How often do the little lies come to you? Maybe you feel like you’re not worth enough. Perhaps thoughts that you haven’t done enough or just that God is mad at you for some reason. Those thoughts come at times and we all struggle with them from time to time.
The goal is when you have any thought of any kind that is contrary to what the Bible says is to recognize it for what it is. It’s a lie. And know that even though your emotions might not line up right away, replace that lie with God’s truth.
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. – Colossians 3:2-3 (NIV)
In today’s verse, we’re challenged to put our minds on things above. So when those lies come that tell us we’re not enough or get us to question God’s word, we just determine to not spend time thinking about those things.
Instead, begin to replace those with God’s truth. This is because of what Jesus did, sin no longer has any hold on you. And walk then in the freedom Jesus provided you. Walk free from fear, condemnation, and any other thing that would cause you to doubt your worth or value to God.
Picture this: you’re sitting in class when the lecturer says something that contradicts Scripture—something you’ve never heard before. As everyone else nods and takes notes, you notice your heart is beating faster. What if you’re wrong about your biblical beliefs?
This scenario isn’t just imaginary. It’s what I’ve experienced firsthand as a Christian student at secular college. But we don’t only hear unbiblical messages in classrooms. Whether online, in conversations, or even at church, persuasive—but unbiblical—messages may pop up anywhere. How can we respond?
Enter, Intellectual Foundations
The answer lies in having what I’d call strong intellectual foundations—one of three personal foundations Christian students need to keep their faith strong at college, as my last article explained.
Building intellectual foundations involves learning some basic apologetics. As the field of study which looks at why Christianity makes rational sense, apologetics helps us answer questions like, “How do we know the Bible is true? Does science contradict Scripture? How does Christianity compare to other beliefs?” (A great place to dig into these topics is AnswersinGenesis.org.)
But no matter how many apologetics answers we learn, we’re always bound to have new questions. So, we must also be able to think like apologists—to process new faith-challenging messages and arrive at biblical, logical answers ourselves. That’s where the other side of intellectual foundations comes in: biblical critical thinking skills.
Critical thinking is all about evaluating messages to see if they’re worth believing. To give you a head start building strong intellectual foundations, let me share the critical thinking system that helped me process new messages in college.
How I Learned to Think About ‘Facts’ That Challenged My Faith:
First, when I heard information that seemed to contradict my beliefs, I resolved not to panic. I knew God’s word is true; therefore, any message that conflicts with Scripture must be a lie. And every lie must ultimately fall apart.
With that in mind, I’d put faith-challenging information in quotation marks when writing notes in class. This reminded me that the information was just my professor’s explanation—not an absolute fact. Next, I’d flip to the back of my notebook and write down my questions about the information. This record of my questions let me follow up on finding answers later without feeling like a weight of vague uncertainties was accumulating against my beliefs.
When I had the chance, I would then filter the information through a series of mental checkpoints I call the Seven Checks of Critical Thinking:
Check Scripture: What does the Bible have to say about this topic?
Check the challenge: Does this message contradict clear teaching from Scripture?
Check the source: Who’s sharing this message? What is the source’s credibility and worldview? How did they arrive at their information? Is the information being reported accurately?
Check the definitions: How are keywords being defined? Do their meanings change?
Check for propaganda: Why does this message sound true? Is it trying to persuade by appealing to logic, or to something else like emotion, appearances, or humans’ desire for acceptance?
Check the interpretations: Which parts of this message are facts we can observe in the present, and which parts are assumptions, interpretations, or speculations about the past? What’s another way to explain the same observations from a biblical perspective?
Check the logic: Are there any other errors in reasoning that should make me think twice before believing this message?
This seven-step framework helped me respond biblically to almost all the faith-challenging information I encountered in college. But sometimes, I still had unresolved questions. That’s when I’d have to give God my remaining questions, to remember that He held the answer, and to trust Him even if He never revealed that answer to me.
