Where is the care of the Christians for God’s planet?

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In Genesis God made man and woman and let them (gave them permission) to have dominion over everything he created. When you put someone in charge it is because you know that they have the utmost respect and are responsible enough to take care of what you put them in charge of.

Here’s an example from business, because in a capitalist society it’s often easiest to think about in relation to a business. In business if let’s say you own a restaurant you wouldn’t put someone in charge that you thought was going to destroy it, that would let the food spoil, who would mix the good ingredients with something cheaper that could harm people to make money, that would kill all of the plants that you have carefully planted and hung around, that would deceive and do whatever they could to make money for themselves, who would burn it down for the insurance money. All at the cost of your dreams and creation. You would not put someone in charge that would be entitled and destroy the business that you spent time making, that you had dreamed about, that you built to support your family and children and children’’s children and generations to come. In the same manner God has not put people in charge of his creation to do whatever we want when we want to view his planet as something entirely in service to us. We have been put in charge and for too long Christians have been allowing others to make decisions about God’s planet, to destroy it and we have just sat back.

We thank you, O God, Sovereign-Strong,

Who Is and Who Was.

You took your great power

and took over—reigned!

The angry nations now

get a taste of your anger.

The time has come to judge the dead,

to reward your servants, all prophets and saints,

Reward small and great who fear your Name,

and destroy the destroyers of earth. (Revelation 11:17-18 MSG)

God promised his believers, those that enter into the kingdom through Christ a room that he has prepared in his Father’s house. Many Christian’s identify heaven as their home and view their time on earth as short and temporary. We are so looking to Heaven that we forget to be not only a steward but a leader in preserving and caring for God’s planet.We are treating the earth like it’s an airbnb when we need to be treating it like the Four Seasons. Now you might be thinking this message isn’t for me, but Revelation 11:17-18 explicitly calls out that those that destroy the earth will be destroyed.

Revelation God will destroy the destroyers of the earth. We are at a time when a million of God’s creatures are at risk of going extinct, “The bonds that hold nature together may be at risk of unraveling from deforestation, overfishing, development and other human activities.”

I am devastated but trying to remain hopeful and steadfast in prayer that people can change. I am devastated to think of the one million unique creatures that God spent time on, that he labored for, are at risk of complete extinction. It is not by chance that these creatures are in danger it is explicitly because humans (and now let’s not start pointing fingers, but look inside to accept our contributions), we have let the worldly desires lure us in and now we are so addicted to our possessions to indulgence that we can not stop, we can not stop to save one million creatures. God designed us to have dominion over the world and creatures and we have failed, we have let our own interests and our love of an easy life take precedence over the natural.

So what do we do from here…

1. Repent and ask God to reveal to you personally how to be a better stewards of His planet

2. Adjust your thinking to make caring for what happens to the planet someone else’s problem (democrats, environmentalists, hippies) it is up to you to save the planet. If we keep waiting for the government or allowing corporate interest to make decisions God’s beautiful creation will be destroyed.

3. Learn about how to adjust your behavior everyday to live a more sustainable life (that’s where I come in, helping you to live an abundant life with less and I have one other secret a lot of the materials that you might be obsessed with the latest trend, the hobby lobby decor, makeup etc. this all contain a lot of toxic chemicals that could really be impacting your health, so reducing your consumption of them is better for you and the planet)

This is the intersection that I find myself at having been a Christian and an environmentalist and in fields of sustainability research especially around fashion, home and cosmetics for a little over a decade I have found that these fields rarely intersect that most people who deeply care for the environment don’t know Jesus and most people who know Jesus don’t connect their faith to environmentalism especially in an environmental crisis. I feel like environmentalism without Jesus is hopeless and that problem is just too big and Christianity without the environment is missing an essential part of our role while we are in this home.