How would you like a week's holiday on a tropical Island?  Two months touring Europe? A brand new car, fully equipped?  Or maybe a brand new house, completely fitted and furnished?  Perhaps you would just like to be in a position where you had the choice to do any (or all) of these. Wouldn't that be nice. Wouldn't that be really living?

..... At least that is what many of the commercials and magazines tell us. True happiness comes from having the power and resources to do what you like, when you like.

Interestingly, "The Age" this week published results of a survey which confirms what Jesus told us 2000 years ago, true happiness does not come from being financially well-off. The happiest people in Asia were found in the two poorest countries. In the wealthier countries, people on the whole were less content with their lot.

"Really living" - it comes through giving up one's life, not through trying to save it. More particularly, giving up one's life to Jesus Christ. Paul puts it this way: "For now we really live since you are standing firm in the Lord." (1 Thess 3:8)

Strange that. It stands in stark contradiction to everything that we are taught in the media today. And yet the truth of it can only barely be expressed. Really living - putting your life in the hands of the One who created and redeemed it. Simple, but profoundly satisfying.