Sometimes we’re so overwhelmed by our situation and circumstances that we imagine the stress is completely unavoidable. Granted sometimes it is, but there’s many a time when you and I put ourselves under stress needlessly. So why do we do that?

You and I have this habit of putting ourselves under pressure and stress – needlessly. Huh, don’t believe me? Well today, we’re going to chat about how we do that exactly and what we can do about changing our habits. Because there are more than enough things out there that are going to cause you and me stress, whether we like it or not.

There are going to be situations and circumstances completely out of our control that cause us stress – the loss of a loved one, a difficult boss at work, financial problems, health issues. There are plenty of things out there that are going to come our way, whether we like it or not, that are going to cause us stress.

So if that’s the case why would we possibly want to needlessly put ourselves under stress? Today, we’re going to chat about the main three ways that we cause ourselves stress. I’d be surprised if you don’t recognise at least one of these in your life.

The first one is physical. Sometimes we think of stress as being purely an emotional or even spiritual thing and of course. it is those things. Although we Christians, especially preachers like me, have this tendency to over spiritualise stuff whilst ignoring the physical realities. And the physical reality is that God has given you and me a body.

It’s an utterly amazing body – tens of thousands of miles of blood vessels, a brain that no computer can match, a series of chemical feedback and control systems that to this day defy scientific understanding.

Now we know that when we don’t treat our body properly it’s not going to perform at its best. And we kind of know that how we treat our body is going to have an effect on our emotions yet so many people just abuse their bodies and then wonder, ‘why do I feel stressed?’

Last year on the program, we went through a four-week series that I called Healthy Living To A Ripe Old Age. In nine years to date, it is the single, most popular series we’ve ever put to air. We had a massive response from around the globe. And by the way the e-booklet that I wrote which was My Top Three Secrets For Losing 25 Kg’s is still available in the resources section of www.christianityworks.com as a free download.

There are three things we do: we eat too much of the wrong stuff, we don’t get enough sleep and we don’t get enough exercise. How many times have you heard someone, including me, banging on about diet, exercise and sleep and yet still the first and most obvious thing that we get wrong when it comes to managing our stress is how we treat our body?

So come on, if the hat fits wear it. Are you sick of feeling tired? Are you sick of feeling bloated and stressed? Then do something about it. All of those messages in that series Healthy Living To A Ripe Old Age are available in the resources section of www.christianityworks.com under the ‘health’ subject area. Grab them, listen to them, read the transcript, grab the e-booklet, do something about your health.

Don’t you know:

Your body is a temple of Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God. (1 Corinthians 6:19)

See, God expects us to look after this amazing body that He’s given us and when we do, let me tell you, our stress levels drop dramatically.

The second thing that we do to put ourselves under stress is constantly second guessing ourselves – constantly telling ourselves that we’re not good enough, not fast enough, not smart enough. You know what that’s called? Low self-esteem. And it might surprise you to know that this is a trap I easily fall into.

Are you shocked? Well, here’s how it works for me. I’ve been a bit of an achiever, I drive things harder, I work hard, I try to deliver on time. It’s who I am. And when you are that kind of person you can see not only all the things that you have achieved but all the things you haven’t yet achieved.

So then you start to tell yourself, ‘Come on, I’m not good enough. I’m not working hard enough for God. Berni, you should be doing better. You should be getting up earlier. You should be working longer. You should be delivering sooner. You need to get more done, look at all the things you haven’t done yet, you’re failing God’. It’s easy to fall into.

Or at the other end of the scale, perhaps you only ever see your inadequacies because you’re constantly comparing yourself to other people. Does anyone recognise that? It’s like that song by Casey Chambers, Am I Not Pretty Enough or smart enough or liked enough or strong enough or articulate enough.

So we find all these ways to put ourselves under enormous pressure and cause ourselves huge stress by believing this nonsense that we’re just not good enough.

Have you been there? Then I have a Word from God for you today.

Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of services but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities but it’s the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12: 4-7)

Did you get that? Each one of us has been given a particular set of gifts and abilities. They’re all different but they’re all given by one God. And the gifts He’s given you, He’s given you through His sovereign will and choice. You are who you are because He made you that way. He didn’t make a mistake, you’re no boo boo, you’re exactly who God purposed you and made you to be.

