EARTH DAY

Today is Earth Day.

I don't know if you know this, but the FOUNDER of Earth Day is a Pentecostal man named John McConnell. His grandfather was baptized in the Holy Spirit at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles and his parents, John & Hattie McConnell, were founding members of the Assemblies of God denomination that many of us belong to.

It is very interesting to me that the Biblical story of mankind begins in a garden and ends in a garden. As the Bible opens, Genesis chronicles God’s magnificent creations - sky, land, stars, moon, sun, aminals, trees, plants - and yes, man and woman. We find a beautiful garden where the fall of humanity eventually occurs and sin is introduced into the world. The garden is defiled. But as we read ahead to the end of the last book of the Bible, Revelation - we see God bringing things back to a restored garden.

There was ‘a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal ... and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22:1, 2)

Shouldn’t this make us sit up and take note that there is something important about God’s love for nature ... something there that tells us God values the relationship between His people and the rest of creation? One of God’s first commands to mankind was to ‘tend His garden.’

The word ’environmentalism’ has gotten a bad wrap, so we should define it before going forward. Environmental stewardship is simply the idea that we should care for, manage and nurture what we’ve been given by God. He has gifted us His creation to USE, not to ABUSE. He has given it to us as a way to provide for our needs. There must be a balance between the USE and the PROTECTION of God’s creation.

The most famous environmentalist ever is right in the Bible. Almost everyone, even if you don’t read the BIBLE much, is somewhat familiar with the story of a man named Noah. With the people of the world turning their backs on God, God’s grace won out over His anger and He chose to preserve the life of this planet thru Noah and his family. Picking a man He could trust, God asked Noah to build a boat that would house at least two of every kind of animal.

With Noah, we find the foreshadowing of God’s great story of redemption, the one that is still at work in our lives. And what comes thru loud and clear in this great story is God’s heart: HE LOVES TO RECYCLE.

SHOULD I PROVE IT TO YOU? Instead of throwing US away every time our lives deserve the trash heap, what does God do? He meets us along the path we have chosen for ourselves and points us home. He purifies us - restores us - He breaks us down and re-shapes us into something new and useable ... revealing that recycling and redemption are at the core of His nature.

We’ve all asked ourselves: “If my house was burning, what would I be sure to save?” God's creation needed cleansing, and what was God going to save? He saved PEOPLE. And ... He saved His creations. And now, He calls US to participate in that.

God could just have thrown up His hands and started fresh with a new earth and new people. But what happens when God's power collides with His grace? A RAINBOW. But the rainbow covenant wasn’t just between God and humanity -- it was also between God and creation.

Genesis 9:13, 16 - “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth ... whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."

Here we realize how precious God considers all life and how much He treasures creation. And as God's people, WE treasure what HE treasures.

At the very least, go pick up some trash off the ground today.

And be blessed.