God and Conservation (Part Three)

"The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them." - Psalm 89:11

“Thine, O LORD is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all.”
1 Chronicles 29:11

Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

The gifts given for the building of the temple...

Though David, the warrior King of Israel, would have the honour of building the temple of the Lord withheld from Him in favour of his son Solomon, still he would receive the gifts offered for its construction. They would all contribute to the magnificence of this structure given to the glory of God. So wondrous were they that people would marvel over there splendour. Yet David would know that whatever men could build, whatever men could construct, whatever they could form by their own hands, nothing could compare to the wonders of that which God had created, and all that we had, all that we were given were offered abundantly the Lord. (1 Chronicles 29:14-16)

It then had to be realized that all that was used to build the temple was provided by God. After all, as He would tell to Job, all under heaven belonged to Him. (Job 41:11)

This, in the most basic and fundamental of ways, should shape the way that we see the world and we understand it. Nothing belongs to us, not a single tree or a single deposit of gold, not a gem or the waters, for they belong to the Lord God Almighty. We have just been charged with the care of that which He created, to watch over it and to ensure its preservation and conservation, to be nothing more than guardians and custodians of this temporal plane.

This does not mean that we should not be allowed to better humanity and ourselves with what God has created. He has made it all that all the life that He has formed should be sustained by all that He formed. The key though is to understand that, amidst this, there is a delicate balance that must be maintained, and that it cannot be forsaken without holding His creation cheap and as less than a miracle, as nothing more than a tool for our own selfish and arrogant advancements.

Considering how God values His creation, how he values this world that He formed (Genesis 1:31) and the fact that all exists because He has made it to exist, (John 1:3) we have to ask ourselves are we truly respecting God’s greatness, glory and power, by squandering the resources that He has set us above to care for and to respect? Considering how much God loves all that He has made, (Psalm 33:5-6) we have to ask ourselves if we are truly showing love unto God as we defile and pollute that which He has formed by His own hands and that He so adores?

Though they had set to create a glorious capital and a wondrous temple in Jerusalem, David and the children of Israel never lost focus or sight on the fact that God owned all of creation and that He was the exalted head over it. Nor should we as we seek to build for ourselves and seek progress for our own people. Instead, we should give all praise to the Lord by showing the due love and the due respect to the wonders of nature, of which He rules over.

Here we should then ask ourselves as we build and we expand, does this meet that criterion of respecting God’s creation? Does it honour the works of His hands? Or does it set us apart as we destroy and corrupt, degrade and tarnish the pristine beauty He has given unto us in this world?

We have already done damage, we have already done harm as we have strip mined, built our smoke stacks and hunted species to extinction. Do we then want to do any more damage than we already have? Or would we rather remember that faith without works is dead (James 2:20) and let our works be for the preservation of God’s creation that it might, in its beauteous wonder, testify to His greatness?

Serve then the Lord by showing respect to the home that He has given us amidst this temporal existence and show love unto all that He has created. Imitate Him and care for creation, knowing that He shows compassion to all that He has made and that we should then as well. When we do that we shall know that we have held high what He has given us and we have lived according to His will as we leave for the next generation the same miracles that profess the amazing marvels of God’s work around them.

Lord, grant this unto us all...

May the peace of the Lord, that transcending, encompassing peace, that wondrous and glorious peace that surpasses all human knowledge, wisdom, understanding and enlightenment to carry us to the proper awareness of God’s creation to tell us that He, not us, are exalted above it, keep your hearts and minds, your spirits and your souls in Christ Jesus even unto life everlasting, Amen.

Prayer:

We see the miracle of Your creation surrounding us Lord and we cannot help but marvel at the wondrous works of Your hand as You show forth Your love and compassion in all that You have formed. Give us then the understanding to know then that this all belongs to You, that You, and You alone, are exalted above it that we may respect the wonders and glories of all that You have made. Create in us a heart that honours Your creation and guide us by the spirit to truly show our love unto it in all that we are and all that we do. In the name of Your Son, Christ Jesus, Amen.

