When we visit our neighbours homes, we are conscious of how to live and move in their home, since it is their home, not ours. We are living in God’s world. What does it mean for us to live in God’s world and act like it? How can God’s people be faithful to loving God’s created world as a way of loving our neighbours?
This is God’s world
“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Ps. 24:1).
Most religious beliefs acknowledge God as the Creator. But who owns this world? The Bible declares that God owns it and delights in it.
In Genesis 1, the creation story shows how clearly God is delighted in his creation. All creation is important in God’s sight (Matt. 10:29). He created human beings as divine image bearers, giving us the responsibility of caring for his creation and loving God’s world (Gen. 1:28).
To be God’s image-bearer comes with receiving a job description to steward God’s creation and to do so in a way that reflects his character.
Creation is Relational
God gives Adam the task of naming the beasts and the birds. He creates a female co-worker to help him tend the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:19-22). Before the fall, this was the sacred ground in which God dwelled with his creation. It was a land in which he delighted.
We have sadly come to view land as a commodity that we own. It is something we think can be used in ways that serve our individualistic desires. We put up walls and fences that reflect the barriers in our hearts and we exploit the land in pursuit of profit.
As Christians, what a difference it would make if we acknowledge the earth belongs to the Lord and everything in it. Flowing from this, we can be faithful in loving God’s world—to tend and to take care of God’s creation—seeing it is our God-given responsibility as the “crown of creation.”
Loving Our Neighbour
Someone once asked Jesus what he thought was the greatest commandment. Jesus responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The second commandment is to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).
There are many ways to love your neighbour. As we live in one earth, loving our neighbour means that we need to honour God’s mandate to look after the earth. Our actions have consequences that affect the whole world. It is in this one earth and one planet that we need to co-exist and live.
As a result of the fall, our carelessness, greed, and exploitation of the land has led to much destruction and death. Our insatiable wants result in depriving others from receiving their most basic needs.
Taking individual data of countries, it is estimated that if we all lived like people in the United States, it would take 5.1 earths to sustain us, 4.5 earths if we lived like Australians.
Global consumption patterns clearly indicate that certain countries are consuming huge amount of the earth’s resources disproportionately. Even within countries, there is a huge gap in the consumption of the earth’s resources.
How on God’s earth can we consume so much that it would take more than one earth to sustain our lifestyle? Loving our neighbour requires that we are mindful of our consumption patterns as it impacts and harm our neighbours who live next door, in other parts of our country and indeed in other parts of the world.
Facing Our Wasteful Hearts
Our disproportionate patterns of consumption have resulted in large-scale waste. When God created the world there was no waste; there was enough for everybody. Everything had a cycle and a season. Even our bodies, as part of the earth will return to dust. The very water that we consume has gone through millions of rounds of recycling through natural processes that God ordained in nature.
With the passage of time, as countries became more prosperous, the level of waste has exploded. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations estimates the world produces enough food waste—about 1.4 billion tons—which could feed as many as 2 billion people each year. That’s roughly one-third of the global food supply.
However, it is about more than just food waste. Over the years, we have manufactured things, particularly things that cannot return to the earth. Our non-biodegradable waste is choking God’s earth.
In India, landfills grow higher and the lives of ragpickers become riskier as they sort through dangerous waste. Ultimately, waste causes death. Who produces this waste and who dies as a result of this waste? How do we love our neighbour in our excessive, irresponsible waste-producing world?
Serving God’s World
Our understanding of God and his word should draw us into an ever-growing awe of his creation. We would do well to comprehend the depth of responsibility God has given to us as his image bearers in his world.
Caring for God’s world is part of our biblical calling as Christians, not an optional accessory. If I do not care for God’s earth, I do not love God greatly enough nor do I care for my neighbour deeply enough. The earth belongs to the Lord.
Let us commit ourselves once again to love God who created this one earth and serve him through caring for his world and loving our neighbours, as he has loved us in Christ.
