If you find yourself unable to answer this question on your own, I can promise you that you are not alone. On the surface, this question seems so contradicting it might as well say "God loves you but wants you to burn in torment forever." Which I can promise you is not true. Let's start slowly.
Yahweh is a loving God. This is found all over the bible. 1 John 4:8 says "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." Not only is God love, he also loves his creation, especially people. Psalms 139: 13-14a shows God's intricate work creating each and every one of us: "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Though he showed his love to us while creating us, his biggest act of love was sending Jesus and Christ for us "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). We will come back to the part of Christ dying for us, but for now, realize that, yes, God does love us more than we are capable of loving and more than we could even imagine.
So, How then can such a loving God send people to an eternal punishment? This is where we have to start really thinking. To start off, the verse just above sheds a light on who we are as people "...while we were still sinners,..." That's right friends, we are all sinners, meaning we are all people who choose to do wrong. Don't believe me? Check out Romans 3:23a "For all have sinned." Still don't believe me? Well, here's a simple test that we all fail. Think about each of these questions and answer truthfully: Have you ever lied? Have you ever stolen something? I don't know about you, but I have done both of these uncountable times. Right off the bat, we have broken two of God's commandments. So, already we are both liars and thieves. Let's continue. Have you ever looked at someone with desire—or "lust" as the Bible calls it—? I can again say that I have done this a number of times. Not only is this lusting, the bible takes it one step further to say: "I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28). Ladies, don't think you get off free on this one; that verse applies to you to—just chop off the "wo" in "woman". But, the bad news doesn't end here. There's one more question to this test: Have you ever hated someone? So have I. Most would consider me a loving person, but there are still those people that I just can't help but despise. The Bible says in 1 John 3:15 that "anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him." Based off of those four questions and what the Bible says, we are all liars, thieves, adulterers, and murders. How do you feel about yourself now? Pretty crumby, ehh? (Excuse my Canadian)
If you are feeling too crumby to continue, I jumped the gun for you and provided the good news just below to lift your spirits and give you hope. All of the information in this next paragraph will also be provided later on, so it might seem like I am repeating myself.
The Bible says that God is more than just loving: he is also perfect. This means he hasn't done a single thing wrong like we have, whether it be an act, thought, or spoken word: "As for God, his way is perfect: The LORD's word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him" (2 Samuel 22:31). Not only is he perfect, he is also just: "God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you" (2 Thessalonians 1:6). Sometimes it is hard to see how someone can be perfect, loving, and just all at the same time. However, if someone were perfect and loving, they would have to be just. Think of it like this: say there is a world renowned judge, who loves everyone and is perfect in every way. Now, say a man stands trial who had murdered another man. The murdered man's children, wife, siblings and parents all stand at the trial with tissues and tears streaming down their faces for the lost man. Say the evidence is insurmountable, could this loving and perfect judge let the murder go free with a warning? No. In fact, the loving and just sentence would be to send the man to prison.
It seems too easy doesn't it? In fact, it has to be easy. Let's be honest, if it were something we had to work for, no one would be able to join God in heaven. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). Its a gift! We don't have to do anything to get God's free gift other than admit our sins, believe Jesus was who he said he was, and choose to accept the gift God offers us. This does sound like a get out of jail free card, but it is much more. In fact, God doesn't want you to trust in Christ just to escape hell, he wants you to believe so that you can live in fellowship with him. And this fellowship starts at the moment you choose to believe. Once you are saved from you sins, you are perfect in his eyes, which means the relationship between you and God can be restored. Now, that's a topic for another discussion, but I can promise you that living life in constant communication with your Creator is the most satisfying thing any human can experience.
If you are feeling like a piece of garbage, don't worry, there is good news. As that verse earlier states "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). God knows we are all sinners, but still loves us despite our sinful condition. To rescue us, he sent Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life for us, so that we could be forgiven of our sins. Colossians 1:13-14 explains this pretty well: "For He (God) rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son (Jesus Christ), in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." So, how are we saved from our sins? Let's let Romans 10:9 answer this question: "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." In summary, it's all by believing that Jesus is the son of God. I'll explain a bit more how we can have our sins forgiven later. For now, just know that God provides a way out of our sinful, shameful, and all-around destructive tendencies if we choose to believe him. However, until we trust in Christ to save us from our sins, we are still the sinners mentioned in the paragraph before.
