Life is full of people telling you what to do – bosses, advertisers, influencers, politicians. Everyone has advice. Everyone has an agenda. But here's the big question: who are you really listening to?

As a young man, like many other young adults, I became convinced that the sole purpose of my life was to succeed. I had to become someone. I had to be able to afford all the luxuries that the advertisers told me would make me happy. It won't surprise you to know that the pursuit of success was hollow; that it drove me to the brink of life itself.

It was there that Jesus came to find me.

Isaiah 48:17 The Lord, the one who saves you, the Holy One of Israel, says, 'My name is Yahweh your God. I teach you for your own good. I lead you in the way you should go.'

Do you see the difference? God doesn't just throw advice your way. He teaches you for your own good. He doesn't manipulate you, He doesn't use you, He doesn't mislead you. He guides you because He loves you.

And in Christ, that guidance has a face. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." He's not just a spiritual GPS – He's the road itself. Following Him isn't about dry rules or religious rituals. It's about letting the Saviour who died and rose for you lead you into life.

So before you listen to the noise, before you allow bad advice to hurt you yet again, stop. Tune your ear to the voice of God.

I teach you for your own good. I lead you in the way you should go.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Insecurity. It's out there in plague proportions. Ruined relationships. Ruined lives. If you know someone who suffers from insecurity – what's the greatest gift that you can give them?

Over the last few days on A Different Perspective we have been looking at this whole issue of insecurity. We all have some insecurities, some areas in our lives, work or personal, or emotional that we are sensitive about. When someone treads on that spot it hurts and we withdraw or we come out punching.

Over the last twenty years or so I have worked in about 200 organisations across Europe, North America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand right across a lot of cultures and I am here to tell you that insecurity is universal problem. I have enough stories and examples to write a book on the subject, a really thick book.

Over that time I have come to the conclusion that our failure to deal effectively lovingly, sensitively, kindly with insecurity, other peoples and our own, is one of the biggest sources of pain, conflict and disappointment on this planet. If there were just one thing that you and I could do to alleviate that, what would it be.

Insecurity is actually about fear. Often it is quite narrow and specialised in people's lives. And it's different for each one of us. Different people have insecurities in different parts of their lives. Some of them are worried about what people think, others feel insecure about how they look, or what they sound like. And insecurity features differently in terms of magnitude. Some people are really insecure. Others just have the odd little bit of insecurity here and there. But when we have fear, fear is real. My fear is real to me.

When I was in the army one of the things that we did in training was to repel out of helicopters. And you were flying along in the helicopter sitting on the floor. You got the signal to go out onto the skids, which meant you had to roll over on your stomach, dangle you legs out of the helicopter while it was still flying along. And then you had to stand on the skids.

But Berni's little legs were too short so I had to jump out onto the skids. And that was a scary thing and standing there on the skids and then going down into the position where you would repel out of the helicopter. I have to tell you it was kind of counter-intuitive to my understanding of heights.

And I was pretty scared each time that I had to do it. Not withstanding the fact that when I had done it, it was quite a buzz. And no matter how you dismiss my irrational fear of height, it's real. It forms a part of my reality.

You can talk to me about me, you can get me to the point of accepting that the fear is irrational, you can get me to agree that I need to something about it. But I tell you that the next time in that helicopter, the next time I get in to that situation again, the insecurity and the fear can be there. And when we experience fear, we have a natural instinct to protect ourselves. I believe that there is a gift that we can give to someone around us who suffers from insecurity. A gift worth more than gold. A gift that they will treasure for the rest of their lives.

The gift comes in two parts. Part one: is to understand their fear. I read a quote once, I can't remember who said this but they said something like this:

If we only knew and understood the hurts and the pains in the past in the lives of our enemies, it would be enough to disarm any intention of hostility in our hearts.

Think about that … as we are walking through life and relationships, and we run into someone's insecurity and they react and they blow up like a land mine, that we could never have seen or predicted, and these people explode in our faces. We have a choice to make, we can pull them apart, we can talk badly of them, we can cut them off, we can have enough with them. We can just stop and choose not to react.</

Most people marry for love and belonging—but God designed marriage for something far greater. One couple’s story that may change how you see yours.

