My father, third from the left in the above photo, was a volunteer firefighter when I was a boy. I got excited whenever the siren sounded from the firehouse. Dad would dawn his protective gear and race to meet the fire trucks before they sped to rescue person or property. It never occured to me that he might not return. The tragedy that struck our nation on 9/11 is a reminder that we, too, might not return – from work, from a drive, from a trip. Not to be moribund, but it is the simple truth. There is very little in life which is truly secure.
UNIVERSAL NEED
All of us share a deep inner desire to feel secure, safe, confident, and good about who we are on the inside. It’s a powerful need, and effects our performance and satisfaction in friendships, dating, school, career, athletics, and health. Inner security itself greatly depends upon four special components:
• Love – to be respected and cared for by others
• Inspiration – to have the wisdom and courage necessary to handle life’s challenges
• Forgiveness – to maintain a sense of purity and self-respect
• Eternity – to enjoy the guarantee that security will never end
What we want is much more than a feeling of security. We require the fact of security – an absolute safety that is independent of our feelings or circumstances. Where can we discover such security?
LOOK BEYOND YOUR PERFORMANCE
Most people’s security is built upon their performance – their ability to earn a degree of love, inspiration, forgiveness, and a touch of eternity. Successful performance may make us feel secure for a time. But if we are really honest for a moment, we also realize the facts: Life is not just, circumstances change, and we all eventually die. Whatever security we create for ourselves will eventually be lost. Performance-based security is really no security at all! We need a love, inspiration, forgiveness and eternity that is stronger than we can ever achieve or produce. Is this really possible? Yes. We can enjoy more than a “feeling” of security. We can be assured in security as a fact.
ULTIMATE SECURITY COMES FROM JESUS
Abandoning trust in our own performance is pivotal in our search for security. Instead, consider the life of the most secure person in history: Jesus Christ. He was saturated with God’s love, and filled with incredible wisdom and courage – not just on occasion, but throughout his life. Free from guilt and share, Jesus transcended the need for forgiveness. And through it all, he maintained the assurance of living forever. But Jesus’ security was not due to his performance. Instead, he received it as a gift from God. Wouldn’t it be great to experience the security that Jesus did? It is possible! We are deceived in believing we can become truly secure by our own efforts. The Bible calls this deception “sin” – rejecting God’s gift of security, and holding out for one we can self-generate. Jesus is God – the one who created the universe, who created life, who created truth itself. As God, it’s no wonder he enjoyed such inner security during life on Earth. The wonder really begins when we realize that he wants to share his security with you and I. All Jesus asks it that we stop trusting in our performance to make us secure, and start trusting in the security that he provides. When we begin to trust Jesus a remarkable metamorphosis occurs within, and we are instantly filled with Jesus’ LIFE.
TRUST IN JESUS’ LIFE – His Love, Inspiration, Forgiveness, and Eternity
• Jesus’ Love
Answering our need for belonging and acceptance Jesus gives us his own enormous love – strong, tender, and unconditional. In John 3:16-17 Jesus himself describes the extent of his love: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believers in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” A measure of one’s love is the degree to which he or she is willing to give to another. Jesus gave his very life – the ultimate measure – as a demonstration of his passion for you and I. In the assurance of his love us we can find enormous energy, hope and enthusiasm!
• Jesus’ Inspiration
Responding to our need for wisdom and courage in life, Jesus fills us with ‘inspiration’ in the most profound sense. One day Jesus stood up at a feast and proclaimed, “‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water shall flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive” (John 7:37-9). When we trust in Jesus, we receive more than just a new hope and identity. We also receive Spirit, who lives within us as a source of integrity and gifts to confront the challenges we face. This is inspiration in its most potent sense!
• Jesus’ Forgiveness
Satisfying our need for purity and a clear conscience, Jesus grants a full pardon – obliterating the record of every offense we ever have or will commit. Spiritually speaking, we are spotless. Morally speaking, we are blameless. Emotionally speaking, we are truly free from our past. Paul explains it well: “God made him who had no sin (Jesus) to be sin for us, so that in him (Jesus) we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus was our substitute, taking on himself our personal guilt and shame for every offense, and freeing us to show forgiveness to others.
• Jesus’ Eternity
Fulfilling our need for hope, Jesus promises Eternity – that today and forevermore we will continue to be truly secure. It’s an assurance absolutely guaranteed: “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40).
No matter what challenges we face in life, we have Jesus pledge of continued love, inspiration, forgiveness, and life forever. In this promise we can find tremendous confidence, courage and joy today! The security of Jesus is wonderful in the extreme. But it is not an end in itself. His security in our hearts is meant to be expressed through the way we live. We can speed off to battle the “fires” of life with renewed energy and commitment, assured that regardless of the outcome are indeed safe forever.