Now get you heart around that and all of a sudden you’re set free from this nonsense, ‘I’m not good enough. I’m not pretty enough. I’m not smart enough’.

Hello! Is anyone listening to this? I, for one, need constant reminding because I can end up getting stressed out by having a wrong view of who I am. It’s about trading in your self-image, pushing it over the counter and getting a faith-image in return from God. And this God says, ‘You’re beautiful and you are just who you are meant to be’.

Now get on with it and be that person. Sure, grow and mature and learn and make mistakes and get up again and keep going. That’s par for the course, that’s what it’s meant to be. But you’ve been given gifts by God. Now be that person and use those gifts.

And finally, the third thing we’re going to chat about today that causes us needlessly to put ourselves under stress is not letting go of the past.

How many people are still holding on to the failures and the hurts and the regrets of the past? How many people are living under the reproach of the past? Come on, the past is the past. You and I can’t change it and God is in the business of setting us free from it.

Mark this, before Israel was able to cross over the Jordan River and enter the Promised Land, God had to deal with their past. Joshua 5: 9:

The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt, the reproach of the past and so that place is called Gilgal to this day’.

You’ve heard that saying, ‘Don’t cry over spilt milk,’ right? Yes, wipe it up and clean up the mess. Yes, learn from the mistake you made so you won’t spill it again. But don’t just stand there and wish you hadn’t spilt the milk and spend the rest of your life looking down at this milk that’s going rancid and putting a stench in your nose. Don’t stay in that moment of failure because you can’t unspill the milk. It just doesn’t make sense.

Jesus came to set you free from the past, to bind up your broken heart, to give you a vision for the future, a new set of eyes to see, a new set of ears to hear, a new life to live. Jesus came to lift the reproach of the past off your shoulders so that it won’t cause you anymore stress.

Come on, there are enough things out there to stress you out without your health, your false feelings of inadequacy and your past hurts doing it for you. Do you think?

With all the stuff we have going on in our lives – the technology, the connectedness, the social media, the entertainment options, the emails, the SMS’s, all that jazz – one of the things that many of us have forgotten how to do is simply to be still, to disconnect from the world and just be still.

This week on the program, we’re looking at five practical ways to banish worry and fear from our lives. Today is the fourth of those and it’s really simple. It’s this: sit down and shut up. Sorry to be that blunt and that direct. But sometimes I think that what happens is that we get so caught up in the hurley-burley of life that we never stop to rest and reflect.

You know what happens? Everybody else is so caught up racing around and doing this and doing that, and so we all go racing around and crashing into one another. It’s like a pressure cooker without a release valve. And that pressure causes stress and anxiety, worry and fear. We lose sight of the big picture. And there’s something very special happens when we just get still for a bit, just pull away from it all and get still before God.

So if you remember just one thing from today it’s this: sit down and shut up – get still, get still before God.

That’s what we’re going to be talking about today on the program and I can tell you from my life, which is far busier than I would ever like it to be, this really, really works.

God’s peace … God’s rest in our hearts, how do we get a handle on that? How do we actually experience that amidst a busy life? Well, the answer is in one of my favourite Psalms, Psalm 46. Let me share it with you:

God is our refuge and strength. The very present help in times of trouble therefore we will not fear though the earth should change and the mountains shake in the heart of the sea and the waters roar and foam through the mountains. Though the mountains tremble in its tumult, there is a river whose stream is made glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of that city. It shall not be moved. God will help when the morning dawns. The nations in an uproar, the kingdoms totter. He utters his voice and the earth melts.

The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Come; behold the works of the Lord. See what desolations he has brought on the earth for he makes wars decease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the shields with fire.

Be still and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations. I am exalted on the earth. The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge. (Psalm 46: 1-11)

See, the Psalmist here, at the beginning, with the earth-shaking and the mountains shaking and the sea foaming, he’s painting a picture of uproar and tumult. I mean the Hebrews loved picture language like that.

