Why are we here?

Our lives as believers does not start the day we are born in a Christian family but from the day we give our life to the Lord, realizing the need for him in our lives. From that minute, we need to live a life that is pleasing to Him. To do that, we need to know what is God’s purpose for our life and we need to know what will please Him.
Firstly we need to understand that our life in this world is very short. Every minute of it we need to live according to His will, not according to what we want to be or what we want to do here in this world. It’s like a journey like someone said. The journey doesn’t end if we reach the airport; we need to travel much further to reach the final destination. Our final destination will be our life in eternity. Our life in this world determines our life in eternity. As believers, our eternity is going to be glorious in the presence of our Lord, worshiping him with the angels. Jesus said in Luke 9:24 “For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it”. We are not called to love our lives here on this earth, but wait to join the Lord in glory. So many times we fall back on the primary reasons for our living.
God’s 3 main reasons for creating man are
For man to have fellowship with God.
For man to glorify his name in everything.
Fellowship with other human beings.

How is our fellowship with God? Do we speak to him everyday? Speaking to Him does not just mean asking Him for our needs. It means much more than that. It means to worship him, praise him, thank Him, confess our feelings and sins to Him and put our desires at the feet of God. We think it is enough if we speak to God for 5 minutes everyday with our “to-do” list. We forget that he is our creator and He deserves more time. When we have a family prayer, we look for someone who says the shortest prayer. But, talking to the Lord we get so much peace and joy. Why don’t we as Christians don’t give importance to fellowship with God?
Do we glorify Him in everything we do?
God is glorified by our testimony. We need to be a testimony for Him in our families, in our work places, in our community, among our friends, in our church. King Abimelech testified about Isaac and said “I can see that the living God is in you”. Has anyone come to us and said something like that? God’s presence was seen in Isaac’s life because of His wealth. People can see God through us by our compassion, our love, our forgiveness, our generosity.
God is glorified when we accept our fellowmen. That is what Jesus did. As believers we need to be mirror images of Jesus in this world. If we don’t accept other men the way they are we are not portraying the absolute character of Jesus. He accepted us as we were- sinners. In Romans 15:7 Paul asks us to accept others like Christ accepted us, which will glorify him.
God is glorified when we use our abilities for Him. God has given us all talents and gifts for us to bring glory to His name and not for our own. He has not given it to us to enjoy it for our pleasure nor to burry it. We need to use our talents only for His glory. I remember when I was in college I was distant from the Lord. God’s gift to me is to sing. I used to sing secular songs to entertain everyone in my college. I realized I was losing my voice. Then later in life after I went back to the Lord and started singing for Him in church, I got back my gift of singing. Peter says in 1 Peter 4:11.
How is our relationship with other men and women? Do we love them with Godly love? Do we bless them? God talks a lot about our fellowship with men. It can be any kind of relationship – father, mother, husband, wife, children, neighbors, friends and enemies. There are human- beings, animals and material things. The Bible talks about a relationship with only human-beings. We have authority over animals. They are under our feet. God said love your neighbor, love your wife, he never said love animals.
Parent- child relationship: Children should honor and obey them (Ephesians 6: 1-3) Parents should teach their children (Proverbs 22:7), discipline them (proverbs 13: 24) and encourage them like Solomon to hold the word of God close to their heart (proverbs 4:4). Col 3:21 “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.”
Husband – wife relationship: Husbands should love the wives as Christ loves the church. When the Bible tells us to respect and honor our parents but when it talks about wives, the word of God says that one should LOVE and care for his wife (Ephesians 5:35-31). Christ’s love is sacrificial, self-less, unconditional, total, pure, unfailing…Husbands need to love their wives with this kind of love. The man and the woman become one after they get married. It is always ‘we’, ‘us’ and not ‘me’ and ‘I’. Does one appreciate the wife? Finding fault becomes so easy (Proverbs31:31). Every man loves his body and he needs to care for his wife as he cares for his body. Husband is the head of the wife just like the way Christ is the head of the church. Paul asks the husbands to honor their wives for their prayers to be answered (1 Peter 3:7)
Wives need to respect and submit to their husbands in Christ. Woman was made to be a support to the man, to encourage him and do what is good for him and the family.
Neighbors: God has asked us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves (Luke 10:27). If we do not know who are neighbors are how can we love them? A neighbor could be a friend, the person living next to your house, working with you, some you meet on the road, someone who is your enemy. Just like the Good Samaritan we need to be willing to help anyone, anytime, anywhere. We need to share the gospel with them. Be a witness in your community. Let us shine the light of God wherever we are. Love your enemy (Mathew 5:44).God wants us to pray for our enemies. We do need special grace to love them. It seems impossible with our human mind and strength. But with God all things are possible .The Holy Spirit will give us the grace to love them.
I would conclude by urging each one of you to examine yourselves as His children. Are we living lives keeping in mind the reasons God has given it to us? Are we shining His light in our small corner? If not, it’s not too late. Let’s submit ourselves once again to Him asking Him to give us the longing for Him in our lives, strength and grace to witness for Him and the Christ-like love we need to show the fellow men.

Ecclesiastes 12:13- After all this, there is only one thing to say: Have reverence for God, and obey his commands, because this is all that we were created for.