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Chapter 12—How to Handle Doubts and Confusion
Never be anxious about whether or not you are saved. By making
yourself the center of that question your thoughts become centered
on yourself and away from Jesus. Once you’ve committed your life
to Him, trust Him, talk to Him, think about Him. Put every doubt
and fear out of your mind. Here’s how.
Young adults, especially, find themselves plagued by doubts. It
has many causes. For example, they can’t understand some things
in the Bible and wonder if they’ll ever understand. They may seem
unable to get beyond those doubts. Here’s something to hold on to:
God never asks a person to believe anything without giving enough
evidence on which to base one’s faith. His existence, His character,
the truthfulness of the Bible all can be accepted by the reasonable
evidence He provides. God doesn’t remove the possibility of doubt,
for He wants us to have faith. Anyone who wants to doubt can find
reasons to do so. Likewise, all who really want to know what is true
will find plenty of evidence on which to rest their faith.
Our minds are finite, and it is impossible for us to comprehend
what is infinite. The most brilliant mind, the most educated person,
will always face the ultimate mystery in the study of God. God’s
Word has many mysteries we’ll never understand: how sin came into
the world, how Jesus came to earth as a man, how He was raised
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from the dead, how we are saved. These are all mysteries beyond
our full understanding. But that’s no reason to disbelieve them! We
can’t understand life in the physical world, even the simplest forms,
so should we be surprised to find mysteries in the spiritual world
that we can’t fathom?
Skeptics love to argue that the many things in Scripture we can’t
understand are a good argument against accepting it as God’s Word.
But you can argue just as compellingly that its mysteries are the
most persuasive argument for its divine origin. And, paradoxically,
it shows us the way to be saved with a simplicity that anyone who
chooses to understand can understand. The more we search the
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