5 Reasons God Allows Tragedies Like the Sandy Hook Massacre To Occur

Townhall.com ^ | January 1, 2013 | John Hawkins

[OrangeHoof]

Here’s what I don’t get. You can go through life as a good person, never harming a sole, and yet if you don’t believe in god he takes offense and sentences you to an eternity in a lake of fire.

What’s the purpose of that? Why does an all-powerful deity need to be worshipped, thanked and praised constantly. Is he insecure?

I’m not trying to offend. I just can’t grasp the concept of eternal torture for not believing. A kind loving god?

Assuming you meant these as honest questions, let me offer the following:

Christianity teaches that ALL men fall short of God's perfect righteousness. We all sin and sin dwells within us as long as we are in this mortal body. No one has to teach a child to lie or steal. Rather, we have to teach them not to.

So the flaw in your question is presuming that the theoretical person is "good". He/she could be by your standards but not to God's by His standard of holiness and righteousness.

God requires holiness and righteousness of everyone who enters into His kingdom after death only we are all doomed to fall short of this without the act of Jesus Christ on the cross to bear that punishment for us so that we might have life everlasting through Him.

So what becomes of the aborted fetus or the gunned-down six-year-old or the bushman who was never told about the gospel of Christ? Where do those souls go? I can't answer that except to say that God is just and fair. It wouldn't help you, however, because I've just explained Christ's work to you so you can't say nobody ever told you.

Is God insecure? I doubt that but worship and thanks should be a natural outpouring of our souls when we fully understand God's love and mercy towards us. Would you be ungrateful if someone saved your life and you couldn't have saved it on your own?

As for the Lake of Fire, perhaps it helps to understand that Christians believe there are only two possible outcomes after you die - in one you are brought to Heaven to worship and fellowship with an eternal God and the entire family of those who believed Him. In the other, you spend eternity cut off from God's mercy and fellowship because you chose to reject it. There's no "third choice" option.

We ALL deserve the Lake of Fire for our sin and impure hearts but God allows us to escape this through the free gift of Jesus' work on the cross. He desires all to be saved but He allows everyone the free will to decide what personal choice they want to make. He doesn't want to be worshipped by robots who had no choice. He wants us all to decide for Him or against Him.