I don't get sick very often, but that one year I did pick up the special flu bug of the year. Which, of course, meant my wife soon followed suit. We believed in sharing everything. Then our friend, Janice, got a similar flu - sick for four or five days. Then her husband got it - sick for four or five days. Then their lucky daughter took her turn - sick for four or five days. Their teenage son was the only one who didn't get it. His mom said he was the one walking around the house with a can of Lysol all the time! You can almost count on it - when one person is infected with a germ, it's probably going to end up infecting the people closest to them.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Cure for Family Germs."

Every family has them - those germs that get passed around the family. And they're not all the kind you go to a doctor for. The most virulent, most damaging family infections of all come from moral germs, spiritual germs, some of which have infected generations or are in the process right now of being passed on to yet another generation.

One writer tells about his friend, George, and the angry explosions he had with his wife - angry words which unfortunately his little son could sometimes hear down the hall in his room. There was one particularly bitter argument where George yelled to his wife, "I don't need you. I don't want you, and I can't stand you!" A few weeks later, George was awakened by sounds down the hall from his bedroom. They were coming from his little boy's room. George tiptoed down there and he stood and listened in horror as his son was angrily telling a stuffed animal of his, "I don't need you. I don't want you. I can't stand you!"

That's how the family diseases are transmitted from one generation to the next. There are those weaknesses that scarred our parents' lives, probably their parents' lives, and who knows how many other generations! Tragically, we tend to carry that baggage into our lives and then infect another generation with them. We seem to be unable to stop the things in us that hurt most the people we love most: that anger, that selfishness, the criticism, the abuse, the addictions, the negativity.

But there's wonderful news about our family infections in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Peter 1:18-19. Listen. God says, "You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, with the precious blood of Christ." Translation: there is a connection between my hurtful weakness and what Jesus Christ did when He died on the cross. If I open myself up to the love and the power of Jesus Christ, the disease can stop in this generation! I can be in the Bible's word "redeemed" from it.

The central disease we all have that poisons our closest relationships is the disease of me - a disease the Bible calls sin. That's just a life you run instead of God running it, and it can only be conquered by the One who died to pay the death penalty for all our sinning, and that's Jesus. When you put your total trust in Him to be your "Savior" from all your sin, He enters your life. He unleashes His power which raised Him from the dead to start changing you from the inside out.

The Bible says, "If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has gone. A new life has begun." If you're ready to finally be forgiven, if you're ready to finally be free, then you're ready to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ.

What you do is you say to Him, "Jesus, I'm pinning all my hope on you because you died for me. I am yours beginning today." That's a new beginning for you and for your family. I'd love to share with you more how you can be sure you belong to Him and what this relationship can do for you at our website. And it's got a name that's appropriate - ANewStory.com. That's what it's about - a new story for you.

The spiritual infections in your family - haven't they done enough damage? And the Man who died for you is willing to begin His miracle healing of your past, your present, and your future. Think what it could mean to you and to those you love, "It stops here - in this generation! Because Jesus is running things now!"

If you live in a place like Florida for example, this word probably doesn't mean much to you - winter, cold, or furnace. See, during the summer you don't give your furnace a thought, but in the winter up north it makes life bearable. That's why when we lived in New Jersey I was not a very happy camper when I woke up and felt a very cold nose coming out of the covers. (No, I didn't sleep with a dog...it was my nose!) And I felt a cold floor under my feet where there was no carpet. And then I would peek out the window and see a very low temperature out there.

Now, my first stop was the furnace downstairs. If it wasn't working I knew what to do. I called our family doctor. You say, "What? You don't call..." No, that's right, I didn't call the doctor. I called our neighbors and told them the furnace wasn't working. You say, "Wait a minute, what good does that do?" No, I called the newspaper delivery boy and said, "My furnace isn't working!" I called the post office and said, "Hey, can you fix my furnace?" You say, "Ron, none of those calls will help. Call the furnace man!" I did.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Tell the Person Who Can Fix It."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 5. We begin at verse 23. Jesus said, "If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember your brother has something against you, leave your gift..." He says forget the religious stuff. Don't do your spiritual thing. No, "leave your gift in front of the altar. First (in other words, before you do your thing with God), go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift."

There's a parallel passage in Matthew 18:15 - "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over." It talks about involving other people from the church if that doesn't work. But the pattern is the same in both cases - go straight to the person. Now, we're not talking about a furnace here, but we're talking about a relationship that's not working. And Jesus addresses one of these dark corners of human nature.

