Life is a race. We have to run it. And like any race, it has its difficulties and agonizing moments. How do we get through them? In a race, you keep your eyes on the finish line. In the race of life, we keep our eyes on Jesus. The sufferings God allows along the way will make us stronger. Our Heavenly Father wants what is best for us, and wants us to finish the race even more than we do! Jesus is the way! Jesus is our finish line! He finished everything for us by running his race to the cross for us. He made it possible for us to experience that joy with Him! Let’s fix our eyes on Jesus!

As the saying goes, there are only two things you can count on in life: death and taxes. No matter how well your life goes or how awful it goes, death is something we all face as human beings. Escape from pain in this life is only temporary. We need something better to look forward to. God is better than anything life gives us or death can take away from us. We have the one thing that can give us what we need: the resurrection of Jesus! Because He lives, we will live! Christianity gives us something more than a story! It gives us an actual person raised from the dead. And He, Jesus, gives us the certainty of resurrection! He is our resurrection!

Living the Christian life isn’t just about trying to be good or trying to do better. That will just lead to frustration. We have to understand how serious a problem we have. Guilt and shame are real, and without Jesus, we have no way to deal with guilt or shame. The only way to pay for guilt is with sacrifice. Forgiveness always costs… someone has to pay. The awesome thing about our God is that He doesn’t demand our blood but offers his own. Jesus offered his own life to sacrifice for us. Once and for all. A sacrifice made on our behalf is what makes us what to “be good and do better” to experience the joy in life God wants us to have! The only thing that will give us complete rest is knowing Jesus loved us enough to be our sacrifice!