By examining scriptures, we can learn a great deal about place we call hell. We see that there is going to be everlasting destruction. "...in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and those who do not obey gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from presence of Lord and from glory of His power,..." (II Thessalonians 1:8,9) We see in this passage a glimpse of hell. It is for those "who do not know God, and those who do not obey gospel." In other word for those people who fit two categories: (1) those who do not know or believe in God, who voluntarily choose not to, and (2) those who profess to believe but by their actions and way they live their lives, do not follow or obey gospel.

There are millions of people who have heard gospel message, some I am sure dozens of times, and reject God and His Son. They do not give their lives to Christ, choosing rather to go their own way or perhaps way of world. According to this passage, these people will spend eternity in hell.

I am convinced there is also a large number of people who claim to be Christian and simply go through motions, never really obeying gospel or following teachings of New Testament. Their lives and hearts were not changed. These too shall spend eternity away from God.

So what is hell? The above passage again gives us a glimpse into this. "These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from presence of Lord..." The fate of those we are speaking of is to be banned eternally from being near God, or to be out of His presence. What is being "destroyed" in passage is ability or opportunity to be in presence of or near God. Death, by spiritual definition, is separation. The first death is when our spirit is separated from our bodies. The second death will be when a person's spirit is eternally separated from God.

I think we can see from above passage that hell is a real place. We can also see that it is for certain that it will exist. In book of Mark we see another glimpse of hell as a terrible place. "And if your hand makes you sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands, to go into hell, into fire that shall never be quenched -- where 'their worm does not die and fire is not quenched.'" (Mark 9:43,44) The last part of this passage, "their worm does not die and fire is not quenched,"is quoted from Isaiah 66:24. It simply tells us that though physical body is dead, spirit is still in existence. The spirit of those going to hell will be an existence as of a worm, or as Isaiah put it, "They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." (Isaiah 66:24) If we "in flesh" could actually see exactly what hell is like we would truly be horrified. It is a terrible place of eternal existence for those who do not know God and those who will not obey whole gospel.

Not only is hell a terrible place, but it is also a place of eternal existence. "Then He will also say to those on left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for devil and his angels,...'" (Matthew 25:41) "And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but righteous into everlasting life." (Matthew 25:46) The judgement, once pronounced, will be final, irreversible, and unending. For those of us that are obeying gospel of Jesus Christ thought of eternal life with God and Jesus is joyous. However, just thought of eternal existence in hell makes me shutter. I cannot imagine -- and I don't want to -- what it would be like to spend eternity in a place where I could not praise and worship my Heavenly Father. That alone, for me, would be terrible.

It is difficult for us to conceptualize what eternity will be like. Everything which we experience here on earth is limited by time. We tend to think of a lifetime as a very long period. In reality, in frame-work of eternity, a lifetime is but a twinkle of an eye. It is but a fraction of a second in comparison. I like way song Amazing Grace phrases it, "When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun." How glorious that will be for us, and how terrible it will be for those in hell.

But how does God and Jesus know that we love Them? Jesus told us how, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." (John 14:15) In this article I would like to share with you many of commandments of Jesus, some that I feel, if we keep them, will show our love for Him. Now I don't mean this in legalistic since, that you must do each of these or your soul is forever damned. But in spiritual since, that by keeping these, it is an act of love for God and His Son. Nor do I mean them in since that we must do these things in order to "guarantee" salvation. We are not talking about salvation in this article, we are talking about showing our love for God.

"... Repent, for kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matthew 4:17) Being human, it is impossible to live a life free of sin. Even after we give our lives over to Jesus, all too often sin creeps in. Sin wreaks marriages and destroys lives. But Bible tells us that if we will repent and ask for forgiveness of our sins, God is faithful to forgive us. Our daily prayers should include asking God for forgiveness for those areas in our lives where we fall short of glory of kingdom of God. I'm afraid that many Christians have attitude that they have been forgiven for "big sins," and they don't really do anything "all that bad," so they don't really need to ask God for forgiveness. I disagree! It's those "little things" that we do, that we shrug off as nothing, that begin to pile up in our conscience and begin to eat away at our relationship with God. Then, before we realize it, a "big" temptation comes along and devil catches us off guard and unprepared to resist. The Bible also teaches us that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear. However, to resist or not resist is still up to us. If we allow sin to creep into our lives, and continually fail to ask God's forgiveness, then when that "big" temptation comes along, we haven't prepared ourselves to resist. By repenting each day for our shortcomings, we show God that we want to remain close to Him, and that we love Him.

"Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven." (Matthew 5:16) As you read above scripture, don't get hung-up on "your good works." The real emphasis here is on "glorify your Father in Heaven." We must realize that without God, most (if not all) of what we are able to accomplish as Christians for kingdom is impossible. But, we should strive to do those "good works" so that we can bring glory to our Heavenly Father. As we go about our lives seeking ways to help others in need, serving Lord through our local congregations, and witnessing to lost, we are bringing glory to God. People come to realize that we are doing these good works because we love God, and this brings Him glory.

"But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you..." (Matthew 5:44) Probably one of most difficult commands for us to follow, is to love our enemies. However, this is so important. The Bible goes on in this passage (see verses 46-48) and explains that if we love those who love us, we have really accomplished nothing. Even non-Christians do this. It is easy to love those who love us, but we really show our Christian fiber when we can suppress natural inclination to hate our enemies and love and pray for them. By doing this, we put God first instead of ourselves and this shows our love for Him.

"But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." (Matthew 6:6) Our prayer life is so important. It is through prayer that we tell our Heavenly Father all those things that we only want Him to hear. Please remember, God already knows everything about us. We can't keep secrets from Him. There are things in our lives that we can't talk about even with our closest friend, but we can talk to God about them. If we share all our troubles, joys, victories, fears, (in short everything) with God, we will begin to experience a wonderful love and closeness to Him. God wants us to be free to carry everything to Him in prayer.

"But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal." (Matthew 6:20) There are many stories around that talk about what heaven will be like. The Bible even refers to mansions, walls of jasper and streets of gold. But I don't think this is what Jesus is referring to in this passage. I think above descriptions are in Bible to give us understanding that Heaven will be a beautiful place, not that we will own (or even want to) gold, jasper, and like.