God and Conservation (Part Two)

God formed all that we see in creation, it is ours then to preserve it and never defile it as we show our love to our Creator.

“And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination.”
Jeremiah 2:7

Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

How we show our love for God is in how we show our love for that which He has given us, how we show our love for that which He has entrusted us with. If we show care to it, giving ourselves over to its protection and its preservation, then we show care to our Lord and Creator. Yet, if we defile it, if we spoil and corrupt it, polluting it amidst our own arrogance, believing that we are somehow the ultimate authority, the ultimate power, then we defile God, degrading and dishonouring that which He has given us.

This is true of His sacred Word, offered to us through the generations as our great heritage, (Psalm 16:6) and essential for all instructions in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:15) and it is true of nature, which He formed by His hand and that testifies of His majesty and glory. (Job 12:7-10) In each case, in every instance God wants us to serve as protectors of that which He has glorified and offered for our edification and benefit.

Still, throughout the world we have seen the effects of what happens when God gives us plenty and yet we fail to see it for the blessing that it is. With pride and arrogance man claims the dominion that God has given him over all that He has created, and man, in his sinful ways, mistakes dominion for ultimate authority. They pollute, contaminating the land, corrupting nature beyond recognition, they hunt to the point of the extinction of a species, they spoil the pristine beauty of all that God has made, and why? For no other reason than their own greed and ambition as we seek to grab a hold of more and more until, finally, without realizing it, there is nothing left but the world that we have recreated in the image of our own sin and unrighteousness.

“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36)

There has to come a time and a point where we realize that this is not what God has intended for us, nor is this what He intended for that which He created. There has to come a time and a point when we realize that He expected more from us and that He believes that we can do better, otherwise He would have never placed us here and kept us here in this world throughout the ages. In that we must understand then that God only made us care takers of this world, and that we have an obligation not just to future generations, but to the Lord God Almighty to concern ourselves with the protection of what He formed with His hands, nursing it, nurturing it and tending to it as a wondrous and wonderful gift unto us. To do anything but is to turn from God and from His design and to pursue one’s own hollow pursuits in love of something else besides Him.

As the faithful disciples, given over in grace, we must then lead the charge in conservation, understanding that this is a work that shall prove our faith is truly alive within us.

God gave us life, but He also gave life to the plants and the fruits to the fish and the birds, to the beasts of the fields, and in that He has provided unto us all that we need to sustain life and to be sustained in our lives. We have to then ask ourselves, are we making the best use of what the Lord has given us? Are we truly respecting what He has provided unto us? Or are we taking more than we should, leaving the grounds defiled and empty, as we, like pirates plunder it all with no restraint?

The Lord forgives us when we defile and when we go against His intent. Yet, that forgiveness is based on a sincere faith and a sincere repentance as we, in His sacred gift of grace, find ourselves called to a better life according to His Word and His Will. In that spirit we should give ourselves over to true repentance by looking upon the beauty and the majesty of what God has created, offering of ourselves our time and our effort, seeking to restore it to what God has intended it to be.

Then shall we have the capacity to stand before Him and say that we made the most of what we were given, and that though we were not perfect, we did better, we tried harder to be better stewards of that which He formed by His hands.

Lord, grant this unto us all.

Now may the peace of the Lord, that transcending, encompassing peace, that peace that surpasses all human knowledge, wisdom, enlightenment and understanding that we may raise our hands to preserve all that He has created, never to defile it, keep your hearts and minds, spirits and souls in Christ Jesus even unto life everlasting, Amen.

Prayer:

Let us not, in our own arrogance and pride, turn from Your ways to defile that which You have created but give us the sight to see the glory of Your majesty that we may be faithful defenders of all that You have formed. Show us that we are but caretakers of this world that we may treat it with the respect and the honor that You intended for it. Then shall we finally give unto You the praise You rightly deserve as we show ourselves capable of keeping all that You have entrusted us with. In the name of Your Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, do we pray these things, Amen.