Today’s world is becoming increasingly insecure. Many are apprehensive about their futures. It was not like this a few decades ago. For the majority today, faith in everything lacks stability. Is it possible, then, to have confidence in anything at all during times of rampant uncertainty?

As a child and young adult, I loved Christmas. The premature deaths of two husbands revealed life’s precarious nature yet deepened my faith in Christ. What once was enjoyed lost its charm. My spirit, piqued by the sparkle and secular traditions of the Christmas season that I loved, grew closer to God. Through Bible study and prayer, my Christian faith blossomed into the sure and certain hope in Jesus that it is today.

Discernment is essential because much of which is commemorated about Christ’s birth is not biblical. Jesus was probably born in the spring or autumn, not December, for instance. Unlike His birth, though, the commemoration of Jesus’s death and resurrection are historically tied to Judaism and celebrated at the appropriate time of the year. For biblically faithful Christians, anything outside biblical orthodoxy or based on culture and tradition is troubling when it impacts doctrine and Christ’s commission to go into the world and preach the gospel to all people.

We live in a time when everything is being questioned. Questions help us learn but when they lead to hatred and violence, people lose their freedom to question and grow. Our God of perfect love is sovereign, and He will not be mocked. God created humanity to love Him and to love others, even our enemies. The denigrating of the Bible in recent decades continues to attack Christianity even though more Christians are defending the Bible. The Christian’s greatest concern is the mockery of God and His Word.

Additionally, too much time is spent parsing biblical specifics which have little import on knowing and serving God through Jesus and on one’s eternal security. Much of what God deems as right and true in the Bible is being questioned, torn apart and reassembled, and not for the better. This does everything but increase faith in God in whose image people are created.

Too much time is wasted on nonessential issues. What is necessary for people to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus and follow Him is often overshadowed by the sensational but insignificant. In the meantime, so-called Christians who gain wealth and fame lead people away from Christ and the gospel truth. Being preoccupied with things unnecessary to salvation (e.g., annihilationism, misogyny, gender identity, and racism) takes time and effort. Such efforts tend to lure more people away from God and the Bible.

People have always spent time questioning what God says about hell. While an eternal heaven evokes little debate, the biblical concept of an eternal hell is more contentious. Many assert that a kind, loving God would never condemn anyone to eternal suffering. Some theologians defend the eternal suffering of the unsaved, while others defend their annihilation. We can choose a side but we may not ever know which one is right. So, why waste our time? Is there any harm in debating the issue? There is.

First, God does not need anyone to stand up for Him. Second, what person can presume to know better than God? All that we can do is choose sides, which is an exceptionally long shot for most people, who follow the best educated guesses of the learned. The wisest, most scholarly theologians take great care in what they say and read into the Bible. Third, the wise will spend their time, efforts, and money on what God describes as wise and valuable.

Discussions and debates like these are sparked and fed by a be-rich-and-feel-good pop culture that is driven by world power brokers, not by God. For close to a century in North America, the Walt Disney and Hallmark empires, to name two, birthed and fed fairy–tale relationships to the masses. Many who consume steady diets of a good life through relational propaganda often find it difficult to relate to God. The Bible warns of the harm of mixing God and reality with magic and the imaginary.

The wise leave what is of God with Him. Our responsibility is to worship and trust God through learning what the Bible says. God is in charge and is the great interpreter, not us. The faithful have complete confidence in Him. Relationship with Jesus assures us that we are secure in God, as are all who have followed Him. There is much in life to detract us from relating with God, which is most important and which He desires. Such things fool us into thinking that we have all the answers and decrease our dependence on and relationship with God.

Faithful Christians know that God alone holds the answers. They rejoice in seeking Him through honest and respectful questions. They trust God with their spirits because they know that He created them to live eternally with Him. The only ones who will not live eternally with Him are those who refuse His love and depend upon themselves or other people. If heaven is one’s destination, there is no need to even contemplate what hell encompasses.

The only confidence that anyone can have in days of uncertainty is to abide in the Lord Jesus Christ. Bible-believing Christians have full assurance of eternal life every second of every day when they trust in and rely on God first in prayerful discernment.