In the last couple of weeks, I have had the opportunity to share God’s love with a few people. Inevitably, the conversation has led to this question: “How can God love me, yet send me to hell?” This has been where the conversation ended because I sensed the person was more interested in a debate rather than the truth and I am not God’s lawyer, I’m His daughter.
But this morning, I just want to set the record straight about my Dad. It is not His desire that any should perish. (II Peter 3:9) He wants all to come to repentance. But he gives each of us a choice. Heaven is a choice. Hell is a choice. My Dad loved you and I so much, that He gave His most precious gift – His Son.
His love for you (yes, He loves you even if you don’t believe in Him, even if you don’t trust in Him, even if you think you are the worst sinner ever) is unrelenting. He is pursuing you. Even reading this post is God’s pursuit of you. He is constantly given you every opportunity to choose Him because He loves you.
Jesus was not sent to divide sinners and saints. He was not sent to condemn you and send you to hell. No, just the opposite. He was sent to provide a path to heaven. He was sent to give us life in the full (on this side of heaven and the next). He was sent to break the chains of addictions, of oppression and depression. He was sent to heal and demonstrate the life we could have in the Kingdom. He was sent so that sin would no longer be our master. He was sent because God loved you!
So my friends, to answer your question, “How can God love me and send me to hell?” God gets no pleasure when one of His children die without choosing life. He is not in heaven saying, “You sinned today, you’re going down (literally).” He is not picking and choosing who goes to heaven and hell. He has given each of us equal opportunity to choose heaven. He has given us all equal access to the kingdom. It is us who gets to choose. Jesus literally laid down His life so that every person on the planet could go to heaven. He is not sending anyone to hell. But because He loves you and will not take away your free will, He allows you to choose.
Choose wisely today. Choose life abundantly, choose peace, choose joy, choose freedom. Not just for the next life but for today. God loves you!
““For God so loved the world that he gave his only and unique Son, so that everyone who trusts in him may have eternal life, instead of being utterly destroyed. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but rather so that through him, the world might be saved. Those who trust in him are not judged; those who do not trust have been judged already, in that they have not trusted in the one who is God’s only and unique Son.”
Yochanan (Jhn) 3:16-18 CJB
http://bible.com/1275/jhn.3.16-18.cjb
