Our garage had gotten to the point where it was scary. Yeah, it was so scary my son used to have nightmares about it. He'd wake up and realize the nightmare was real! It was so messy there really wasn't much walking space. You could crawl around, but that was even tight. See, it had been a busy year, and we really hadn't any time to clean it up. It wasn't that it was all our mess - we had been storing things for other people too.

But we knew it was a mess and we felt bad about it. Every time we went out there we got discouraged and endangered. (There was no telling what was under all those piles!) Now, the mess was still there even though we knew about it. Oh, and we talked about it. But then we did something other than just walk by it and talk about it. We actually attempted to clean the garage, and it quickly got to the point where you could actually walk around in it. It looked twice the size! We approached it differently this time. We attacked it, and clean felt great!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Attacking Your Mess."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 7, beginning at verse 9. "Yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us." Now, they didn't stop just feeling sorry. No, they went on. As the passage goes on it says, "Godly sorrow brings repentance..." Now, that's a key, remember that. "...that leads to salvation and leaves no regret..." Maybe I could put in there leaves no mess. "...but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done."

See, these people got busy with the mess! Now, what God is saying here is sorry doesn't do it. It didn't do it in our garage. Just to be sorry about the garage didn't change anything! Oh, we'd been sorry for a long time, but the mess was still there. Look, maybe there's a spiritual mess in some corner of your life right now. And this would be a great time to be thinking about cleaning up the mess.

Can you think of a sin that you've confessed over and over again only to re-sin again and again in that area? Maybe it's your temper, or something to do with your personal purity, could be sinful talk, pride, or lust, but you just can't win it. Well, it may be that you still have the mess because you've confessed but you haven't repented. It's not enough to acknowledge the sin, feel sorry about the sin and ask for help. You've got to tackle that mess!

If you feel like we did when we started cleaning that garage, you might say, "Oh, this is hopeless! Where do I start on this mess?" Well, you start organizing. You start cleaning out your life. You start setting it up as if you're not going to sin like that again. You repent specifically by name for that sin. You ask God to break your heart and make you sad over it. You find someone who will hold you accountable, who knows about your battle and will ask you how it's going. You burn all the bridges to that old part of you - that wrong part of you - all those things the Devil has used to bring that sin into your life over and over again. You just don't allow yourself to get into the situations where you could even do this sin.

Will you fall again? Sadly, that may very well happen. Will there be a mess in the garage again? There may be. But pick it up while it's small. Get up quickly. You attack the mess when it's small, and you start a new day clean. You don't need to acknowledge that mess again - you need to attack it.

Take it from a man who finally got fed up with a mess that had been there way too long. Clean really feels good.

I was speaking for a youth camp, and I'd been pouring out my heart to those teenagers in service after service. At the end of the week, some kids came up to me and said, "Do you know what really affected us the most this week?" I was kind of waiting to hear which message, or which illustration, or which challenge had impacted them. It wasn't any of those things. These teenagers said, "You know, Ron, we've been watching you with your wife this week. We've seen how you treat her, how you put your arm around her, and how you talk to her. That's what impressed us."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Show Your Jesus."

Well, I can tell you, my wife and I weren't trying to impress those teenagers. We were just having our relationship in front of them, and it touched their hearts. You know, there's something powerful about showing people your relationship, especially when it comes to life's most important relationship-your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The relationship the lost people in your world desperately need, because their lives - their eternities - depend on it.

In Acts 16:25 and following, our word for today from the Word of God, we have a clear example of how showing your Jesus-relationship can make people want that relationship. After Paul and Silas have been beaten and imprisoned for their Christian witness it says, "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them."

Later, when crisis hits in the form of a violent earthquake, the Bible says, "The jailer rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' They replied, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.'" He heard them praying, he heard them praising-just having their relationship with Jesus in front of him, right there in his jail. And he knew where to look when the crunch came.

Over the years, I've seen unbelievers touched by a promise that believers almost always take for granted, "I'll pray for you." You know, you may have a place to start in sharing and showing Jesus to them you don't even realize. If they share a concern with you about a family member or a health issue, a crisis, a hurt they're experiencing, or a financial need, then it's time for you to promise that you will talk to God about it.

