Salvation doubts are different for everyone. Whether it’s a fleeting question or a crushing weight, doubts are a burden we as Christians were never meant to bear. Still, in my past experiences, I couldn’t help but fall under this feeling of hopelessness, giving into the lies and doubts that surrounded me. I left my back door unlocked to them, and I didn’t know how to fight back as they invaded my heart and my peace.
This led to many tears, sleepless hours, a heavy heart, and a crushing weight I carried with me everywhere I went.
I can never be saved.
What if I haven’t done enough?
What if I said the prayer wrong?
What if I die and realize I wasn’t predestined for heaven?
What if God isn’t even real?
Lie after lie tumbled in like rolling boulders and raging waters, and I took every hit.
Have you spotted the problem in this yet?
It took me a long time to realize how much ‘I’ crept into my doubts. For every fleeting ‘Is God real?’ were ten folds of ‘I’m not good enough’s and ‘I’m doing it wrong’s.’
So today, I want to break down three of the biggest lies Satan slipped into my head, and by the end of this article, my prayer is that you feel more ready to lift up your sword and fight against the doubts that threaten to break you.
What if I’m Not Doing Enough?
As mentioned above, many of my doubts were fears about my failures and my shortcomings. And I found that the simple question of ‘what if I’m not doing enough’ manifested itself into many different doubts and fears. A major one I’ll discuss is my belief of ‘what if I said the prayer wrong?’
When I was younger, and even during a recent wave of doubts, I’d be kept up at night in tears, begging God to save me. And for every sliver of peace I felt, I felt more doubts beat against me the morning after, leading into the continuation of the cycle. Like a centripetal force, I couldn’t fall out of the endless loop of prayer, peace, doubt, repeat. And I could only think of one logical reason why I felt this way: Surely I was saying the prayer wrong.
Several verses in Scripture make the path for getting salvation clear: Romans 10:9, 13 states, “…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved…For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” But as simple as the verses put it, my anxious heart couldn’t wrap my mind around it. ‘How do I call on the name of the Lord?’ ‘Do I just say ‘Jesus is Lord?’ ‘Am I missing a part?’
Again all the ‘I’s’ stumble on my tongue, and I reach a mentality of do, do, do.
But I forget: What Jesus did is DONE.
There is nothing left to do because what Jesus did is done. So it doesn’t matter if I missed a detail in my prayer, because it was never about me getting it right in the first place. It was about me accepting and trusting in the free gift God had already given me when He died on the cross for me.
John 3:16 says this beautifully. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Of course, there are things we need to know and believe in: Jesus Christ is Lord, He is perfectly sinless, He died for our sins, God raised Him from the dead, etc., but it isn’t about including a whole list in your prayer. If you believe in and want the gift of grace that is Christ, you just have to trust in God for it.
Jesus doesn’t come with a shipping cost.
Your prayer acts more as a declaration to God of your faith in Christ, rather than a request that will take 5-10 business days for God to enact upon. So stop worrying about ‘I, me, mine’ and start praising God for ‘He, Him, and the grace He paid for in full.’
And trust that when you ask God for that grace it will be yours. There’s no reason or desire for God to withhold Himself and His grace from a true and contrite heart.
Is God or Scripture Real?
Have you ever held the Bible up to your face and imagined God’s breath coming off the pages? I got the idea from a book I read earlier this year called Crazy Love, and sometimes I do it when I feel God the least. I lift up this book of life to my face and just ask God to open my heart and draw near to me.
Because while most of my doubts centered around ‘I’s, there was also a hint of fear that it was all just a hoax. God’s not really real, the Bible is just some fancy book, how can God even be possible? When I couldn’t feel the Spirit of God within me, the logical side of my brain would be quick to come up with excuses. The piece of me that just couldn’t understand the full glory and grandness of God would count it as impossible.
But there were some things I did know about Scripture (which declares God’s existence):
- The Bible is without contradiction, and there is an enormous amount of archaeological evidence supporting its contents (with nothing discounting it).
- In the Bible, women were the first people to see God after He rose from the dead, which was very counter-cultural. If the book really was written by wise teachers and not God, they likely would have claimed the disciples to be the first to see Jesus to make it more believable. This points to God being the author and not man.