Unfortunately, that murderous man is us. Don't try to deny it. You just admitted a minute ago that you were a liar, thief, murder, and adulterer. Now answer this: If you stood before this perfect, loving, and just judge—who, by the way, is God—with these valid accusations, what do you think the loving and just judgment would be between heaven and hell? Your answer is probably somewhere along the lines of: "Well, I suppose I wouldn't make it to heaven, but I don't think I'm so bad that I would go to hell." It becomes even more clear that we can't go to heaven when you look at this verse: "But nothing unclean will ever enter it (meaning heaven), nor anyone who does what is detestable or false," (Revelation 21:27a). The reason why we can't enter heaven in this sinful condition is because we will defile and corrupt the completely perfect place of Heaven. Just like how one drop of poison corrupts the whole glass of water, so will one sinful person corrupt all of heaven.
Even so, we deserve an eternal punishment. God's standard is perfection in action, word, and thought. Here on Earth, man's standard for punishment is based on people letting people slide for small things. To prove this, could you imagine walking into a court room where the crime was that a man stole $10 worth of merchandise and that was all they had against him? Such a scene would be ridiculous. Even more odd, imagine seeing a man stand trial for hating someone, or even simply lying about why they were late to a meeting. The reason why we don't have such court holdings is because we are all guilty of these things. Not even the judge could stand there and accuse someone of these crimes since he too would be guilty. However, our perfect Judge has never done any of these. If God see's hate as murder and lust as adultery, we are no better than Adolf Hitler. This judgement only magnifies when we remember that God has seen everything you have done thus far in your life. Yes, this does include thoughts and intentions. If we were to stand on trial—which we will—, a perfect, loving, and just judge would have to condemn us to an Eternal Hell.
I'll take the liberty here to ask the question you might be thinking: "Wouldn't a loving God provide a way for us to repay our debt so that we don't have to go to hell?" No, a truly loving God would do much more. God not only doesn't want us to go to hell, he wants us to be with him IN HEAVEN! To do so, he had to get rid of our sin issue. This is that good news I was mentioning earlier, as well as the Christ dying for us part that I said I would get back to. John 3:16 sums this up pretty well "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." God sent Jesus to live a perfect life and die in our place because he loves us, so that we could skip out of the punishment we deserve and enjoy eternal paradise with our Creator. What do we need to do to get this gift of Eternal Life? Romans 10:9 answers this question pretty well: "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Only when you believe this will he remove your sins: Psalm 103;12 "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."
Let's do a bit of a summary here to fully answer this question
You—a liar, thief, adulterer, and murderer (not to mention the other crimes)—stand before this perfect judge, who has to give you what you deserve. The punishment for your sins is going to hell for an eternity. Daunting, right? That's the story of a perfect and just God. Once you add love to his list of qualities, this is what the story becomes:
You're walking towards the courthouse (our current life here on Earth).
A man stops you on the way and tells you he is a messenger from the judge (Jesus).
He reminds you of all the shameful things you have done and that you will be guilty (sent to hell for eternity).
He says that he already paid your debt (God's gift of eternal life),
but the judge will only accept this pardon if you admit you are guilty (Confessing your sins to him),
believe he truly was sent by the judge (Believe Jesus is LORD—that he died and rose again),
and accept the pardon that had been made (Accept God's free gift of Eternal Life).
If you do so, the Judge will accept this payment (He will remove your sins)
And set you free (Permit you to live in heaven for eternity).
With this, there are several possible outcomes: 1) You reject the messengers words and believe the lie that you are a good person and deserve heaven, 2) You recognize your sins, but don't accept the gift and instead try to do good things to outweigh the bad, 3) You reject the fact that there is a punishment at all and continue living how you want, or 4) You recognize your crimes, believe the messenger was sent by the judge, admit your sins, and accept the free gift. According to the Bible, only the last outcome actually leads to heaven.
Does that not sound like a loving God? He doesn't want us to go to an eternal hell, but he will send us there if that is what we deserve. Even so, he does as much as possible to save us from such torment because he wants to live with you. In the end, the choice is up to you. And time is running out.
