“If you could ask God any question, what would it be?” We asked hundreds of students this question, and they came up with these five. We cannot say everything there is to say about these topics, but here is a great place to start!
If God is this all-good, all-powerful being, doesn’t He have the resources to prevent evil and suffering?
Without the freedom to choose right and wrong, we would be like robots. While God does have the power to prevent suffering, He has created us with the freedom of choice. We can obey Him and live by faith doing good things, or we can disobey and do evil and thus suffer consequences of our wrong actions. And others may suffer from our evil actions as well.
Maybe the better question is, “Is there any purpose to our suffering?” The Bible shares many good results from suffering. Here are three of them:
- To develop character and hope: Paul tells us in Romans 5:3-4, “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance produces character; and character produces hope.” Character is involved in the ability to handle tough situations and help others who are going through similar suffering. Hope keeps us from giving up and helps us to see how God is loving us in our present reality.
- To get our attention: Sometimes when we are doing the wrong thing, our Heavenly Father uses suffering to get our attention. He wants to remove everything from our lives that keeps us from walking close to Him in a love-faith relationship. Suffering, as a result of wrong behavior, can either bring us closer to Him or it can make us angry and push us away from Him. (Hebrews 12:5-11)
- To help us understand God: Sometimes suffering is not because of something we have done. There will be times when God allows us to suffer so we can understand how much He is in control and He is able to work in peoples’ lives. Jesus was drawn like a magnet to human grief, sorrow, and suffering; His very heart beats for the hurting. God feels hurt and compassion when we suffer, and He does not stop at empathy. Christ’s suffering on the cross for our sins proves that He understands and cares enough to step into suffering on our behalf. Even if we cannot understand the exact reason behind our suffering, we can still receive comfort and strength from a God who really understands and cares about us. (See 2 Corinthians 1.)
Sometimes when we are doing the wrong thing, our Heavenly Father uses suffering to get our attention. He wants to remove everything from our lives that keeps us from walking close to Him in a love-faith relationship.
Experiencing guilt is like being a live rabbit in the mouth of an enthusiastic dog. It grabs us by the back of the neck and shakes us around. We feel helpless until released from its grip.
We respond in different ways to this guilt. We beat ourselves up for being bad, try to justify our actions, or blame someone else for what happened. None of this truly gets rid of the guilt. What we need is forgiveness, either from the person we hurt or from God.
To experience the forgiveness of God, we need to accept what God says about payment for sin. God, as a righteous and perfect judge, has declared that all people who have sinned need to be punished for their crimes. Sadly, we are included, because all people have sinned.
Because of His great love and justice, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to become a human. He lived 33 years, trained 12 men, and at the height of His popularity was crucified in Jerusalem by Roman soldiers. While Jesus hung on the cross, God the Father poured out His righteous and holy anger against sin, punishing Christ for all sins ever committed by anyone, past, present, and future.
Jesus was perfect and God was completely satisfied with Him and with His substitutionary death for us on the cross. Christ paid the full penalty for our sins, and He offers to completely forgive all our sins. All this was part of God’s plan. Our response is to accept that forgiveness. How do we do that?
- Confess Your Sin
Confess means to agree with God. We are agreeing with Him that our thoughts or actions were wrong and we agree that Jesus’ death on the cross covers us and that He is still forgiving us. Admitting we have done wrong brings us back into a close walk with God. Once you first come to trust Christ, you are always forgiven, but your daily relationship is hurt by your continual sins.
It’s like this with your mother. If you do something to hurt her, she will still be your mother, but your relationship with her will be strained. If you admit to her you are wrong and she forgives you, then your relationship is restored. It is similar with God. If we confess our sins to God, He can always be trusted to forgive us and take away our sins. (See 1 John 1:9.)
- Repent and Accept Forgiveness
To repent means to turn away from sin, to change your mind. It expresses sorrow for sin and a desire to quit doing what you have just confessed. Accepting forgiveness means we trust God forgives us just like it says in 1 John 1:9.
When we sin, we naturally want to run away from God, not towards Him. It takes faith to come back to God to confess your sins. Part of repentance is paying back people if you have stolen or broken something. If you have hurt another person, you must apologize.
Additionally, you need to forgive those who have hurt you:
If you forgive others for the wrongs they do to you, your Father in heaven will forgive you. But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15.)
Instead, be kind and merciful, and forgive others, just as God forgave you because of Christ (Ephesians 4:32).
This is the forgiveness God intends for you. The result is experiencing real happiness and freedom that comes from knowing God and having a clean conscience. He no longer views you as guilty. Your Creator is not an offended judge, He is a gentle Father (Romans 8:15).
This changes how we relate to Him! The guilt you carry can be removed. When you seek forgiveness through Christ, you move from being alienated from God to being the object of His delight!
Christ paid the full penalty for our sins and He offers to completely forgive all our sins.
It seems only natural to ask God about our future. Deep down we know God is big, awesome, and all-knowing. Why doesn’t He let us in on some of what He knows? He does, if we know where to look.
Questions about our futures should not be consumed with who we should date, what job to take, or seeking fame, but rather how our ultimate needs of love, security, recognition, and significance will be met.
To understand our future, it helps to review the past, and here we have a choice of what to believe. Either we exist as a random, impersonal result of chemical reactions over billions of years, or we were created personally and lovingly by an Almighty God who rules the universe which He created. If there really is an eternal God who created you, then two important questions follow:
- Where will you spend eternity?