Now when it comes to fear, it seems that we have short memories. We go through something scary and God shows up and somehow it works out fine. And perhaps, maybe we remember to say, ‘Thank you, God’. Maybe we don’t. And then things calm down again and they go along just brilliantly for a while. And then BANG, the next storm hits. And it’s raging and we’re afraid and we’re fearful. And life’s a mess and we’re running around like chooks with their head cut off. And we’re living through that excruciatingly debilitatingly, immobilising fear that comes when the ground moves beneath our feet.

And we forget … we forget to look back and remember all the times that God’s brought us through those storms before. And even if we don’t have many of those to look back on – let’s say we have none of those to look back on. Let’s assume (worst case), let’s assume, you and I have just this moment given our lives to Jesus Christ and come to faith in Him. Just this moment, we’ve put our life in His hands so we don’t have a single experience to look back on, where we know without a doubt that He’s stepped in and saved us. What we then do is we forget to look back on the God of the Bible. And see how many times He’s stepped in to help His people. It’s what He does and that’s what the Psalmist is reminding us here with these words:

Come, behold the works of the Lord. See what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars decease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow, he shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire. (Psalm 46: 8-9)

God’s saying, ‘Don’t you realise this is what I do. I protect my people. I make sure it all works out. Get a handle on this’.

But God, how? How can I get a handle on this? You don’t understand. I’ve got all these pain happening. I’ve got all this fear happening, people are after me. My finances are in a mess. My loved one is sick. My emotions are on a roller coaster. The mountains are falling into the sea. The sea is angry and foaming. The ground is shaking. The nations are raging. How can I get a handle on what you want to do for me?

Here’s the answer. Here it is right here in God’s Word. Listen to it and remember it. Let the Spirit of God write it on your heart. Psalm 46: 10.

Be still and know that I am God for I am exalted among the nations. I am exalted in the earth.

Sounds so simple – be still and just know. But you know something? When we’re afraid, often the last thing we do, is to get still before God. Even when we’re praying, we rant on. We don’t shut up for long enough. We don’t stay there for long enough to hear God speak.

Over and over and over again I’ve had to learn this one. I’m like you, this doesn’t come naturally. It’s something that I’ve had to learn. When I’m travelling through fearful places and situations and times, more than ever, I take the time to get still before God. I open a few simple passages, this Psalm is my favourite one.

And Philippians chapter 4:13, that we talked about yesterday:

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Romans chapter 8:31:

If God is for us who can be against us?

I let these passages just rest on my heart. And just sit still and focus on God and wait. Draw away from the noises of the day. Get alone with God. Remember these passages. Say them out loud: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can do ALL things. If God is for us, who can be against us?

Because what Psalm 46 tells me, is that there is a reality of a God of gladness and power and protection that is so far above my circumstances. Psalm 46 promises me that, and then tells me just to sit still and wait.

And you know what happens when I do that? I just sit and wait on God and His Spirit touches me and I experience the confidence that I need to make it through.

Not self-confidence but God-confidence, I get a handle on the great unseen reality – God Himself. His power flows into me and through me. All of a sudden the panic goes away. All of a sudden the fear is replaced by faith. God does that. We don’t do it. He does but we just have to sit down and shut up. All of a sudden I have the clarity to think through the problem and to face the realities. And to do what I have to do and to trust God for the things I can’t do.

Oh, and let me tell you ten minutes later, half an hour later, half a day later, the panic wants to come back. It does. The fear wants to come back. And when they come knocking on my door, I just get still with God again. I go back to Him, wait on Him, expecting and waiting.

That’s what it means to live in that city and drink of the streams of that river that make glad the city of God. We need to drink, to drink Him in – His presence, His Spirit, His Word. And then a peace that surpasses all understanding guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

Be still and know that I am God.

Jesus made a firm and solemn promise to His Disciples two thousand years ago, He promised that He’d be back. And to tell you the truth, that may not be all that far away. It could happen today, it could happen tomorrow. So what happens to you, if Jesus returns before you die?

So you get up tomorrow. It’s a day pretty much like any other day or so (you think). But completely unbeknown to you, it’s not just any day. It’s the day that God decides to send Jesus back to this earth – the thing that Christians call The Second Coming.

Jesus Himself described what it would be like. Not some guy on television claiming to be Jesus but a huge, cataclysmic event that none of us – not you or me or anyone else – will possibly be able to miss. We looked at it earlier in the week, Matthew 24: 29-31:

Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.

Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other

I’m imagining that’s going to be hard to miss, isn’t it? You’re getting ready to go to work; you’re brushing your teeth, you’re thinking about what the day holds. If you’re anything like me, your mind is already racing through the to do’s on your to-do list and then … this.

Friend, that’s what it’s going to be like. Your mundane, every day reality is going to be totally interrupted, totally disturbed, totally come to an end – together with a day that all the other 7+billion people on planet earth has planned – it’s going to be over because Jesus has just returned.

The 24-hour news cycle is gone. The newsreader’s on TV is going to have nothing left to read. Can you imagine? Are you ready for this? Because it can happen at any moment, 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5:

Now concerning the times and the season brothers and sisters you do not need to have anything written to you for you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, ‘there is peace and security’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman and there will be no escape.

But you beloved are not in darkness for that day to surprise you like a thief, for you are children of light and children of the day. We’re not of the night or of darkness.

So here’s the question: If you believe in Jesus and you’re still alive on the day Jesus returns, what’s it going to be like and more importantly, what’s going to happen to you on that day?

See, that’s worth knowing I think. Well, the Bible, as always, has the answers. Here we go, Luke chapter 17: 22-37. Jesus has the answers. He said to His disciples:

The days are coming where you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man and you won’t see it. They will say to you, ‘Look there, look here’. Do not go, do not set off in pursuit for as lightening flashes and lights up in the sky from one side to the other so will the Son of Man be in his day.

But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by his generation just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given a marriage until the day Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed all of them.

Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot. They were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulphur from heaven and destroyed all of them. It will be like that on the day that the Son of Man will be revealed.

On that day, anyone on the house-top who has belongings in his house must not come down and take them away. And likewise anyone in the field must not turn back. Do you remember Lot’s wife? Those who try to make their lives secure will lose it but those who lose their life will keep it.

I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed, one will be taken the other will be left. There will be two women grinding meal, one will be taken the other will be left. Then they asked him, ‘Where Lord?’ He said to them, ‘Where the corpse is there, the vultures shall gather’.

It’s pretty dramatic. Do you see the picture that Jesus paints? It’s a normal, business as usual day. Everybody is going about their normal course of business and then BANG … one will be taken up and the other will be left. Whoof! The Apostle Paul describes it this way in 1 Corinthians 15: 51-53. He said:

I’ll tell you a mystery, we won’t all die but we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability and this mortal body must put on immortality.

Friend, are you ready for that? In your heart of hearts, are you looking forward to the day when Jesus returns?

There are two things that I’m sick of, I’m sick of these doomsday people who keep wanting to predict the day in which Jesus is going to return. I think to myself, ‘Are they nuts’? Jesus told us: you’re not meant to know, just be ready.

But at the other end of the scale, I’m so desperately concerned about people who believe in Jesus and yet they don’t seem to believe in the imminent return of Christ. We behave as though this life is going to last forever. We behave as though the rest of eternity is a million years away. Friends, it’s a lot closer than you think. In the context of eternity, it’s just around the corner. It could be this very day, this very hour that Jesus returns. That’s the certain hope that you and I have if we believe in Jesus. That’s the future that lies ahead.

Jesus could come back today, tomorrow, next week. I don’t know whether you’re enjoying your life so much that you’re completely immersed in it; or whether you’re having such a rotten time that you’re drowning in your misery; or whether you’re somewhere in between. But wherever you are, whatever is going on in your world, if you believe in Jesus you have a certain hope that Christ is coming back for you soon. And friend, it’s that hope … that certain hope that’s meant to make a difference to your life today.

Just as I sit here chatting with you, I’m about to head off on a couple of weeks’ holiday. I love doing what I do but it’s hard work and I need a break. So with my wife, I’m heading off for twelve days – away from emails and writing and recording radio programs and managing our team around the world and all that stuff that I love – just to take a break and have a rest. I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to that in these past few weeks. How much? I’m looking forward to it now, the sun, the ocean, the rest, time with my wife is going to be awesome.