And when you're alone with them, you can actually ask them if they mind if you start talking to God about it while you're still with them. In other words, don't just pray for them, pray with them. It's just a matter of gently asking, "Would you mind if I prayed about it right here, while we're still together?" Often I have asked people who don't have a relationship with Christ if I could pray with them. No one has ever told me no. In fact, it's not uncommon to open my eyes at the end of the prayer and see tears in their eyes.

See, that person you're praying with has probably never heard their name mentioned in a prayer in their entire life. And when you're talking to God in their presence, you're actually letting that person hear you have your personal relationship with God. God might even give you a green light then to tell them what it means to you to be able to go to God like this, and how there used to be a wall between you and God and you couldn't always talk to Him like this. But you found out how you could have a personal love relationship with Him, how that wall came down - what Jesus did for you.

In hurting times, lost people are generally far more ready to be prayed for than we are ready to pray for them. Your offer to pray with them is actually a nothing-to-lose deal, even if they turn you down. Either way, you've shown them that you care. And either way, you have demonstrated your personal love relationship with your God-the relationship you so want them to share.

If you asked me to choose between a fast-food hamburger or let's say a home cooked pot roast dinner with all the trimmings, it wouldn't take me much time to decide. It probably wouldn't take you much time either. But having lived in metropolitan areas most of my life, it was great to rush into McDonald's or Burger King and grab something. See, often the choice has been between dinner on the run and no dinner at all. So, that was an easy choice.

But there was a time, believe it or not, when there weren't many fast-food places. (And yes, I can remember those.) We had to drive almost an hour where we lived at one point to get to a McDonald's. Oh, there were diners or expensive restaurants, but nothing really that fast.

Now it is always, of course, my preference to have carefully prepared, full course meals. But sometimes, hey, you need what you need fast.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Wisdom To Go."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Nehemiah 2, and Nehemiah is the cupbearer to the King of Persia. He's had his heart broken when he's heard about the destroyed condition of his home city of Jerusalem, and he has been praying about this now for several months. And he goes before the king, and this particular conversation will turn out to change the course of history.

"I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, 'Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This could be nothing more than sadness of heart.' I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, 'May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire?' The king said to me, 'What is it you want?'" Now, you can almost hear Nehemiah's knees shaking here as he says, "Then I prayed to the God of heaven and I answered the king."

Well, he proceeds from here to tell all about his burden for the city. And the king responds and equips Nehemiah to go there, and miraculously that city is rebuilt in 52 days. Now, this turns out to be a decisive conversation. Nehemiah is really on the spot. Everything is riding on his answer.

Now, it's nice when you have a week to pray for something but when you have just a moment and you really need some wisdom? But there are those moments when there is no chance for you to do any of those things. You have to get it fast. So, what does Nehemiah do? He's on the spot. He taps into one of God's most practical gifts - wisdom to go.

You're faced with those kinds of crunches on many occasions. Whenever it's possible, of course, it's best to take some time to decide your next step. It's like taking time to prepare and eat a great dinner. But in some situations you barely have time to drive up to the window and say, "Wisdom to go please...with everything on it." But God will give it to you in those pressure moments, maybe like the ones you're in right now.

He promises in James 1:5, "If we ask for wisdom, when we lack it, He will give it to us liberally." Notice the kind of lifestyle, though, that gets that instant insight. Nehemiah gets it because he is already a prayed up person. He's been praying for four months about this situation. He's bathed it in prayer. He has surrendered the situation to the Lord. Back to Nehemiah 1:11 he says, "I am your servant (talking to the Lord). Give your servant success today. Lord, it's all up to you." Now comes that sudden moment of truth when the king says, "What is it you want?" Nehemiah fires off a "Help!" to heaven.

Now, your wisdom crunch may come in a moment of needing to know how to handle a situation with your child, or a situation at work, or how to respond to fast-breaking developments, or to an unexpected call. The good news is you can get the discernment you need to answer in God's will. Now, pray through the major arenas, the major relationships of your day. Bathe your life in prayer, and then pause before you answer to be sure that your line to heaven is open.

And then, fire off that prayer in your heart, and then pick up your wisdom to go.