YOU ARE NOT YOUR OWN

Your life, or properly speaking, the life that is you, the reason you are said to be alive and as a human being, is not your own. It is a gift of God who made you, and for which you ought to be always and perpetually grateful to Him who made you. You are a human being and still alive, simply because of the goodness and mercy of God, not because you are smart, special or careful. Your life is a grace, a talent for which you will give an account to your creator. 

You are a human being and not an animal. You did not evolve from apes or monkeys; you were made by God as a human being. And like all other created things, you exist at the pleasure of God. He could have created you as a cat, a tree or an earthworm, but He made you a human being; a creature endowed with reason and composed of body and soul. He made you in His image and likeness, and this is the difference between you, as a human being, and the rest of creation. Because God made you in His image and likeness, you are a child of God, the perfect creature of God and the perfection of creation. The image of God in you is your soul, and His likeness in you is your memory, understanding and your will.

All that exist is created by God, and exists for one purpose only; to glorify God by fulfilling the purpose of its existence. Thus, the sun, the moon, the stars, the plants, the animals, heat and cold, water and rain, light and darkness, all elements in creation, no matter their nature or name, contribute their quota to the honour and glory of God by the daily fulfilment of their individual and peculiar assignments as ordained by God. Thus, the sun knows how many hours and how intense to shine every day, and the moon know when to smile on humanity in full and in parts. In the same way, the animals and the trees know when and what to produce, just as the rain knows when to fall, and the stars when to shine. 

Similarly, the mountains and the hills, the birds and the animals, and every plant praise and glorify God in its own language and beauty by their individual obedience to the will of God for their creation. The fishes in the ocean, the sea itself, the sky and all that exist therein, the deserts and all that is beneath the ground, are all in harmony and in praise of their creator through their individual and peculiar attributes. If the sun were to disobey the will of God and shine continuously for days on end, or persistently refuse to shine, or if the rain were to fall day and night for another 40 days, and all the fruit trees chose to bear one type of fruit continuously, there will be chaos and disorder on earth and life on earth will end.

In the same way, man, the perfect creature of God was made for a purpose. You are not your own. You do not exist by yourself and for yourself, no, you exist at the instance and pleasure of God. Your life is for a purpose, a means to an end, and not an end in itself. You exist to make the world know that God exists by making Him shine in you through your actions. You are made by God for the sole purpose of knowing God, loving Him and leading the whole of creation in serving Him, and for this, you will receive a crown of glory at the end of your days on earth when your soul shall return to its creator. You came from God and will return to Him after your sojourn on earth, either as a faithful and obedient child, to receive your crown of glory, or as a disobedient child who will not be admitted into the holy presence of God but banished to suffer forever for your unfaithfulness in the kingdom of darkness.

The living part of man, which is the soul is endowed by God with memory, understanding and will. You are therefore, as a human being, able to remember or recollect, know and understand what is right from what is wrong and with a free will (freedom) to choose to do what is right and pleasing to God, or what is wrong and displeasing to Him. This is why you are human and different from all other created things. This gift of a memory, understanding and a free will to choose to do what is right or otherwise before God, is your Human Right, and this is the reason why, of all created things, you alone will be judged by God to account for your (human rights) actions. 

You can descend from your glory as a human being to become an animal and a beast when you lose the image of God in you due to your rebellion against God in sin and wickedness. This is when you are human by name, but a beast in nature. You have the face of a man but the soul of a demon. You acquire the image of Satan, the enemy of God and man as you consistently refuse to do the will of your creator. You insist on the instead on doing your own will in everything, which will be more often than not at variance with the will of God but in conformity with that of Lucifer. This disobedience of man to the will of his father God is the reason for the evil and wickedness in humanity for many have wandered far from God to the embrace of Lucifer. Many have fallen from the realm of humanity to become lesser than animals, to become beasts, captured and enslaved by Lucifer on account of their sin and disobedience.

God created the earth for man, and He created man to oversee the whole of creation for his joy and for the glory of his father God. So, the destiny of each and every one of us is the same – to do the will of God on earth. That is, to showcase the greatness of God on earth through our obedience to the will of our Father, and the will of God for man is that we love Him on earth, and thereafter return home to be with Him in heaven for our faithfulness. We prove our obedience to the will of our father God by exhibiting love of God above everything and love for our neighbor. Thus, our mandate is to dominate the whole of creation for our good and for the glory of our father God through our obedience and nothing more. Therefore, we are all a huge mass of travelers from one Source, coming from different directions, but going to one destination, and it is at that one destination that the sheep will be separated from the goats on account of our faithfulness or unfaithfulness to the will of our Creator.

The reason you were made by God as a human being is to love and live in love; to give glory to God with your life, and the earth and all its fullness is your field of engagement in the fulfilment of this holy assignment. And for your guide, God gave you Ten Commandments so that you may know your boundary, and so live in obedience to the will of your father and creator, God. The first Three of the Commandments to regulate your relationship with your father Creator, and the Seven to regulate your relationship with your brothers and sisters. In Jesus, God who became man and lived on earth as Master, Teacher and Saviour, condensed the Ten Commandments into two: love for God and love for neighbour.