But here’s what I’ve been thinking about, if Jesus returned the day before I head off on my holiday, would I feel robbed or rewarded? Would I want to say to Jesus, ‘Look, I’ve got a twelve-day holiday planned, can you please come back at the end of it? In fact, as I look at my diary, mmm, busy that day, meetings, speaking engagement, I’m thinking next month would be a much better time for you to come back. Is that okay with you, Lord? Let’s get it into our diaries and it’s a date’.

Do you see my point? So many of us is so caught up in the things of this world in our day-to-day reality that our hearts aren’t filled with the hope of Jesus’ imminent return. I have to tell you … that is such a terrible tragedy. Listen again to what Paul says, Colossians 3:2.

Set you minds on the things that are above not on the things that are on this earth because you’ve died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Come on! Set your gaze – your vision – your hopes, your dreams on the return of Christ. The things that are above, on the certain hope that you have in Jesus because I’ve got to tell you … Jesus is coming back, ready or not.

Contentment is something of a Holy Grail for many people. In the turmoil and busyness of their lives, they just love to experience that wonderful sense of being content. Well today, we’re going to discover one way of making that happen.

So far over the course of this week, we’ve been discovering how to get our lives on the road to contentment. We’ve seen God’s plan is very much that we should be content. In fact, He places a high premium – a high value indeed on contentment. It is, if you will, a normal part of living our lives for Him, no matter what happens to be going on around us. In 1 Timothy 6: 6-7, He says to us through the Apostle Paul:

There is indeed great gain in godliness combined with contentment. For we brought nothing into the world so that we can take nothing out of it but if we have food and clothing we will be content with those.

Absolutely! There’s great value in godliness and contentment. Contentment is that sense that we’re not dancing to the tune of our desires anymore. We look around at what we have, and what we don’t have, importantly, and we don’t feel that restlessness, that nagging desire to have more, to be more, to have more thought of us. And God particularly wants us to experience that contentment in the face of the conflicts and the trials that we’re going through.

Again, just as the Apostle Paul did, as his life hung in the balance on death row in that Roman dungeon, when amidst all that, he was able to rejoice and to write these words to his friends in Philippi:

Not that I’m referring to being in need for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, I know what it is to have plenty and in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need for I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4: 11-13)

And today, we’re going to discover another way of finding contentment.

One of the things that often robs us of contentment is the desire for more money and the things that money can buy. I used to be very much trapped in this desire for more wealth before I became a Christian. And the more of it I gained, the less satisfied and content I became. It’s a terrible paradox but it’s true. It happens time and time again which is exactly what God tells us in Ecclesiastes 5:10:

The lover of money will not be satisfied with money nor the lover of wealth with gain. This also is vanity.

And so today, we’re going to go to God’s radical plan for breaking free from this addiction to wealth which constantly makes us discontent with whatever we have. And that radical plan involves radical giving. Have a listen to this, this is the Apostle Paul writing to his friends in Corinth. He was a man on a mission to raise support for the Christians in Jerusalem who were going hungry because of a great famine.

So he’s encouraging the Corinthians who are quite wealthy to give in the same way that the Macedonians had given. But the Macedonians, as it turned out, weren’t wealthy at all. Here’s what Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that is being granted to the Churches of Macedonia. For during a severe ordeal of affliction their abundant joy in their extreme poverty has overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.

For, as I can testify they voluntarily gave according to their means and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints. And this, not merely as we expected, they gave themselves first to the Lord and by the will of God to us so that we might urge Titus that as he had already made a beginning so he should also complete his generous undertaking among you.

Now, as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness and in our love for you so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.

I’m not saying this as a command but I’m testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others for you know the generous act of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich yet for our sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty we might become rich.

And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something, now to finish doing it so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means. For if the eagerness is there the gift is acceptable according to what one has not according to what one doesn’t have.

I don’t mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you but it’s a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need so that their abundance may be for your need in order that there may be a fair balance.

Now, the power of what God’s saying here to us through Paul is this: generosity breed’s contentment. Look at the Macedonian’s, they had so little and yet they were so eager to give as much as they possibly could. They begged Paul to be able to give to those who had even less than them, their brothers and sisters in Christ living in Jerusalem who were starving.

