Contemplating Man

Questions, Questions

"If I try to obey the Bible's exhortation to 'put off the old person and put on the new,' who is choosing to do that? Me or the new person in me? Is there a difference?"

Christlike by Bill Hull

God Is Love

"My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love."

--1 John 4:7-10, The Message

Dueling with Doubt

Concerned Woman

Sam's head ached so badly he thought it would crack. When he tried to pray, the thought came swiftly and strongly, "You're talking to an empty room!" Before he could complete his next sentence, the thought returned, "Emptiness! There is no one out there."

The idea hit him like a thunderbolt: What if there was no God? He stopped praying and sat on his bed, lost in a complex meandering of unbelief. Doubts surged through his drumming headache: "There is no God, so there cannot be a Christ! You're wasting your time! There's no one out there!"

I'm familiar with the doubts that attacked Sam, since I've fought the same war myself. One of my battles hinged on the assertion, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved—you and your household" (Acts 16:31). I had believed in Jesus, and I desired that my household should believe too. I understood "household" to include my 75-year-old father. As head of our extended family, he was custodian of the traditional worship of ancestors. Although I prayed for him, I struggled against doubt. Will my father ever believe in the Lord Jesus and be saved? I asked myself. Will he leave ancestral worship behind?

Doubt doesn't fight fair.

 

Read the rest of the article from the Discipleship Journal archives.