Care for God’s creation (I)

Man is the crown of God’s creation. However, Man is not God’s only creation. Before he formed Man, God created many things. What distinguishes Man is that God placed him at the zenith or apex of earthly creations. The Bible says,

Genesis 1:27-28 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And even though God loves Man more than these other things, it is not hard to notice that God loves (and is concerned about) all the things and animals that He created too. To ensure the wellbeing of all the other creation, God in fact gave man an assignment of care over them. We see that in Genesis 2: 15:

Genesis 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

What the above suggests is that all human beings are supposed to care for the environment, to cultivate and beautify the world, and to make it better through creative activity. Recall that in the book of Genesis, the Bible shows us that in the earliest of times, God interacted with Adam in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2: 8, 15), and God would visit Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening within this garden (Genesis 3: 8). God made Eden beautiful. He provided trees, flowers, rivers, streams, and everything that man needed to be comfortable. God created nature and made it beautiful and sufficient for man. And then He asked man to take care of the garden.

Each time God created something (as we see in Genesis chapter 1), He checked to be sure that it was good. We saw that refrain again and again in Genesis chapter 1, “And God saw ……, that it was good”, until we get to verse 31 where the Bible says,

Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

The above should inform us that God is interested in the goodness of the earth. God is interested in the preservation of the beauty that He created in the beginning. God is interested in the serenity, and the balance of nature, that He established in the beginning.

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God is interested in the preservation of the natural ecosystem that He endowed the earth with. To achieve that, He put man on earth, to dress the garden and to keep it. So, our first service to God should be the care of God’s creation. The question today is, are we conscious of that duty?

To be continued.