Now you might say to me, ‘Berni, hang on a minute, you’re putting the cart before the horse here. Their giving didn’t breed contentment, it was the other way around. They were already content and so their generosity was a product of that contentment’.

True, that’s the way it reads. But Paul here is using their example to test the genuineness of the faith and the love of the Corinthians who were by comparison very wealthy indeed.

This was a lesson for the Corinthians to teach them to be generous because Paul knew that if they could get through this; if they could give generously and sacrificially, the insidious control of that wealth over their hearts would be broken. This act of generosity, he goes on to say, is like mimicking Jesus. Become more like the One who gave up everything so that we might have everything forever.

As surely as night follows day when we start to give sacrificially to God’s work, little by little, the lure of wealth loses its power over us. And we start to experience the contentment that God always had planned for our lives. And that’s exactly how it happened for me.

I didn’t become a Christian until the age of thirty-six, by which time, I owned a very profitable business and I was earning a lot of money. And I remember Christian’s talking about this thing ‘tithing’, the idea apparently was to give a tenth of your income to God’s work. Now, at that point when I became a Christian I was really well off and yet, week after week I’d go to Church, I’d be blessed by the teaching and fellowship, I’d be growing in my faith but when the offering plate came around I’d put in some loose change – Tithing? ten percent? You have to be kidding me.

You’d think for someone who was very well off that it wouldn’t be a problem. But here’s the thing, when you’re earning a lot of money ten percent is an awful lot of money to give away. But God is gracious. And the Holy Spirit worked away at me until eventually, I kind of grimaced and took the plunge – I began to tithe my income. It was hard at first, I don’t mind telling you. It’s almost twenty years ago and looking back on it now, I can see how God used that in my life to set me free from the desire to always buy the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.

I have so little desire for stuff these days which is completely the opposite of what I used to be like. I always wanted to accumulate stuff even though it never satisfied me. And I can honestly tell you that the principle that Paul was talking about there in 2 Corinthians: 8 is absolutely true. It works.

If you want to be content, if you want to break the power of that desire for wealth in your life – a desire that ipso facto breeds discontent in your heart then – start giving sacrificially to God’s work. And pretty soon, sacrifice will turn into generosity and generosity will overflow into a rich abundance of contentment in your life.

This is always the way it works – always.

One of the hardest things to do for many people in life is to overcome insecurity. In fact, for those who feel insecure all the time – there are lots of those people around, even those who cover it up with outward confidence – overcoming this chronic condition can be a real challenge. Overcoming that challenge is what we’re going to talk about today on the program.

People don’t believe me when I tell them that I used to be an incredibly insecure person, I mean terribly insecure, chronically insecure, all of the time. Concerned about what people were thinking of me and how they saw me and what they thought of what I’d said. I mean, what if my voice sounded funny to them? It did when I listened to it from a recording. What if they didn’t like the fact that I was grossly overweight? And I used to be a very big boy. What if they thought what I was saying was downright stupid?

Those were all the doubts bouncing around in my head and my heart and I’ve got to tell you, it’s a terrible way to live your life. Anybody who has experienced that feeling of insecurity or is still living in that place (right at the moment), is right now nodding their heads because they know, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

But the reason people would never have believed that I, of all people, was suffering from chronic deep-rooted insecurity was that, as I said the other day … I was able to put on a very convincing facade of confidence. I’m a fairly strong character. I’m reasonably articulate and I find it very quick and easy to collect my thoughts and to express them coherently. So you combine those two abilities, those natural gifts and you can see how easy it was for me to build that over-confident facade.

Of course, it didn’t fool mature people, wise people. You can always tell when it’s an act. When you have to keep promoting yourself and telling other people how good you are, lots of people will see through that. But others are intimidated by that. They back off although they never love you and respect you for it.

The reason that I’m being so blatantly transparent here, is that I don’t want you to think for one moment that just because I’m this smooth voice on the radio, that I’ve had a perfect life. I am talking about overcoming insecurity here as a first-hand practitioner, not a theoretician. That’s my point.

Today, it’s entirely different for me – completely. When something happens that would have in the past caused me to feel insecure – criticism for instance, or that feeling of inadequacy when I compared myself with other people or perhaps someone knows more about a particular subject than I do – when those things happen these days, I’m just completely at ease. There’s not a single twinge of insecurity that swoops through me.

