Crossroads | Is this it?

It's not a religious question. It's the most human question there is.

We all want a full life. Nobody wakes up and picks a path to misery on purpose.

So if that's the goal, why does it so often slip through our fingers?

Here's what I've noticed. When we don't feel truly alive, we go looking for something to fix it.

A relationship, that promotion, that house, that goal, that experience: surely that will do it.

We hand one thing after another the job of making us feel alive, and each one works just long enough to keep us from looking anywhere else.

And slowly, quietly, we get shaped by it. Nobody wakes up one day and decides to become bitter, or selfish, or someone they don't recognise. It happens one moment at a time.

One reaction we regret. One thing we said that we should have kept to ourselves. One small compromise.

On their own, they feel like nothing. Added up, they become us.

If I'm honest, I'm no exception. Just the other week I rang my daughter's work and told them she was sick, when in reality she was at a school camp (I’d convinced myself that she’d left for camp without realising she was rostered on).

The problem was: she'd already rung them that morning and explained she was on camp.

I lied over nothing. If we're all honest, none of us fully measures up to the person we know we're meant to be.

Which is why the story of Jesus is so intriguing.

Strip away the religious wrapping, the claim at the centre of faith is that a man named Jesus lived, died, and three days later walked back out of the grave.

That very claim is worth pondering. You may have your disagreements with church, organised religion, all of it. But if it's true, that changes everything.

Death is the shadow over every human life. It's the thing we medicate against, distract ourselves from, build our whole lives around avoiding.

And the heart of the faith is that Jesus said "No" to death. He walked into the one thing we all fear, and walked back out.

And here's the part that I love. The life he offers isn't something you have to wait until you die to get.

It's on offer now. Not rules. Not religion. Life. In fact, Jesus' words to his followers were, “I have come that they may have life to the full.”

So, is this it? No.

But this, right here, right now, might be where it starts.

If Jesus truly did die and live, that changes everything.

Rob Wiltshire

Epicentre Church