La Conchita, California - a community sitting on this narrow strip of land between the Pacific Coast Highway and a steep cliff. In 1995, 600,000 tons of mud collapsed and buried nine houses there. Well, thankfully it moved slowly enough that everybody was able to get out alive. Well, not this time. In January of 2005, a chunk of the 300-foot bluff that towered over the town collapsed with a loud roar. In moments this sea of mud had crushed 15 homes and damaged 16 others. One man who missed the mudslide because of a quick trip for ice cream ran back to his buried home and began frantically digging for his wife and family with the rescuers. Tragically, they were some of those who died in the mudslide. It had been such a nice place to live; such a deadly place to live.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Refusing To Move, Losing It All."

Many people who live in potentially dangerous places in America refuse to move, and that certainly is their choice. It's understandable. "This is where I'm from. This is home." But there is a question to be seriously considered: is any place so nice to live that it's worth dying for?

That question becomes life's most important question when it comes to the eternal future of a person because so many are facing a deadly spiritual future. Not because there isn't a safe place, but because they refuse to move. And unlike a geographical area where disaster is possible, it is, for those in the spiritual danger zone, inevitable.

There is no escaping the Bible's clear decree that "man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). That "judgment," well, that's facing the consequences of a life lived putting me first instead of my Creator, of living out-of-bounds, breaking God's laws, of doing and saying and thinking so many things that ultimately defy the God who made me.

Thankfully, though, the catastrophe of an unthinkable hell is not inevitable if you're willing to move. Because the Bible explains that Jesus Christ, God's Son, "carried our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24), loving us so much He absorbed the hell that we deserve, so we could have the heaven that we could never deserve. In God's words, though "the wages" of our sin "is death, the gift of God is eternal life" (Romans 6:23).

Now, how does a person still end up paying that eternal death penalty for their sin when Jesus already did? By refusing to move; refusing to let go of something or someone that is fatally important to them. Like the irresistible ring in the "Lord of the Rings" that inevitably destroys the one who holds onto it, some earth-person or earth-thing becomes our "Precious" - the thing we refuse to let go of, even though hanging onto it will cost us forever.

In Mark 10:17-22, our word for today from the Word of God, a rich young ruler comes to Jesus, asking how to go to heaven. Their conversation reveals that he's led a righteous life. But when Jesus asks him to let go of his wealth, because it's his god, the Bible says, "He went away sad, because he had great wealth." (vs. 22) As far as we know, he went away lost. I wonder what your "Precious" is - the thing that keeps you from moving to Jesus; a relationship, friends, a lifestyle, a favorite sin, even your stubborn trust in your religion rather than in Christ alone. Maybe it's control you don't want to give up. Because you're not willing to move, you stand in the path of the awful judgment of God that Jesus already took.

But is any place in life worth holding onto when it's going to cost you eternal life? Don't miss Jesus because you won't move. And that move you could make today! And say, "Jesus I now believe that what you did on that cross was for me, for my sin." And this day, your judgement could be cancelled and Heaven guaranteed.

Listen, our website's all about how to be sure you belong to Him. Check it out today. It's ANewStory.com.

None of us knows when our appointment with God is. What we do know is how to be sure we're ready for it whenever it comes, by moving to the only safe place there is, and that's in the arms of Jesus Christ.