Subject: [Masjid Tucson] Submission weekly reminder

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Peace be upon you,

	The Purpose of Our Existence
[Quran 51:56] I did not create the jinns and the humans except to worship Me alone.


In times of chaos in the world, it may help to step back and think about: Why were we created?

Our purpose in life is to worship God (Quran 51:56). We must devote our lives and our worship absolutely to God ALONE. This is the First Commandment in all the scriptures, including the Old Testament, the New Testament, and this Final Testament. [Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Mark 12:29-30, Quran 3:18]

What brought us here? It all began billions of years ago when one of God's high-ranking creatures, Satan, developed a supercilious idea that he could run a dominion as an independent god besides God. This challenge to God's absolute authority was not only blasphemous, it was also erroneous. Satan was ignorant of the fact that God alone possesses the ability to be a god, and that there is much more to godhood than he realized. It was the ego—arrogance augmented by ignorance— that led Satan to believe that he could take care of a dominion, as a god, and run it without disease, misery, war, accidents, and chaos. The vast majority of God's creatures disagreed with Satan. Yet, the minute egoistic minority that agreed with him to various extents were in the billions.

Unfortunately, we humans were among those egotistic creatures. To make amends, we must kill our egos (Quran 2:54) and make a firm stand regarding God's absolute authority.

Reflection question: What did we do today to worship God and protect our soul from harm vs. the effort we put in to protect our bodies?

Reference:
Why Were We Created? https://www.masjidtucson.org/quran/appendices/appendix7.html or watch on video: https://youtu.be/LKrk3v00r80
Introduction, https://www.masjidtucson.org/quran/appendices/introduction.html or watch on video: https://youtu.be/inTWqQHSK8I

Peace.