It's easy to sound smart. Anyone can impress with big words, clever arguments, or a sharp tongue. But real wisdom? Real wisdom doesn't come out of your mouth. It shows up in your life.

I've always had a sharp mind and a quick tongue. On the one hand, you can argue that that's quite an advantage in life. And it is. But on the other, as happened countless times, it can come across as arrogant, hurtful and rude. God's had to do a lot of work in me to change that - to soften me, to help me empathise … something He's still doing.

It turns out that wisdom is a whole bunch more than simply being clever.

James 3:13 Are there those among you who are truly wise and understanding? Then they should show it by living right and doing good things with a gentle spirit. Wisdom does not come from being proud.

The world may well equate wisdom with high IQ, success, and influence. But for God, wisdom is proven in gentleness. In humility. In living rightly.

And here's the thing: we see that wisdom most clearly in Jesus. He didn't strut into Jerusalem with a sword. He entered on a donkey. He didn't crush His enemies. He laid His life down for them. And in that act of humility, He revealed the deepest wisdom of all – the wisdom of the cross.

So if you want to assess whether or not wisdom is shaping your life, don't look at how clever you may think you are. Look at how humbly you live. Because true wisdom is always gentle. And true wisdom always looks like Jesus.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Relationships – at home, at work, with friends – well they can be like walking through a mine field. Everything's fine – and then you step on a mine…..

It's a funny thing, but a relationship can be going along just fine, work, home, friends, just ticking along. And then all of a sudden, out of the blue, this person comes out punching.

Whoa! I didn't see that coming. Like a curve ball to the solar plexus, they just attack us or spit out some angry words or say something that just blows us out of the water.

And as we pick ourselves off the floor we are thinking, "I just didn't' see that coming. What was that about, I mean what did I do to deserve that?" And sometimes it's the other way around we just lash out at someone and afterwards we think, "Why did I do that?" you know what I mean.

I was visiting a radio station recently, an executive in a different country. And I had a morning meeting scheduled with him to talk about a few issues. And while I was on the way in, in the car, and he range me and he said, "Look, I still really want to meet with you but I have this problem, there is this really big human resources problem that has blown up in my face at work. Can we meet at a little bit later?" Well I had some flexibility that day, my plane had been delayed so we were able to meet later. Turns out that he was having some real conflict with one of the staff there. Something, it just exploded, and if I told you the issue you would fall of your chair, so I won't. It seemed so minor, so small, so insignificant and yet there was a huge conflict over the issue.

Do you enjoy conflict? Most of us don't. I certainly do not enjoy conflict. Yet so often it is a bit like that movie, "The Truman Show". You would be walking along on a sunny day, along the road and someone movie director somewhere presses a button, and without warning a bomb goes off right next to us!

Have you ever wondered why? Well there are a lot of reasons, but one, one happens time and time again. It is the issue of insecurity in peoples lives. This week on A Different Perspective I have called this little group of messages, "Getting over it!" we are looking at the subject of insecurity. Have you ever asked yourself, "What is it? What is insecurity? We need to stop and thing about that.

We bandied the word around, but what exactly, what is it? We all have as people a life preservation instinct. If we are driving along in a car and all of a sudden a car pulls out in front of us. We slam on the brakes and the adrenalin pumps through the veins. And we try and save ourselves. And the same is true emotionally. When something comes out of the blue that we find threatening, we either decide to fight it and come out punching or we've run away. We avoid it, we don't confront it. We just stew inside and it eats away at us. There is something built into each one of us. Which is about self preservation. And that's ok, that's normal, but sometimes there are things inside us that create irrational fears. Fears that don't make any logical sense.

I don't so much as have a fear of heights, but I know that when I am standing on a balcony several floors up, if there is no roof above me and I look up at the sky, I find that really scary, unsettling thing. I feel as though I am about to fall off the balcony. It doesn't make sense, it is just there.

Some people have an irrational fear of spiders or sharks. We all know that there are far more chances of being run over by the proverbial bus than there is by being killed by a spider or a shark or a snake. Some people are petrified about flying in planes. None of those fears are rational. But they are very real. And these irrational fears can go into our emotional dimension as well. We can be unduly concerned about what people think of us. What they say of us. We can be really touchy about people stepping on our turf. Maybe we are bucking for a promotion. Maybe we are worr

The heart of the gospel is not what you can do for God, but what God has already done for you through Jesus Christ.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to get dragged into arguments about politics, gossip, or the failings of others? You scroll the headlines, you read the comments, you shake your head in frustration … and somehow, without even realising it, your heart fills with angst instead of peace.