- What is your purpose for existing here on earth?
God tells us in Paul’s letter to the Romans in the New Testament that God has given us minds and a conscience to recognize truth and make right decisions. This ability is stronger when we trust Him to forgive us.
As we place our faith and trust in Jesus, we become a new person (2 Corinthians 5:17). From that point on, we can be sure of God’s promise to us that we will spend eternity in heaven with Him. This is a result of God making us spiritually alive as we place our faith in Jesus.
God changes our hearts and attitudes and causes us to want to love and serve Him and others in ways we could not do before we knew Him. We experience peace that literally goes beyond understanding, even in the midst of difficult problems.
God gives us the stable qualities of love, joy, peace, and a tremendous security, based on His unchanging forgiveness and love, as we learn more about Him and what He wants to do in and through our lives. These are the real needs and desires for which we all long.
Look at all the things around you that were designed by humans to make your life a little easier. All were made for a specific purpose. Your phone works best as a phone, not a small rectangular shovel. It operates best when used according to the original designer’s plans.
You are worth much more than your phone. God designed you for a specific purpose and knows exactly what you need. We, as God’s beloved children, exist to know God, to make Him known, and to be satisfied in His love forever.
What does the future hold for you? You really do not want the timeline of your life spelled out in the dirt; rather, you want to know everything is going to be all right. And with God, it will be ultimately. Why? Because He made you and He cares for you.
While you may not know what the future holds, you can know God is the one who holds the future and He is good (Jeremiah 29:11-12). Through prayer, study of the Bible, listening to the Holy Spirit, participation in church, and fellowship with other Christians, God will actively guide the decisions you will make as you trust and rely on Him daily.
God does not want you to impress Him with good deeds--He wants to be in a loving relationship with you.
As we think about God, it seems inevitable that we will ask Him, “What in the world do You really want from me?” However, we run into a problem when we think about who God is compared to who we are.
God is perfect; He does not and cannot do evil, and He is always totally fair. This means He is holy. The problem comes when we realize this is also what God requires of us. He states quite clearly in the Bible, “Be holy as I am holy.” (See 1 Peter 1:16.)
We actually need God to be perfect. If not, then what would our lives be like if, whenever God spoke to His creation, all His decrees would now be open for revision and updates?
Here’s our deeper problem: If God really is good, then He has no option but to exercise His wrath and judgment on those who sin. That is a big problem. Remember, if God is holy and pure, then He cannot stand to be in the presence of evil.
So, God’s perfection does three things:
- It tells us what God is like and that we can actually trust God even more because we know His love and forgiveness never changes.
- It keeps us from self-destructing. God’s standard of perfection actually benefits all of us. Without rules and order in the world, we would self-destruct in a short amount of time.
- It shows us our need for God. God is the only one who can provide a solution for the problem of our falling short of God’s perfect standard. Our sin and its destructive consequences hurt and damage people, but we do not really understand the impact of sin until we recognize that it hurts God most of all.
Once we fully grasp from what God has saved us, an attitude of thankfulness and service to God will be a natural response. God does not want you to impress Him with good deeds; He wants to be in a loving relationship with you.
As you begin to more fully embrace what it is that God has already done for you, can you see the original question, “What does God want from me?” becomes, “What do I get to do for God?”
As you walk by faith, you will be thrilled God has something far better in store than what you could have ever imagined. His love and forgiveness and the power He releases in our lives when we trust Him are the proof.
In fact, as you share your personal story of trusting God and seeing Him work, someone may be more inclined to trust Him as well. You can use our worksheet to help you share how God has changed your life!
Devoted followers of all religions should go to heaven, correct? Let’s look at a few major world faith systems: Hinduism, New Age, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. Each of these religions has sects with differing beliefs, but let’s take a brief look at a central belief of each.
- Hindus believe in 300,000+ gods.
- Buddhists say there is no deity.
- New Age followers believe they are god.
- Muslims believe in one powerful but detached god.
- Christians believe in a God who is loving and approachable.
In looking at these major belief systems and their views of God, we find tremendous diversity. Obviously, it is not logical to say all these claims are equally true, because different religions claim things which contradict the claims of other religions.
You are welcome to read read more about these religions, but a key distinctive of Christianity is God welcomes us into a relationship with Him. He is an all-powerful God who does not distance Himself from us, but Who loves us.
In other religions, a person has a relationship with teachings, ideas, paths, or rituals. In Christianity, a person has a relationship with the loving and all-powerful God. He welcomes you to know Him, to experience His joy, and to have confidence in Him in the midst of life’s challenges.
God yearns to adopt us as His children. He sent His son, Jesus, to pay the penalty for our sin and give us His Spirit to make us into a new kind of people. Think how much the Father loves us! He loves us so much that He provided a way back to Him so we could be called His children. (See 1 John 3:1.)
In Christianity, anyone can begin a relationship with God. It is as simple as recognizing that you have been going your own way in life, asking God for His forgiveness, and surrendering your life to Him. You can do this right now, simply by telling Him your heart’s desire, through a prayer:
“God, I ask you to forgive me and invite you to enter my heart right now. Thank you, Jesus, for dying for my sins. Thank you for coming into my life as you said you would.”
These are five of the most asked questions about God, but you can find even more answers to great questions about God at everystudent.com. Everyone has questions and we have tried to give answers to the most common ones there.
Do you have a friend who has questions like these, but you do not know how to start the conversation? Read more about how to take the initiative and start a conversation with your friend about what really matters.
