Yesterday began a three week class at Church called "Your New Life". Week one focuses on what new life is and how to receive it. Week two looks at assurance of new life, how to know that you do have it. Week three looks at growing in new life and sharing your story. As I sat with three people yesterday and began working through the material this thought came to me, "The worst part about Hell is..."
If you stop and think about it, the question almost seems redundant. Hell is a place of darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is the place reserved for the Devil, his angles, and those who reject Jesus. It's a place of eternal death and suffering. But the worst part about Hell is that it is eternal separation from God.
Think about it. We were made for the sole purpose of glorifying God, and existing in relationship with Him. We were made to have communion and fellowship with Him. That perfect relationship was broken when sin entered the world through disobedience, but because of Jesus it can be restored. Here on earth God still speaks. He still reaches out to us and pursues our hearts. Until the moment we die, God is longing for us and reaching out to us for the relationship we were made for.
In Hell all of that goes away. In Hell God's presence is completely absent. God does not speak, and God no longer reaches out for relationship. It is a place where sin goes to die forever, and where God is not. The worst part about Hell is that God is absent from it. It is there that the souls of those who rejected Him in life, will be sent for eternity. Those who wanted nothing to do with God in life, will spend eternity completely separated from Him. In Hell the soul is completely cut off from the One it was created to exist with.
Hell does not have to be your eternal destiny. You can enjoy an eternal, and perfect, relationship with God simply by accepting the new life that He offers through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus. Dying Jesus paid for sin, and rising again He defeated it along with death and Hell. Jesus made it possible for us to have a relationship with God again. If we accept the free gift of grace that He offers to us, we will never know Hell. Instead we will enjoy unity with God forever, just as we were created to.
"I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread."
To God alone be the Glory!
Peace be with you