Unanswered questions can be fiendish faith destroyers. But faith crises don’t start when Christians begin asking questions. They start when we give up on finding answers. And three great places to find answers include Scripture, solid apologetics resources, and godly mentors. (More on that next time!)
Thinking Biblically
With these tools for evaluating new information, and with apologetics knowledge for answering common questions, you’ll be well set to build strong intellectual foundations. Then you’ll be prepared to defend your hope in Christ with gentleness (1 Peter 3:15) whenever you hear new a faith-challenging message—in college and beyond.
Patricia Engler is a Christian apologetics speaker, writer, and Youth Outreach Coordinator for Answers in Genesis. After 12 years of homeschool and a B.Sc. degree, she backpacked 360°around the world documenting how Christian students keep their faith at university. The top takeaways from this research are available in Patricia’s book, Prepare to Thrive: A Survival Guide for Christian Students. You can follow her stories and get connected through Facebook, Instagram, and AnswersinGenesis.org.
since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. – Romans 1:19 (NIV)
We can often feel fearful about sharing our faith with others. If you’re like me, you probably don’t think that you know enough. You might feel like you don’t have all the answers to the questions that someone might ask you, so out of fear, you stay quiet and don’t speak up for Jesus.
Maybe you wonder whether your sharing might turn someone off to Jesus because you can’t answer all their questions.
First of all, don’t let the things you don’t know stop you. You will never know it all. And there will always be a question you don’t know the answer to. But be honest when you’re talking to someone about Jesus and tell them you’ll find the answer out and get back to them.
Secondly, you don’t need to know all the answers. Simply share God’s word with them. That’s the best answer to any question they might have. The word of God is powerful.
Finally, don’t be afraid to share your faith with others, because deep down, they know God is real. Today’s Bible verse shows us that people know God is real in their hearts. So don’t be afraid to share your faith with others. Trust God’s word to do the work, and be bold to share your faith to a world that needs Jesus.
And without faith living within us it would be impossible to please God. For we come to God in faith knowing that he is real and that he rewards the faith of those who passionately seek him. – Hebrews 11:6 (TPT)
Do you like playing video games? A few months ago, I installed a game on my phone. I kept playing it over and over again because I loved moving on to the next level of the game. I found it rewarding to unlock a new level of the game and so it kept me engaged. As humans, we are wired to like things that are fun and rewarding.
Have you ever thought about how God finds spending time with you rewarding? The maker of the universe wants to spend time with you. He loves you and wants to get to know you in a deep way. He wants to reveal Himself to you and show you how great He is.
Today’s Truth: God finds spending time with you rewarding!
To get to know God, however, it takes faith. We can’t see God with our eyes or hear Him with our ears. We’ve got to get to know Him on a spirit level. That takes faith because we can’t touch or feel Him. However, once we come to God on the basis of faith, God rewards us. He loves us and wants to make Himself known to us. It’s rewarding to develop a relationship with God.
Today if you haven’t already, set aside some time to get to know God. Get into the Bible and read it for yourself. Get to know God through His word and through prayer. If you dig deep, you’ll find that getting to know God is really rewarding!
I remember a few weeks ago, I was irrationally scared. Thoughts of fear kept coming into my mind and even though I knew they weren’t true and based on God’s Word, I couldn’t seem to shake my fear.
Maybe you’ve experienced something similar. Where you keep having thoughts that aren’t Biblical. And those thoughts cause you to be upset even though you know they’re not true.
So how do we combat thoughts when they don’t make sense, but feel so real? Here’s what I did. I went to the verse in Mark 9 that is today’s Bible verse.
The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” – Mark 9:24 (NLT)
And I asked God to do the same thing for me as that father did. I said God, help my unbelief. I do believe you and I believe your word is true, but for whatever reason, I’m still struggling in this area. Guess what? God helped me. After a few days, I was less afraid as I reminded myself of the truths found in God’s word.
And so, if you’re facing something where it just seems hard to believe, don’t forget to go to God and ask Him for His help. He can help you in the areas where you’re weak and need Him.