C.S. Lewis captured this perfectly in his classic book, The Screwtape Letters–a series of fictional letters in which a senior demon, Screwtape, trains his nephew, Wormwood, in how to keep a human soul away from God. Here's one chilling bit of advice:

"Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the 'Cause', in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war effort or of Pacifism."

That's the devil's strategy: keep your eyes "out there" so you never deal with what's in here – in your own heart. When you think about it, that's what Christian nationalism is all about.

The Apostle Paul sees things differently:

Philippians 4:8 Brothers and sisters, continue to think about what is good and worthy of praise. Think about what is true and honourable and right and pure and beautiful and respected.

You can't control the whole world. But you can choose where you fix your mind. And when you set it on Christ, His peace rules your heart.

So this week, don't let Screwtape win. Refuse to live in endless outrage. Rather, fill your mind with what is true and pure – and let Jesus reshape you from the inside out.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me. Not much. In fact the things people say can leave lifelong scars. People say – just get over it? But can we?

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me." So the saying goes. But in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. When people call us names. When they hurt us. Or reject us. Or abuse us. Or talk behind our backs. Those things can really hurt us. And for many people, they carry those old injuries around with them. Often not really knowing it. And it robs them of the life that God always intended.

If your Dad didn't encourage you, chances are you'll have low self esteem. If you were abused as a child, chances are you'll feel like a victim for much of your life. So is it possible to be set free from the hurts of the past?

There's something really important that we need to know about the past. It's past. It's gone. There are lots of things out of our control. The past is one of the biggest ones of all. Doesn't matter what we do. How much we wish we could change it. How much we try. What's done is done. We can't change the past. We can only change from hereon forward.

Well why is this so important? I mean it's blindingly, glimpsingly obvious. Yet so many people live in the past. They live today constrained by the hurts of yesterday. "I didn't have a happy childhood. I was abused. I was hurt. The kids at school weren't nice to me. The teacher …"

I mean, recently I was overseas with my wife. We were in Canada and we were talking with our daughter who was staying with a friend for the couple of weeks while we were gone. Our daughter Melissa is 14. And there was one particular teacher who said something really hurtful to her. And so, of course, I rang the principal and I talked to the principal and dealt with it. But just one harsh word from an adult when we're growing up as teenagers, just one, can leave a mental scar.

It can happen from parents. It happened to me when I was growing up. It's just the way I am. And we look back and we lament. We wish it was different but it's not. And we turn it over and over in our mind. Like a cow chewing its cud.

Here's this crazy idea that I have. When Jesus died on the cross for me, He purchased for me a new future. If anyone believes in Him, they are a new creation. Everything old is passed away. Have a look. Everything else is new. And Jesus said,

If I set you free then you are actually free. (John 8:36)

You listen to the apostle Paul:

We are more than conquerors if we believe in Jesus.

I can do anything through Christ Jesus who strengthens me.

Okay, so there are some words on a page in a book called The Bible, that tell us some things but what do they really mean for life? Well, here's the crunch. And if you are someone who is struggling with the hurts of the past you may not like what I have to say. But I have to say it to you anyway.

Here is the crunch. You can live your life with the hurts of the past and believe that you can't change it. Or you can decide to believe what God says about you. You've got a choice.

I often joke. I mean I would not make a good counsellor, you know. It's not my gift to sit with people. One of the people who helps me on this program, Max Harding, who is a great guy and as well as being a fantastic producer, he also works in a counselling ministry. And he has a wonderful job at that but that is not what I do. And I often joke that my form of counselling is to listen to people for 30 seconds then say, 'that is great, just get over it'.

In a sense that doesn't help. And of course when we have issues and hurts and problems from the past we do have to bring them out and talk about them and deal with them. But some people talk about them and talk about

Faith was never meant to stay inside a church building. Discover how ordinary acts of love can make God’s presence visible to the people around you.