I think everyone has an insecurity that they battle with. Even the most confident person has something they see in themselves that makes them a little weaker than before. Physically speaking, mine is my height. I'm a whopping five feet, and every person I meet loves to remind me of that (and use me as an armrest, please don't do that). This isn't something that keeps me up at night, but it's something that does bug me. You most likely have something, too. And it drives you nuts. But let's be vulnerable with one another: sometimes my insecurity goes beyond my height. Sometimes my insecurity runs straight to the way I think of the Gospel.

A couple weeks ago, I laid in my bed and my roommate beside me, and I cried and said to her, "I don't feel like I earn the Gospel and that scares me."

Theodore Roosevelt said "comparison is the thief of joy," and how incredibly true that is. I compare myself daily. You may, too. And that completely distorts our view of the Gospel. I've had this fear of rejection, being pushed to the side, and being forgotten, because I've experienced it. I've allowed my fear of not being good enough to move into my focus. We've all experienced some sort of rejection, and that rejection has the power to overpower truth if we let it.

Your worth lies in the cross. In the empty tomb. In the mercy of the sweet God we serve. Nothing else.

This is a hard truth to believe some days. Do you have those days where you wake up and go about your day and the Gospel is so apparent? But then the next day, you feel as if you wake up and it's silent. No sign of the hope you were so passionately holding onto. Nothing.

The Gospel still stands.

On your worst day, the Gospel applies to you. On your best day, the Gospel applies to you. In your biggest sin, the Gospel applies to you. In your biggest insecurity, the Gospel applies to you.

No bad day, no rejection, and no insecurity negates the Gospel.

We should live every day in this truth, and you have to challenge yourself to ask, "Am I living in the flesh or in the Gospel?"

Living in the flesh is wishing I was taller. Living in the flesh is disobedience. Living in the flesh is thinking I won't receive the good news because I am the way I am. But living in the truth is being confident. And being transformed every day. And resting in His acceptance rather than the world's rejection.

To me, the Gospel is more than the cross, the death, the resurrection. It's the promise that He is present in times of doubt, of weakness, and of insecurity. He is embracing us when we have good days and bad days. He is healing us when we approach in pieces. He is giving us an abundant life that will fill us to the brim. And that should affect my life in a way that nothing else can.

The fact is I don't deserve the Gospel. And neither do you. And we never will. But our hope is secure in the fact that it is given to us freely by a God who loves us more than we can imagine.

Even though I may look at myself and think that I'm easy to push the side or forget about, the Lord never looks at me that way. As the world is full of rejection, we rest in the fact that our God is accepting and gracious.

Are you willing to make a move into that promise? Willing to move from living and thinking of the flesh to living and thinking of truth? That is where the difference is made, friends.

This is the truth: God's love for you was and is so great, He bridged the gap in between so you could live an abundant life of joy and security and grace. He waits for you. He is patient for you. He loves you.

You are worthy of the Gospel because Christ loves you, not because of what you do or don't do. This should be the truth rooted in you, and the rest will overflow from that.

Continue to believe the truth and stand firmly in it. This is what I'm challenging myself to do, and I hope you'll join me.

^"20...and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

²¹ Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. ²² But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—

²³ if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant."
Colossians 1:20-23

"In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence."
Ephesians 3:12