A few days ago, one of our readers mentioned feeling sinful and struggling with the voices in their head that keep telling them they aren’t doing enough, or praying enough, or reading their Bible enough.
Wow! Isn’t that the truth? I know I certainly have felt that way at times. Because if we’re honest, most of us certainly don’t read the Bible enough, pray enough, worship enough, or even do enough good to really justify God’s love, do we?
We know that instinctively, but the devil likes to remind us and bring thoughts to us that cause us to think that God doesn’t really love us and that we aren’t doing enough.
But here’s the truth.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast – Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV)
None of us can do enough. None of us are good enough, none of us pray enough, read the Bible enough, or really do enough at all. God’s standard is so high that not one of us could ever meet it on our own. That’s why we needed Jesus.
And yes, we should try to read our Bible, pray and do good things, but it’s out of a heart of love for Jesus that we should be doing those things, rather than hoping to do enough to earn God’s love.
Then we have to realize that the thoughts that tell us were sinning, that we’re not doing enough are not godly thoughts. And we need to replace those with God’s truth. Yes, I didn’t read my Bible today, but I know that God loves me and it’s not by reading the Bible that I gain God’s love but it’s through Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. So don’t let yourself feel down and bad about yourself. Yes, you should want to read your Bible and strive to do it, but when you don’t, just receive God’s forgiveness and know that those thoughts that tell you otherwise are lies.
My son, if sinful men entice you, do not give in to them. – Proverbs 1:10 (NIV)
How do you live as a Christian in a world full of sin and not get swayed by the pull of all the sin around you?
That’s a really good question. And sometimes, not giving in to peer pressure can be really difficult. You can feel lonely not following the way of others, and sometimes even wonder if it’s truly worth it. And while those feelings are natural, I want to encourage you, that standing up and not giving in to peer pressure is worth it.
You’ll never regret standing up to peer pressure. But you very well might regret giving in to it.
One of the best ways to stand firm during times of peer pressure is to remind yourself of your relationship with Jesus. Realize that He’s the one you’re living your life to please, and really when it comes down to it, it’s His opinion you should care about most.
So today, don’t give up your stand. Stay strong in your faith in your beliefs and know that your relationship with God is the most important thing there is. Keep loving Him and He will help you in your journey.
Walking through the classroom door, I could only imagine what I might be getting myself into. Secular college, I’d heard, would be a spiritual battlefield like none I’d experienced before. Would my faith survive?
As the semester unfolded, I constantly heard messages which contradicted God’s word—like the idea that humans evolved from apelike ancestors over millions of years. This idea lies at the heart of a worldview—a system of thinking about everything in the world—known as secular humanism. A quote from one of my professors summed up this worldview by claiming, “God did not create people; people created God.”
Although I realized these ideas were false, hearing them taught as fact every day wore on me. What helped me survive with my biblical beliefs intact? The answer comes down to three personal foundations that God had helped me prepare as a teenager:
Spiritual foundations: Keeping a close personal walk with God.
Intellectual foundations: Being able to logically defend biblical beliefs and answer messages that oppose God’s Word.
Interpersonal foundations: Staying surrounded by strong Christian community, including godly family, friends, church, and older mentors.
After I graduated, I backpacked 360° around the world asking other Christian students about their university experiences. These conversations revealed that, although Christian students face diverse challenges worldwide, the solutions for overcoming those challenges look incredibly similar. They all trace back to having those three foundations I’d needed as a student.
What are some of the top practical steps that Christian young people can take to develop these foundations? Answering this for all three foundations will take a couple more articles. But for now, let’s start with Spiritual Foundations.
Walking with God
No student can keep their faith during university unless they have their own faith to begin with. The point isn’t for us to masquerade behind our families’ faith, but to cultivate vibrant personal relationships with God that color our moment-to-moment lives. As a result, we ground our identities in this relationship with Jesus rather than in anything temporary.
