Environment

“Our relationship to God’s gifts can be one of
entitlement, ignorance, and gluttony or one of
praise, thanks, and temperance.”
J. Michael Sleeth from his book
“Serve God, Save The Planet - A Christian Call to Action”

Our love of God, love for our neighbours and our role as a steward each should be enough to motivate us to care about the environment and actively respond in both word and deed.

In loving God we should also love what He loves. In Genesis, as we read the story of creation, we are told over and over again that God saw his creation as good.

As we love our neighbour, we need to consider... who is our neighbour and how are our choices affecting our neighbours? To show love for others we need to be careful not to use too many resources for ourselves.

When God created mankind, He gave us the responsibility of ruling over His creation. We’ve taken that to mean that we can use whatever we want for our own purposes and pleasures. But that is not what God intended. Our role was to steward all that God created for His purposes. Thankfully part of God’s purpose for creation was to sustain us physically and spiritually.

As Christians, we need to take seriously this responsibility. We can’t simply say it’s important. We need to show that it is through our actions. If we do, we can make a difference.

a great place to start...
To find out more about why Christ followers should care about the environment, I encourage you to read J. Matthew Sleeth’s book “Serve God, Save the Plant - A Christian Call To Action.”

Questions to think about:

• Do I care about the environment?
• Do my actions show that I care about the environment?Do I see God’s creation as a resource of which I am a steward?
• Do I consider the environmental impact of the choices I make everyday such as energy usage, electricity, kms driven, purchases made?
• Do I spend time educating myself on what I could be doing to reduce my negative impact on the environment?
• Do I spend time educating myself on what I could be doing to make a positive impact on the environment?
• Am I willing to lend the “stuff” I have to others rather than requiring them to buy it for themselves?
• Am I willing to borrow the “stuff” I don’t have rather than buying it for myself?
• Am I willing to sacrifice for the sake of care-taking creation for my children and future generations
• Do I reduce, reuse, recycle?
• What changes can I make/my family make that will positively impact the environment?
• What can my church do to be better stewards of the environment - locally, nationally, internationally?