Lucas Leys - 101 Tough Questions, 101 Straight Answers

To the entire international team of Especialidades Juveniles. Im proud to serve God and this generation beside you.

Who among us doesnt have questions? We all have them, and its good to have them. Ignorant people arent the ones whohavequestions, but the ones who neveraskthem. Discovering answers to our questions always helps us grow and develop. It helps expand our brains. I get frustrated when I see adultosaurs in our churches, who are content to continue hiding their questions and have no intentions of looking for answers. These are missed opportunities, because real convictions grow out of doubts. Yes! Sincere belief is not simply parroting back what weve been taught. Sincere belief comes when weve wrestled through our doubts and have become convinced of truth. Think about that for a few seconds and let the concept stimulate your brain

Thats why its so important to dig for answers to our toughest questions, even those that have to do with our faith. That said, I believe this book has the potential of becoming one of the most important books that you read during your youth. So, if you dont want to find answers to your doubts, I encourage you to give this book as a gift to another person who does.

The idea of writing this book was born as a result of knowing thousands of young people who had questions and couldnt find answers. For several years Ive been using a group exercise I call Ask the question that you always had and never dared ask with groups all over the world. The experience consists of distributing pieces of paper to the audience and allowing the teenagers to anonymously write down the most important questions they have. After collecting the pieces of paper, I pick random questions and do my best to answer them without skipping any, which makes the teaching time totally interactive. At 99.9% of the events where Ive done this, the experience was powerful and revealing. Many are surprised at the questions that come up and many are surprised at my answers. Unlike what happens with other lectures, I always have a difficult time ending these, because everybody wants me to keep picking questions until the one they wrote comes up. There are times when the event organizers get frightened by the questions young people ask me, and I cant deny that at times people have been angry with me over my direct answers. But to those who are surprised by my answers I reply that ignorance is never a good counselor, and we cant possibly believe that its better from a spiritual perspective to leave young people with their doubts. Dont you agree? A mother once came up to me a bit angry because her 15-year-old daughter had heard me talk about sex. I wanted to be polite, but I had to tell her that I was sure her daughter had already talked about sex at school, that she had discussed it with her friends, and that she could get plenty of information about it on TV. Sometime later this same mother looked for me on Facebook and told me she needed help, because she had found some text messages in her daughters phone in which her boyfriendwho the mother didnt even know she hadwas talking to her about the passionate physical intimacy they had shared a previous night.

For all these reasons, this book was born.

This is not a book meant to be read in order from the first page to the last. You can jump to the question you want on the page you want. The 101 questions are divided into 10 categories, and as I was saying, they were born from the experiment of answering anonymous questions from thousands of young people all over the world. Thats why within each category the questions arent in any order, but instead its as if theyve come out of a box in which weve just mixed them. Some were received in Cuba, others in Peru, others in the United States, several in Spain, many in Argentina, some in Guatemala and so on, probably from all the Spanish-speaking countries in the world.

The 10 categories are as follows:

Bible/Theology
Spiritual Life/Gods Will
Friendships/Relationships
Parents
Sex!
Is That Wrong?
Vocation
Service/Church
Counseling
Personal Questions

When some of my friends who are pastors and leaders found out that I was going to write this book, they told me that I was very brave to write this type of book. One of them even tried to dissuade me from writing it. Obviously I enjoyed hearing that they felt I was brave, but I had to ask them why they were saying it, as I wasnt sure I understood them. What they told me is that knowing methey knew the book would be very direct. Not only would I bring up subjects that are considered taboo, but also many of my answers would be controversialand possibly many people wouldnt agree with me. I replied that, yes, I anticipated that, but somebody still had to write it. To not give a response to the questions of young people due to fear that someone might get angry or might not agree with me would mean becoming an accomplice to the ignorance and conformity that we should strive to eliminate. Of course not everybody will agree with some of the answers, but I can assure you that I prepared each one of them with lots of research, respect for Gods revelation, and responsibility. In fact, many questions and answers come directly from the Bible, and my job was simply to point you towards them.

Many questions and answers relate to each other, and its possible that some answers will give you answers to other questions, and that some answers will generate new questions. Its also possible that some questions and answers will seem childish to you. As I heard questions in different places, I realized there are things that are spoken about in some parts of the world without shame while in other places they cant be mentioned in public. Sometimes its not even a matter of different countries, but even from one church to the next there can be a world of difference. So I also recommend that you search the index for your own questions and go directly to them. However, I also suggest that later you check the answers to all the other questions that arent as important to you. You might be surprised. But enough about instructions. (Does anybody like instructions?) Here come the 101

WHAT WE BELIEVE ABOUT GOD AND ABOUT THE BIBLE WILL DEFINE THE TYPE OF CHRISTIANITY THAT WELL BE ABLE TO ENJOY.

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.
Psalm 119:105

God is eternal. This means He always existed and will never cease to exist. God is not a created being, but He is the Creator of all that exists. Nobody created Him. He existed before the beginning of time. The Bible, in Psalms 90:2 says, Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

For God there is no such thing as time or space in the way that there is for us, because He is present at all times and in every place. This is a difficult concept for our human way of thinking to understand, but the truth is that God has no beginning and no end. There are things that we cant quite understand because our minds are limited and God has no limits. But the Lord Himself explains it in Revelation 1:8: I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. Do you know what it means when it says that God is the Alpha and the Omega? The New Testament was written in the Greek language.