We've got this tendency to talk to everyone about the problem we have with this person except the person we have the problem with. And that sin divides families, it divides friends, it divides churches, it divides ministries, and maybe you are in the middle of one of those poisonous situations right now. Jesus says there's only one way to go when you have a problem with another person - straight to that person.

We'd rather gripe to other people, we'd rather gather support for our side, get sympathy, form some power block of people who agree with us, and give the Devil an open door he can drive a truck through. The irony is that none of those other people can fix what's wrong. The problem you've got is with this person.

Now, we know it would be dumb to tell the letter carrier about our cold furnace, or the garbage man. Wouldn't that make you ask, "Hey, do you just want to gripe or do you want a solution?" Then why do we go to all the wrong people when there's a break in a relationship or some hurt? Going to the person involved is the only way it can really be fixed. You can be a relationship radical if you'll covenant to go direct in a world that would rather gossip and backstab.

You can be an agent of real love and real peace if you always stay away from the back room, the back-biting, and you speak directly to that other person. That other person? They may respond or they may not respond, but you have done the only thing Jesus can bless, and you can sleep well tonight.

So, whether it's a furnace, a family member or a friend, tell the person who can fix it.

It was a Kleenex moment that Christmas season, for sure. Like the first Christmas, there was a newborn baby involved, but no manger. How about a Jumbotron screen at an Anaheim Ducks hockey game, of all places?

Sergeant First Class Robert Vandenberg had been gone for ten months. He'd never seen his newborn son. He was far away in Afghanistan when little Travis was born. So all eyes were on the big screen when he appeared suddenly to - at least in this small way - be "home" for Christmas.

Skype from Romania. That's how his wife, and his one-year-old son, little Travis would make a connection this Christmas season. But with thousands watching this touching reunion by screen, the technology Grinch suddenly showed up. There was barely time for "hellos" before the sergeant started disappearing in a spasm of static. Sadly, his wife handed the microphone back to a team rep.

At that very moment, Sergeant Vandenberg walked down the steps of the arena and right into the arms of his wife! Then he picked up his new son and held him up in front of him - looking in his eyes for the very first time.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Coming Home for Christmas."

I don't know if they sell Kleenex at the stadium concession stands, but if they do, you can bet they sold out that night. I confess I reached for some when I saw it on TV. I think one of the reasons it touched me is that I saw something else in that moving reunion. I saw the first Christmas. I saw myself.

Christmas - when a God we thought was so far away came down to where we are. To hold us close. In fact, the ancient prophecy of the coming Messiah predicted it. And it's our word for today from the Word of God recorded in Matthew 1:23, "'A virgin shall be with child and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, 'God with us.'" Not just God projected on the screen of some church or religion. But God right here. God up close.

Too often, though, He has seemed far away hasn't He? Like there's a lot of distance between me and the God I really need. It turns out that distance is not just a feeling. It's real. But it's not God's fault. It's mine.

Let's face it, I've wanted to believe in God, but I also want to run my own life. In essence, occupying the driver's seat in my life - a life He gave me. We have, in the words of the Bible, "left God's path to follow our own" (Isaiah 53:6 NLT) and at great cost. Isaiah 59:2 says, "Your sins have cut you off from God." Actually, I knew that. I think we can all feel the distance.

But then...Christmas. As Linus so eloquently quoted to Charlie Brown, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11 KJVA). In that stable in Bethlehem, God stepped out of eternity and into time. So He could step into my life and your life and change it forever. Not God as a fuzzy image. Not God far away. God with us. With me. In my home. In my office. In the doctor's office. In my grief. In my loneliness. In my pain. In "the valley of the shadow of death" (Psalm 23:4 KJVA).

But it would come at great expense to Jesus, because 33 years later, the hands of the Bethlehem baby would be nailed to a Roman cross. And today, this one who loved you enough to die for you, who came that Christmas for you and me is reaching out and saying, "On this Christmas day, would you give yourself to Me?" He's been waiting a long time. He's ready now for you to come. You can tell it by the tug you feel in your heart. That won't always be there.

So, right now while you can, say, "Jesus, I'm Yours." Go to our website today if you want more information because there you'll see how to be sure you've begun this relationship on this Christmas day. It's ANewStory.com.

See, Jesus came in Bethlehem to go to a cross so God could be your Father. And so you could be, forever, a child in His arms.