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this world. Be charitable, as God has been charitable towards you ... [28:77]
Our ultimate goal in this life should be to be a righteous person so that God will be pleased with us. In all our actions and decisions, our priority should be the eternal life of the Hereafter, not the temporary one on this earth. If we can maintain this throughout our lives, then we can be a winner both in this life and in the Hereafter. It will be the biggest triumph of our lives if we make it to Heaven, even barely, by God’s leave.
[17:18] Anyone who chooses this fleeting life as his priority, we will rush to him what we decide to give him, then we commit him to Gehenna, where he suffers forever, despised and defeated. [17:19] As for those who choose the Hereafter as their priority, and work righteousness, while believing, their efforts will be appreciated.
[3:185] Every person tastes death, then you receive your recompense on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever misses Hell, barely, and makes it to Paradise, has attained a great triumph. The life of this world is no more than an illusion.
Our happiness in this life and in the Hereafter depends on whether or not we become submitters to God alone. As submitters we should make pleasing God our highest priority. We should make it our ultimate goal to fulfill God’s expectation of us. We must not set up any idols besides God, whether the idol is a saint, prophet, our ego, business, children, spouse, money or what have you.
We should aim to live a righteous life, and treat each other amicably. We should not lie, cheat, or back-bite people. We should do our best to live a life in accordance with God’s commandments in the Quran. Simply put, we should do the things that God wants us to do, and avoid the things that God does not want us to do. Our ultimate aim in doing all this is to get ourselves worthy of God’s blessings and mercy.
When pleasing God becomes the most important aspect of our lives, God makes everything wonderful for us:
God promises those among you who believe and lead a righteous life, that He will make them sovereigns on earth, as He did for those before them, and will establish for them the religion He has chosen for them, and will substitute peace and security for them in place of fear. All this because they worship Me alone; they never set up any idols beside Me ... [24:55]
We have to strive to be righteous and to be in the right path in order to attain God’s promise. Therefore, we should examine ourselves sincerely at every opportunity. Any time we have a problem in any aspect of our lives; we should search for the lesson, and learn from our lessons. We should submit to God’s will, and remember that God will test us through different means to see if we are steadfast.
No person and nothing else should take priority over God. Once we make this the most important aspect in our lives, we will possess the most valuable thing one can ask for—God’s support. But, if we make anything more important than pleasing God, we will be tested over and over. If we do not realize that fact after all the tests and we keep confusing our priorities, then we may lose both in this life as well as in the Hereafter.
[from August 1994 SP]
[14:2] (The path of) GOD; the One who possesses everything in the heavens and everything on earth. Woe to the disbelievers; they have incurred a terrible retribution.
What is Your Priority?
[14:3] They are the ones who give priority to this life over the Hereafter, repel from the way of GOD, and seek to make it crooked; they have gone far astray.
Preoccupation With This Life
[16:107] This is because they have given priority to this life over the Hereafter, and GOD does not guide such disbelieving people.
By God’s grace 2017 was our fourth charity water fundraising campaign. The Submitter community started its first charity water fundraising in 2011, then every 2 years after that. GOD willing, we will continue to do it every 2 years under GOD’s protection and guidance.
I think clean water is one of the most important elements of our existence. It is a gift from GOD; without it we cannot survive. To appreciate such a gift, what better way than to share it with those who are less fortunate and are in need of it. In other words, we need to be charitable as God has been charitable towards us. God loves the charitable.
We chose to do this charitable water project, because clean water changes everything. We have clean water at every table, every faucet, every bath, yet 663 million people around the world still live without it.
Did you know that the amount of water on earth now is the same as when earth was formed? And yet water is constantly changing in so many ways. Praise GOD.
It seems this is one of those opportunities for charitable people to make it possible to bring water out of the ground for needy people, and to earn lots of credit. The wonderful thing about these water wells is that, by God’s grace, they will last even after we pass away.
Let’s see how clean water changes lives.
HEALTH: Diseases from dirty water kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. 43% of those deaths are children under five years old. Access to clean water and basic sanitation can save around 16,000 lives every week, God willing.
TIME: In Africa alone, women spend 40 billion hours a year walking for water.
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