This one single transformation in my life is one of the things that I’m most thankful to Jesus for. And right now, I want to tell you how it happened because it was all about what He did for me not about what I did for myself. Please understand that – it’s all about Jesus.

You hear about people who have emotional problems like going to see a therapist or they go into therapy, we sometimes hear it said. And there’s a role for counselling and therapy but my therapy came in the form of rehabilitation that was fed to me directly from God’s Word.

The single most powerful most incredibly mind-blowing transformation that I’ve ever experienced in my life has come from quietly, every day, reading God’s Word. Praying about it, thinking about it and then letting the Holy Spirit write it on my heart so that I can live it out.

That’s how therapy becomes rehabilitation; the Word becomes deed because that’s what God does. You start by crawling, then by limping, then you slowly graduate to walking and one day you find yourself running. It’s how God seems to work.

Yeah okay, there’s the odd lightning bolt out of the sky that zaps you with power, but there are also weeks and months and years of quietly just living out God’s Word as a form of powerful rehabilitation.

So what part of God’s Word impacted me and set me free from the deep insecurities that I’d lived with all my life? Well here it is, it follows on where we left off yesterday, where we were talking about living out the unique gift that God’s given each one of us. Romans 12: 9-21, just quietly drink this passage of Scripture in and let the Holy Spirit have a powerful effect in you as He speaks into your heart:

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Don’t lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, extend hospitality to strangers.

Bless those who persecute you, bless and don’t curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep, live in harmony with one another. Don’t be haughty but associate with the lowly, don’t claim to be wiser than you are, don’t repay anyone evil for evil but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.

If it’s at all possible, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved never avenge yourselves but leave room for the wrath of God for its written ‘vengeance is mine, I will repay’ says the Lord. No, if your enemies are hungry feed them, if they’re thirsty give them something to drink for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.

Do you see how there’s nothing spectacular here? God’s just quietly talking about humbly using your special God-given gift and the ability to bless others and going and doing it? Nothing spectacular. Just quietly day after day after day, all different ways of doing that, outdo each other in showing honour, be patient through suffering, keep on persevering in prayer, generously contribute, hospitality to strangers, and the list goes on.

Day after day, it’s so simple. It’s too simple, it’s too obvious and yet what happens is that as we exercise our gifts over and over and over again to bless others, just by doing good like we just read here, the Holy Spirit flows out through us, the blessing of God flows out through us and as well as blessing all those other people out there. God blesses us by validating who we are, who He made us to be, what He made us to do and the stuff we’re good at.

He validates that as we use His gifts He’s given us in action. He uses us. He works through us. You see there’s the rehab, there’s the transformation, right there and there is a whole new sense of self-worth, self-esteem, self-image being rebuilt from the ground up by God.

Isn’t that just beautiful? Isn’t that completely wonderful? Do you see how God’s Word here powerfully translates into simple actions that bless others and transforms us? See, only God can do that. Only when we accept Jesus into our lives and God’s forgiveness flows and the Holy Spirit’s power flows can that transformation take place.

I feel like I’m jumping out of my skin at the moment at the sheer privilege to be able to share this beautiful truth with you today – the wonder of God’s plan for your life. Do you have any idea how much He loves you? Do you have any idea how great God’s plans are for you?

God doesn’t want you to live in chronic insecurity. God doesn’t want you to suffer from pride or from low self-esteem or as I did both at the same time. God wants to set you free from all of that to humbly, yet powerfully live out the life of blessings that He has planned for you.

Yes, through a whole bunch of trials and temptations that will come your way. I mean the devil is not going to leave you alone when you start living out this life, be sure of that. In fact, the mere fact that he comes after you with his legions of demons is a sure sign that you are on the right path.

Your God wants you to know that the image in which He created you is His image. And the hash that you’ve made of things, through your sins, is wiped away through your faith in the fact that Jesus paid the price for you on that Cross. And that His power, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, is at work in you now to restore you back into that original image.

And the more you see that image appear in you, the more you’re going to delight in who He made you to be and the more that deep insecurity is going to flee from you – trust me, I know.