- I’ve felt personal convictions that the Bible is in fact the word of God.
So no, it isn’t all a hoax. Even if it’s fully beyond our understanding, that’s okay, because that’s where we can have faith. Just because something is beyond us doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
As my nana would say, “If we knew everything about God, He wouldn’t be a very powerful one.”
And do you know what Scripture says?
God is very, very real.
He is true, trustworthy, glorious, holy, loving, kind, just, merciful, and perfect.
When doubts creep into our minds, Scripture should be our first weapon, and it really is a great one, because it is truth incarnate.
So when the practical side of yourself tries to chalk God up as a myth, you can trust that the Word of God is clear evidence of His existence and His sacrifice for you. When we let the power and authority of Scripture sink in, we can fight back against every one of our doubts, whether it be about God or from within ourselves.
Is God Tired of Me?
When I would lay in bed, begging God to save me, and still not feel peace, a new doubt settled: He’s probably tired of me.
I’ve annoyed God.
Why would He want to be near me?
I’ve sinned too much for Him to still want a relationship with me.
Salvation felt like the cartoon where the carrot is dangling on a string in front of a rabbit; whenever I leapt toward it, it lurched farther away from my grasp.
I think sometimes we get so focused on the just characteristics of God, that we feel He can never accept our sin-soaked offering. Why would a God want someone so hopeless, so desperate and useless?
Because God loves you.
He had the crazy kind of love to send His Son down from Heaven to die a brutal death to bring you back to Him.
He loves you.
Just as you are–that’s the person He died for. That doesn’t mean we were meant to stay the same, but we don’t have to wait to become our most ‘holy selves’ before accepting God’s gift.
And remember, when we ‘ask’ for salvation, we are more so accepting and putting our faith in what Jesus has already bought for us. We’re coming before God with a penitent heart, acknowledging and submitting to Him as the Lord and king of our lives. And when we pray this prayer God isn’t staring at us with an eyebrow quirked, His fist clenched around our salvation as if pondering whether the request was earnest enough to give it.
Matthew 7:7 says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
God loves you, and He wants to be with you.
That’s why He came, that’s why He died, and that’s why He rose again.
When we remember God loves us, and died a bloody-sacrificial death for us, we realize He’s not trying to keep salvation from us.
Saying a prayer isn’t ‘the final boss’ to receive salvation, because Jesus already won it for us.
So remember God loves you, He died for you, and there’s nothing you have to or could ever do to earn His love or grace. So just rest in it, friend. Rest in His love when the enemy threatens to drain the color, joy, and peace from your life and prayers. Jesus is a firm foundation, and we can trust in His sacrifice. And praise God because He is Just and He is Love.
He. Loves. You. He didn’t think twice before dying for you, He’s not going to think twice before giving you salvation.
Conclusion
Doubts are a heavy burden, but praise God we don’t have to carry them! He gave us the sword of the spirit and the shield of faith to fight against the flaming darts of the devil, and we can rise against those doubts one swing at a time.
Scripture is real, God is real, God’s love is forever, and when He said ‘It is finished,’ He meant it.
But if you are still struggling and you genuinely believe you aren’t saved, I invite you to say this prayer and accept the gift of Salvation God has for you. These words aren’t some secret formula or the key to salvation, they’re simply a guideline if you don’t know what to say. Remember it is ultimately what Jesus has done for you that saves you and whether your heart is willing to accept it.
Dear Jesus,
I am a sinner, I have failed in so many ways, but I believe that you are Lord and the sacrifice you made on the cross covers it all. Please forgive me for my sins and be the King over my life.
Amen.
If you prayed this prayer, I send you all of the virtual hugs. ß
God loves you, and He wants to lift that burden, so leave it behind at the foot of the cross, and follow God, sword in hand, to wherever He may lead.
– Kami
P.S. Still struggling? Don’t keep it to yourself. Talk with a pastor or trusted, godly adult, and share your concerns, doubts, or fears. I’m also attaching the link to several books that were very helpful to me in better understanding salvation and the amazing gift that is Jesus.
You can make it through this friends, Jesus isn’t done with you ❤
The Case for Christ – Lee Strobel
Why I believe – Chip Ingram
Committed 2 Christ 
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