Heaven is the future destination of every follower of Jesus. But for now, we are on this earth, and it should be our desire to live our lives the way God intended.
To do that, we need to ask the question, “Why are we here on this earth to begin with?” “Why are you occupying space and time right now?” “What is the reason for our existence?”
Answer: We are here to know and glorify God and bring forth spiritual fruit. A lot more could be said, but let’s just begin with those two ideas.
We are here to glorify God
In heaven, the lyrics to one of the songs we will sing are in Revelation 4:11: “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For You created all things, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created” (NLT).
There it is. We are to give God glory and honor. We are here to bring pleasure to God.
The problem is that many live to find personal pleasure. I must warn you, that will always be an empty and unsuccessful pursuit.
The Bible warns about this sort of thing: “But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.” (1 Timothy 5:6 NKJV).
We exist for the pleasure of God
The wonderful thing is that when we seek to live for God’s pleasure, instead of our own, we will find pleasure! Not the illegitimate pleasure of this world, but a blessed, sanctified pleasure in relationship with the One who made us.
Our lives belong to Him!
We sometimes bristle at the thought of living for God instead of ourselves, because we think somehow our lives belong to us.
But the fact of the matter is Jesus Christ purchased you with His blood shed at the cross. You are now God’s property!
Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 that we don’t really possess our lives, or the lives of others:
“Or don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.”
In my next blog entry, I will talk more about the second reason we exist—to bring forth spiritual fruit.
Let me close with two questions: “What are some ways that we can glorify God? “How do you glorify God in your life?”
