Firstly: Because we are His creation. He is the One who gave us life.
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And so we became His, and this life is His, as we have discussed this issue before here on st-takla.org in other sections. It was possible that we did not exist, but He created us. He granted us this existence, so we became His... If we live, we live to the Lord... And especially because He created us in His image and according to His likeness (Gen 1:26). And we cannot keep this image except if we live to Him and with Him.
Secondly: Because He saved us and bought us at a price, so we became His.
The Apostle says about that: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor 6: 19-20).
Thirdly: Because we are His children... and His name has been called upon us.
So we should live to Him, because in this the children of God are manifest (1 Jn3:10). They live to Him, therefore they do not sin because: “Whoever has been born of God does not sin.” “He cannot sin, because he has been born of God” (1 Jn 3:9) If we do not live to Him and live to ourselves or to the world, the flesh or the material, then we will sin and we would not be the children of God... Because we live to the Lord in order to keep our affiliation to Him and in order to keep His image. The prodigal son said to Him: “I am no longer worthy to be called Your son” (Lk 15:19).
Fourthly: We live to the Lord because this is the real life.
God is life. (Jn 11:25) (Jn 14:6) He who holds fast to Him, holds fast to life and will become truly alive. And whoever is separated from Him is considered dead, no matter how he is really alive. It was said about the prodigal son that when he was in sin , “He was dead” (Lk 15:24) And the Lord said to the angel of the church in Sardis: “You have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.” (Rev 3:1) Then we are supposed to understand the real meaning of life, and that is to live to the Lord. I remember here that, as a youth, I wrote once a poem entitled: “Are We Truly Living?!”
Would that we taste life with the Lord..
As the Psalmist said: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps 34:8) .The one who tastes this life would feel its pleasure and see that when he lives to the Lord, he lives a good, ideal and desired life, which is far better (Phil 1:23)
. This life with the Lord is even a guarantee of the happy everlasting life..
We live here to the Lord in order to be worthy of living with Him in the happy eternity.
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