Someone once defined insecurity as the space between who I am, who I want to be, and who others want me to be. It is a feeling that arises from feeling as though you don’t measure up. Insecurity makes you feel like it is you against the world, when really it is just you against yourself. When you struggle with self-doubt, you end up being easily swayed, subject to fear, and anxious. The stories we hear of failures — relationships ended, careers swiftly over, etc. — are often blamed on something outside ourselves. Those are often really caused by something within ourselves, a subtle struggle with insecurity we aren’t even aware of. Insecurity can ruin lives. It has before, it will again. Don’t let it destroy yours.

Job is possibly the oldest book in our Bible, but it reads like the most modern and maybe even the most honest book. The opening of the book of Job poses the question, “how can a loving God allow suffering?” It is an age-old question but it is a current question, as well. The idea of a Good God that allows bad things to happen is what some would even call a theological kryptonite. In the book of Job, the issue of when bad things happen to good people reaches a new level. In this book, the very worst things happen to the very best person. Job’s story shows us the ugly truth that life is painful, life is unfair, and at times God disappoints us.

If we aren’t emotionally healthy, we aren’t spiritually healthy. The wrong thinking manifests itself in our emotions. We actually have the ability to control our thought life, which means we can control our feelings, which means we can control our lives. In other words, “Who I say I am affects how I think, how I feel, and what I do.”

When it comes to fear, it’s okay to have fear, but it isn’t okay for fear to have you. God is for you. God is with you. God has you

Feelings are powerful and persuasive. When it comes to feelings, either we control them or they control us. We were never intended to follow our feelings, yet so many seem enslaved by them. If it is true that we can control our thinking and how we feel, that makes us responsible for how we feel. What happens when our feelings go one way and following Jesus demands we go another? We must make a choice in that moment: follow Jesus or follow our feelings. Only one of those will lead us toward a better life.

Jesus promised a better life, but so many feel they have a lesser life instead. Many feel as though life change is impossible. They have tried it and failed many times. However the New Testament says that life change is possible and even inevitable if we simply adjust our thinking. What if changing your life was as easy as changing your thinking? In fact, it is exactly that easy.

The message of Jesus and His followers became known as the good news. It was a message that said, “God isn’t angry with you, God loves you. God isn’t against you, He is for you.” Another reason it became known as the good news is the fact that Jesus gave an invitation for people to believe not just behave. Jesus promised those who would believe both an eternal life and a better life. It seems like for many of us, we heard a lot of talk when we were growing up about eternal life but not much about the better life.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons that many have experienced a disconnect between how we feel we are living currently and the better life Jesus promised us. He promised peace but I feel stressed. He promised joy but I feel discouraged. He said I was an overcomer but I feel defeated. He said I was loved but I spend so much time wondering if God is mad at me. He said I was forgiven but I’m plagued by guilt and shame.

There are two questions we must get right if we are going to live the better life Jesus promised: Who is Jesus? Who am I?

As we grow older, many of us tend to disconnect from the Easter message. We realize as adults that our lives seldom look like Easter Sunday morning. Parts of our lives remain dark instead of bright, and instead of a happy ending we have had many endings that were not happy. However, the story of Easter is not only about life, it is also about death. The story of easter isn't just about faith, it is also about fear. It isn't just all supernatural. The story of Easter is strikingly human. When we begin to connect our own story to the story of Easter, it becomes more meaningful to us and of more consequence to our everyday lives.

Jesus believed that the future was a powerful factor in how we live out our lives in the present. When our perspective is fed by our faith, the future offers us an incentive to live to the fullest today. Jesus was executed a few days after he finished his explanation to his disciples about the end of the world. Jesus was taken down from the cross, he was buried, and three days later he was raised from the dead. This forever changed the perspective of Jesus’ disciples who were eyewitnesses of his resurrection. Jesus’ disciples lost the fear of death and consequently gained a unique hopefulness for the future. They knew what the future would hold but they were fearless despite it, and they were hopeful for what they knew would ultimately come.

Jesus thought our belief about the future should inform the way we behave in the present. He explained what events would lead up to the end of the world, but he also emphasized that our beliefs about the future should have practical influence on how we live today. When Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple in Matthew 24, his disciples asked him when the end would take place and what signs to expect to herald His coming and the end of the age. At first, Jesus’ answer seems to be a troubling picture of the future. On further review, what Jesus says is a healthy and helpful reminder for followers of Jesus that we should stay focused on today.

As followers of Jesus we should want to know what Jesus taught about the end of the world. However, too often we get bogged down in the parts concerning the details about the end and miss the point. Jesus is interested in how the end of the world affects our present lives as much as he is in explaining current events and how they relate to the end. We often care about what God will do in the end. He cares more about what we will do up until the end.