by Joseph C. Alkire

Created on: July 04, 2009   Last Updated: July 06, 2009

We have been reinforced with Gods' love throughout our lives. Since childhood we have been taught that God loves everyone. As we grow older, we learn about the differences between good and evil, heaven and hell, angels and demons, God and Satan, and Jesus and the Anti-Christ. Confusion often sets in as our spirituality matures and we reason within ourselves, " If God loves us so much, why does He send us to hell"? The other way of looking at that statement is " Does God send us to hell or do we send ourselves to hell "?

Where does our free choice or free will come into play in this decision that we have no control over? Certainly God does not want us to be robots with no emotions or sense of love. He would not want us to go about HIs bidding being mindless, would He? Many people believe in "Free Will" (We choose whether we go to heaven or hell). Others believe in "Election and Pre-destination" (God chooses who goes to heaven and who doesnt. We are pre-destined to go to heaven before the creation of the world). As the scriptures say, "Ask and Ye shall Receive". If that is the case, even the most evil people in the world could just ask and it would be granted just like that. Easy, right. Maybe not. If all we had to do is ask, then we could have fun all our lives and not worry until our end is right around the corner. Just ask, and we're there. Simple. Life should be that easy and the question of God sending us to hell wouldn't really matter. Just ask and receive.

To answer the question of a loving God sending us to hell, we must first understand who God really is and what He is all about. We can never fully understand who God is because He is extremely complex and we do not have enough information about Him. The Bible tells us that "As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways than your ways and my thoughts are than your thoughts". This piece of scripture puts some distance between us and God. God told Moses to take off his sandals by the burning bust because the ground Moses was standing on was Holy Ground. He also told Moses that anyone who saw Him face to face would surely die.. If God were not Holy and Just, why would He put a tree of knowledge of good and evil in the midst of a garden? Before sin entered the world, nothing stood in the way between God and man. God communed with man daily. Only until Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the fruit of knowledge did God cast them from the garden (good analogy for heaven). God being a Holy and Righteous God cannot have sin before Him. Thus the reason for man being cast from the garden. God in His mercy made a sacrifice for Adam and Eve and clothed them because they were naked. With the sacrifice of Gods' only Son, now we have a way to stand before Him.

The Gospel of John says that "God sent His Son not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved". Jesus also thanked God for keeping the eyes of the pharisees and sadducees blind and their ears from hearing lest with their eyes they should see and with their ears they should hear and be converted. Here we have two sides of the story. God saving the world through Jesus and keeping people from being saved. Only through Gods mercy and His grace can we be saved from any kind of judgement. If we are honest with ourselves and God, humble, and truly seeking forgiveness, all we need to do is "Ask and it shall be given freely".

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