This week as I was preparing the lesson for the youth group at my church, it struck me that a lot of people think God is mean.  In fact when I asked a multiple choice question to the youth group one guy answered that "God is mean".  The fact is a lot of times God gets a bad rap.  We blame him for sickness.  We blame him for natural disasters.  And we blame him for sending people to Hell.  But the truth is GOD IS GOOD.

Lets take the first lie that I mentioned, God causes sickness.  This is a terrible charactistic of God.  Before sin came into the world sickness did not exist, cancer did not exist, AIDS did not exist.  Sickness came from sin, and sin from Satan.  Jesus said in John 10:10 (NASB) "The theif comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abuntantly."  There is an enemy out there that means harm.

Myth #2, God causes natural disasters.  After Katrina we heard from Christians all over the place that Katrina was God's wrath on the evil in New Orleans.  My response is... what about Mississippi.  God told Noah that he would never flood the Earth again.  The rainbow was a peace offering from God.  (Side note- the rainbow has now been hijacked to represent a sin that God does not condone.)  Again, God did not cause Katrina.  Why do we blame God for evil when Satan is the evil one.  1 John 4:8 says "God is love".  It does not say God is evil.

The final falsehood that we hear is that God sends people to Hell.  Newsflash! Hell was not made for humans.  Hell was created for Satan and his followers.  Man goes to Hell as an intruder.  God is a just God, and therefore can not have any part of sin.  Sin sends people to Hell.  2 Peter 3:9 clearly tells us that God does not want any of us to perish, but that we all repent.  God is begging us to repent of sin that does send us to Hell, and turn back to him.

GOD IS GOOD!!!