To do the will of God on earth, that is, to love and live in love, is the religion and assignment given to mankind by God, and nobody, except a liar, can deny or pretend not to know this duty as a human being. But God in His goodness and generosity also granted man the freedom to choose to do the will of his father or to choose to refuse to do so because we are not slaves but His children. This freedom from our loving father is our Fundamental Human Right, the right and duty to live as children of God. And though we have abused this freedom which was graciously bestowed upon us by our father by making of same our reason and excuse to deny God our love and affection, we are, nevertheless bound and accountable to Him for our use and abuse of this freedom as He demonstrated in the episode of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

On account of the sin of Adam, the earth, instead of remaining a paradise and a playground for the children of God has now become an altar of reparation. It is now our altar upon which we offer unending sacrifices to God for mercy and grace through the words of our mouth, our actions and our omissions in our everyday relationship with God and neighbour. Thus, our personal life, professional life and family life are market places, opportunities where we practice and exhibit our love for God and neighbor in obedience to the original mandate of our father God through the merits of the Supreme Sacrifice of Calvary. 

To love and live in love is our one and only occupation, and we have no other assignment than this. And in the same vein, our true happiness as human beings derive from our willingness to obey this ground norm, else we labour in vain. All created things, no matter its name and nature are merely gifts of God to mankind, toys for our amusements and for the glory of our father God. And unless and until we accept the fact that we are not our own, and learn, like little children to do the will of our father God on earth with the things of creation, we shall continue to be miserable.

The will of God for mankind is eternal, universal and immutable. It is sacrosanct and not subject to our discretion. It is our mission, a divine call, and the only achievement worth celebrating, it is Christianity at work. As reward, heaven, which is the presence of God is reserved for those who are faithful to this call. God is love, and He commands that we live in love on earth so that we may be with Him at the end of our human life. This is the essence of our humanity, the reason we are human, and we are all equal before this divine command. Your name, your age, your colour, your gender, status and achievements will count for nothing if you resist God in this command. Your life is a mission on earth, and at a point in time, you will be called upon to give an account to your creator God who is love personified. He is not asking for wealth or fame, but for love.

Your beauty, wealth and fame are tools to be employed in your service to God and humanity, else at the end of the day, they will become your snares and your nightmares, the reasons why you are in hell. Hell is to be denied the presence of God forever, and God did not create anybody for hell, it is our choice that will determine our eternity. If you obey the precepts of love in your daily living, then, you no longer live for yourself, but for the pleasure of your God, fulfilling the essence of your creation. And for your obedience, you will find peace and happiness, here on earth and with God in heaven. You then become a light in this darken world to lead souls out of darkness, and a pinch of salt on earth to sweeten the miseries of this earthly life. You will be like a wise servant, laying up treasures in heaven with which to prove to your father God that your life on earth was meaningful and fruitful, and that Christ did not suffer and die in vain for you. 

This is the expectation of our father God and the reason He gave man dominion over creation. And so, I ask, what do you have that is not given to you by God?  The fact that you can see, move and hear is by the grace of your creator God, or can you perhaps count your hair or foresee tomorrow. Are you more beautiful than Eve or more famous than Solomon? Can you account for the blood in your vein, the water you drink or the air you breath in? Can you really protect yourself or defend what you claim is yours? I dare say you are because of God, and time is running fast from you. Reconcile now with your father God, and you lose nothing but gain everything for His call is not to slavery but to freedom, so be not afraid. He is not asking for your wealth or possessions, but that you should open your heart to love so that you might be like Him.

As each soul was created separately by God and delivered separately by a woman, so also each and every one of us will return back to God individually and on our own to give an account of our mission on earth to God our father. The question is, are you ready and happy to return home to your God and Creator today? This return journey is a certainty, for each and every one of us, but how prepared are you? As at today, what is your worth on the heavenly scale of love? That you have all the degrees, wealth, beauty and fame is of no consequence to God if your human achievements are not rooted and scented with the will of God that you love and live in love. If I have all the beauty, fame and wealth of this world but I have no love, I am the most unfortunate and wretched being on earth.

The call to love is mandatory for everybody, and the peace and happiness of each and every one of us is dependent on our willingness to obey God in this holy command. And there is no human institution, achievements or developments that can save us or guarantee us true peace and happiness except our obedience to God in all things, else, we labour in vain. For as it is aptly stated in the Holy Book, obedience is better than sacrifice, and we all know this to be the truth. Our pretense will lead us nowhere, and until we accept the fact that we are not our own, and thus accept to live in accordance with the will of God who created us, the whole of humanity will, unfortunately continue to live in misery, and in our continuous romance with Lucifer in our disobedience, plunge deeper and deeper into the wilderness of self-destruction.

And as in the days of Noah, so it is today. We have lost our humanity and have descended to become beasts; possessed and enslaved by Satan because of our disobedience to the will of our father God. We have become the descendants of Cain, no more children of Abel the just and Abraham our father in faith, and for this, we suffer. Painfully and regrettably, and despite our acclaimed super human wisdom and intelligence, we continue to pretend that we can without God. And in our wicked disobedience, we have adopted a new religion for ourselves called Humanism. We have discountenanced the will of God for mankind and replaced it with ours, we are now children of God by name and nothing else. We have pitched tent with Lucifer, and with him we proclaim that life is for the living in accordance with the will of man and not of God. We have jettisoned the virtues of faith, hope and love, and replaced same with the vices of me, myself and I in accordance with the gospel of Lucifer.

But I do know that there is no human ingenuity or craftiness of Lucifer that can replace God in our lives. He made us, and we belong to Him one way or the other. And without Him, we labour in vain and we increase in wickedness, becoming demons and beasts, and making of earth a hell. Yes, we labour in vain in our efforts to displace God and to seek peace and happiness outside of God. And as a fish cannot survive outside water, so we can only succeed in self-destruction and eternal misery as we continue to pretend that we can without God. No, we cannot, because we are not our own.

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