During my own teen years, nothing kindled my desire to pursue God this way more than reading missionary biographies. Stories of ordinary people who witnessed God’s extraordinary faithfulness made me want to know God like that myself, and to approach every aspect of life—even schoolwork and summer jobs—as part of a greater mission with Jesus. With this mindset, I could view challenges in university as opportunities to draw closer to God by giving him my concerns (1 Peter 5:7).
How to Build Spiritual Foundations
If spiritual foundations involve walking closely with God, how can we build those foundations now—and keep them strong throughout university? Here are three ways:
Pray
Talking to our heavenly Father is one of the best ways to draw close to God and impact our world. A vibrant prayer life includes not only setting apart daily time to meet with God, but also practicing an ongoing attitude of prayer by transforming whatever we’re doing, thinking, and feeling into opportunities to pray throughout the day.
Worship
After hearing a tough lecture full of unbiblical messages in college, I remember heading outside to detox my mind by listening to worship. Playing instrumental worship while we work, taking study breaks to sing or listen to worship, and checking the songs in our heads throughout the day are all great ways to stay “in tune” with our Creator.
Soak in Scripture
Reading God’s Word every day, memorizing verses, and even listening to audio Bibles while going about our day helps us stay filled with Scripture. This, in turn, equips us to spot lies, counter temptation, and live the lives for which we were created.
Along the way, we can keep our foundations strong by prioritizing daily time with God, being aware of little compromises which could hinder our relationship with God, and drawing biblical boundaries ahead of time—before we face pressure to compromise our convictions.
Pursuing God
Ultimately, building strong spiritual foundations prepares us not only to thrive as Christians in college but also to live the life we were created for: a life of relationship with God. Then, whichever doors God leads us through—whether into a college classroom or out to the world beyond—we’ll be confident that we’re going there with our Creator.
Patricia Engler is a Christian apologetics speaker, writer, and Youth Outreach Coordinator for Answers in Genesis. After 12 years of homeschool and a B.Sc. degree, she backpacked 360°around the world documenting how Christian students keep their faith at university. The top takeaways from this research are available in Patricia’s book, Prepare to Thrive: A Survival Guide for Christian Students. You can follow her stories and get connected through Facebook, Instagram, and AnswersinGenesis.org.
Many people in our world doubt the validity of the Bible. And it can be easy for us as Christians to pick up on those attitudes. We can wonder, can we really trust it either?
And the answer would be yes! The Bible is very trustworthy. There are many reasons to believe the Bible.
Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God. – Romans 3:2 (NIV)
One of the main reasons is that the Bible tells us that it’s the very words of God. So when we read the Bible, we can trust it because it’s God speaking to us and leading us.
Reason #2 – The Bible Is God Speaking to Us
So don’t believe the lie that the Bible doesn’t matter or doesn’t still speak to you today. It’s God’s word and it’s powerful and applies to your life.
In our world today, there are many people who mock the Bible. They will spout off all the reasons why it can’t be trusted, and maybe even ask you to give some reasons why you believe or trust it. And if you’re like me, you might not be really sure why you should trust the Bible.
Maybe you know that your parents like it, and you’ve read some of it, and you feel encouraged by it. But what are some reasons why you should believe the Bible, in the middle of a world that seems to be very hostile to it?
Reason #1 – The Bible is Honest.
In the Bible verse below, we see the historical ancestry of Jesus. It starts at Adam and goes through all the people that were in the ancestry of Jesus.
Now if I was to write my ancestry, I would have put only the really great things my ancestors did. You know, like if I had one that created a new invention or one that did something really amazing.
But look at what today’s verse says.
and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife – Matthew 1:6 (NIV)
Here it is, telling us the failure of King David and spells out that David had Uriah’s killed so he could marry Uriah’s wife.
The Bible doesn’t try to hide anything. It tells it like it is. Why is that a good thing? Because when the Bible talks about other things like salvation, we know that it is telling it like it is there as well.
So when people question your belief in the Bible, one of the great reasons why you should stand up and say it’s a good book is that it’s honest and that it tells the truth in every area that it deals with.
